Chapter 6 - Savannah tells the prosecutor why she kicked me
Savannah did not immediately confess.
Her lawyer negotiated.
The courtroom video was bad.
She had stepped forward.
Her leg moved deliberately.
My hands were visible.
I had not touched her.
Audio captured:
“Oops. I barely touched her.”
Then Marcus’s line.
Then mine.
Then Bennett’s.
The defense could dispute force.
Intent.
Pregnancy-related aggravation.
Medical causation.
But not the basic event.
Savannah’s lawyer offered a misdemeanor plea.
The prosecutor rejected it.
No permanent fetal injury had occurred.
That helped her.
But the victim was thirty-one weeks pregnant and required overnight monitoring.
The conduct still mattered.
Then Savannah gave a proffer.
She had been furious because Marcus told her the divorce settlement was “basically done.”
He said I would take the $22 million.
She believed the courtroom hearing was a technical cleanup.
Then she saw Claire carrying the Harbor folders.
She whispered to me:
“You should have taken the deal.”
I told her:
“Stay out of my marriage.”
Then, according to Savannah:
“You smiled.”
That was her reason.
I smiled.
So she kicked me.
Even her lawyer looked tired.
Then the prosecutor asked:
“Why the abdomen?”
Savannah said:
“I wasn’t aiming for the baby.”
“Where were you aiming?”
“My side.”
“Her side was her pregnant abdomen.”
“I know.”
There.
No need to invent murder intent.
Then:
“Did Marcus tell you to attack Emily?”
“No.”
“Did Bennett?”
“No.”
“Did anyone encourage you?”
“No.”
Good.
Marcus was morally disgusting in the scene.
He was not criminally responsible for her independent kick merely because he protected her afterward.
Then her financial relationship with Marcus.
Prosecutors asked only because motive might be relevant.
Savannah admitted:
Marcus promised her the penthouse.
Future trust distribution.
Maybe fifteen million.
“He told me Emily would be financially finished after the divorce.”
Exact words?
“Not finished. He said she would ‘become reasonable when she understood the numbers.’”
Closer.
Then:
“Did he tell you the judge was Emily’s father?”
“No.”
That matched the courtroom shock.
Marcus had known Emily’s father was named Robert Whitmore, but their contact had been minimal and formal for years; he did not recognize the emergency substitute judge in robes from the limited family interactions he had avoided. It still made him look remarkably incurious about my life.
I had stopped trying to make that less embarrassing for him.
Then Savannah’s plea.
She admitted intentionally kicking me.
Did not admit intending fetal harm.
Agreed to:
Felony assault-related conviction under the negotiated statute.
A short custodial component.
Probation.
No contact.
Restitution for uncovered medical expenses.
Anger-management treatment.
Sentencing after my final pregnancy outcome was known.
Reasonable.
No instant decade in prison.
Then the divorce case.
Marcus tried to exclude Savannah’s financial messages because she had become hostile.
Judge Marlowe said hostility affected weight, not authenticity.
Documents could be admitted if properly authenticated and relevant.
Then Savannah turned over something worse than text.
A lease side agreement for the penthouse.
It gave her an option to purchase for $500,000 after “completion of M.V. domestic dissolution.”
A $4.8 million property.
Option price:
$500,000.
That was a massive potential gift.
Who granted it?
Linden Harbor Residential.
Who controlled that company?
North Star.
Who funded North Star partly?
Still under review.
The condo became a clean tracing target.
Marcus’s settlement offer rose to $28 million.
I still did not accept.
May you like
Not because it was too small.
Because we did not yet know what it was buying me away from.
