I Lost to My Husband's Ex Twelve Times—Then Found Out His Coin Had No Heads novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: The Gap on the Sign

On Tuesday Neil stood at the defense table in a borrowed jacket that didn't fit.

The judge from the guarantee hearing wasn't on this bench.

This one was a tired man with a stack of files and a clock behind his head.

His clerk read the charges: forgery, fraud, and conspiracy in the use of a cash machine at a licensed room.

Neil said "Guilty" three times in a small voice.

"Ms. Entwistle," the judge said. "The district attorney tells me you wish to be heard."

I stood up beside Paula.

Bram sat in the second row with his hands between his knees, and my mother sat beside him in her wheelchair, with an aide and a blanket and a very straight back.

I had not asked them to come.

I looked at Neil.

He was thinner than he had been a week ago, and he kept his eyes on the table.

"He lied to me for a year," I said. "He put my name on a page I never signed. He let me lose twelve tosses so I'd keep handing over my pay."

The judge nodded slowly.

"I'm not here to say he should walk," I said. "I don't think he should. I'd like him to pay back every cent he took, in the order the court sets, to the care home first."

"Ms. Entwistle."

"And I'd like treatment for the gambling to be part of it. Not as a favor to him. I want him to stop. I don't want the next woman to be a payment plan."

Neil's shoulders shook once.

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