My husband screamed “stop faking it” while I lay face-down on our driveway, unable to move anything below my waist, with barbecue sauce in my hair and his birthday guests staring like I was some embarrassing interruption.

The courtroom of the Denver District Court was packed to the gills. Media vans filled the streets outside, cameras flashing every time a defense witness or prosecutor walked up the granite steps.

I walked into the courtroom under my own power.

I didn't use a wheelchair. I didn't even use a walker. I walked with a sleek, polished dark wood cane, wearing a sharply tailored charcoal-gray pantsuit that mirrored the strength and resilience I had fought so hard to reclaim. My hair was styled in a sleek bob, my posture unyielding.

Sitting at the defense table were Leo and Freya.

They looked like ghosts of their former selves. Leo’s skin was sallow, his hair unwashed, his shoulders permanently hunched inside an ill-fitting gray jail suit. Freya sat beside him, weeping silently into a crumpled tissue, her sprayed blonde hair collapsed into a frizzy mess. They didn't dare look me in the eye as I walked past the gallery and took my seat at the prosecution's witness table alongside District Attorney Cole.

The trial lasted eight days.

The evidence presented by the prosecution was an insurmountable mountain of digital footprints, financial trails, forensic chemistry reports, and expert medical testimony. The jury didn't even take three hours to deliberate.

When the bailiff announced that the jury had reached a verdict, the courtroom fell into a breathless, dead silence.

“In the matter of State of Colorado v. Leo Sinclair, on the primary count of Attempted First-Degree Murder, how do you find the defendant?”

The jury foreperson, a stern-looking middle-aged man with graying temples, stood up.

“Guilty, Your Honor.”

“On the secondary count of Administering Poison with Intent to Cause Grievously Bodily Harm?”

“Guilty.”

“On the count of Conspiracy to Commit Murder?”

“Guilty.”

Gasps rippled through the gallery. Freya let out a shrill, piercing wail that echoed off the high vaulted ceilings of the courtroom. Leo buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking as the reality of a decades-long prison sentence crashed down upon him.

Then came the verdict for Freya Sinclair: Guilty on all counts of conspiracy and accessory.

Judge Harrison, a towering, severe jurist with zero tolerance for calculated malice, slammed his gavel down with a sharp, echoing crack.

“Mr. Sinclair, Mrs. Sinclair, your actions represent a level of cold-blooded, premeditated depravity that shocks the conscience of this court,” Judge Harrison declared, his voice ringing through the room. “You sought to murder a woman who provided for you, cared for you, and trusted you, simply for financial gain. You will have plenty of time behind bars to reflect on your cruelty.”

The sentencing was handed down immediately: Leo Sinclair: Forty-five years in a maximum-security state penitentiary, with no eligibility for parole for thirty years. Freya Sinclair: Twenty-five years without parole.

As the bailiffs stepped forward to snap handcuffs onto Leo’s wrists and hoist him out of his chair, he finally raised his head and looked at me across the aisle. His eyes were wide with a pathetic, desperate plea for forgiveness—the same look he used to give me when he wanted me to excuse his laziness, his failures, and his lies.

I didn't flinch. I didn't smile. I didn't frown.