tw: domestic violence

Rebecca dialed the number in her phone that she had stolen from Kennedy's phone when she wasn't looking. She stared at the number for a few seconds, unsure of whether or not she should actually call—closing statements were in the morning, Kennedy had had a great testimony in court the day before, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to ruin all of that.

But in the end, she hit the call button and pressed the phone against her ear, listening to it ring three times before it was picked up.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Lydia, it's Rebecca. Rebecca Eaves."

"The only Rebecca I know," Lydia replied, "What can I do for you?"

"I just had a few questions that I was hoping to ask you in person...if that's alright."

Lydia was quiet for a few seconds and Rebecca wondered if she was going to just say 'no' right away.

"Sure, why not. Kristopher's in Virginia with his practice, so I'm still in our hotel room. You can stop by tonight around 8:00 if you're not busy then."

Rebecca nodded. I can wait four hours. "Sounds good. I'll be there."

"Great. I'll text you the address."

Lydia hung up the phone before Rebecca could get in another word.

At 7:50 PM, Rebecca got in her car and drove over to a hotel a little ways away from her, arriving at exactly 8:00. She checked the text from Lydia. Room 1K. First floor.

She walked into the hotel and walked down carpeted hallways until she found room 1K. She knocked three times and then heard the door slowly unlock.

The door was pulled open and Lydia appeared on the other side, her face splattered with what looked like red paint. But as Rebecca looked at her completely, she realized it wasn't paint; Lydia's shirt was soaked, and the shirt was dripping onto her joggers, where it ran down them suspiciously like something completely different.

Blood. She was covered from head to toe in blood.

Lydia and Rebecca locked eyes and the model spoke.

"Rebecca. Hi."

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Lydia remembered it like it was yesterday.

College was just a few months away, and with college came new adventures. With college came new people. With college, most importantly, came new boys.

Which meant she had to dump Jax.

She didn't want to dump him, necessarily. After all, he had stayed with her through his first three years of college while she was still in high school. But they weren't going to the same school, and Lydia wanted to branch out. Expand her horizons. She didn't want to be tied down to anybody.

So, she dumped Jaxson Karl the day before her graduation from high school.

Then came Jax's ten-year high school reunion. Lydia had dropped out of college in her second year when she signed a $3 million modeling contract, and had become something of a household name. She was also in the habit of giving public speeches at different events and had been invited back by their old high school to speak at the reunion.

When she showed up to the reunion, there was Jax, a Harvard Law graduate of three years and already with a big-shot job in the district attorney's office in Virginia. He had brought along a friend from law school in lieu of a date, and introduced Lydia to him: Hank Wilcox, Jax's 1L roommate who had dropped out in their 2L year, but remained close with his Harvard Law friends. Lydia talked to Hank and Jax all night, and ended up going home with Jax, who lived only a few minutes from the old high school.

The three kept up their friendship for a few years, all living relatively close to each other when Lydia decided to move back from LA. They met up for drinks, went out to different clubs on the weekends together, the works. They became inseparable quickly.

One night, while out at their favorite bar, Lydia struck up a conversation with a few hot businessmen who recognized her from her modeling days.

"Who you with?" One of them asked, gesturing to Jax and Hank.

"Oh, just my lawyer friends," she replied, using her favorite nickname for them, "nothing to get jealous over."

"Oh, so you're a lawyer now?" Another one asked, "That's hot shit."

Lydia shrugged, figuring it couldn't hurt to fib this once.

"Yeah, I'm a lawyer." She said, "But I'm struggling to find clients, so you probably haven't heard of my firm or anything."

"What firm?"

"Um..." Lydia trailed off, glancing over at where Hank was talking to a random girl and Jax was staring down the guys talking to Lydia, "Karl Farrow Wilcox. Brand new firm."

"Well, count me in as a client." The first guy said loudly, prompting Jax to get up and see what was going on.

"A client?" He asked, standing behind Lydia and putting his hand on the small of her back—his signal that he wanted to have sex with her that night. She took a long sip of her drink, her signal that she agreed.

"Yes, a client." Lydia laughed. "For our firm! Karl Farrow Wilcox. Attorneys at law."

"Ah, yes." Jax nodded, immediately playing along. "If you're interested, give this number a call," he scribbled a number down on a napkin, "and put us on retainer."

"Sick. We'll call you guys."

"What was that about?" Hank asked, returning from his rendezvous with a woman in a green velvet skirt. Sure, he had married Elizabeth two years ago, but he didn't let that stop him from slipping off the wedding ring and pretending to be single at bars. The other two didn't question it.

"We have clients." Jax laughed.

"For what?"

"For our brand-new firm." Lydia replied smugly, "Karl Farrow Wilcox."

It took a few hours, but Hank got on board with the idea. And when the first business guy from the bar called, Lydia was ready with the address for them to send the monthly check to.

Soon, they had a website. They had a dozen 'clients.' And none of their clients ever needed their help. They were just paying them a monthly fee, month after month, without question. And the faux attorneys of Karl Farrow Wilcox were raking it in.

Until one businessman showed up.

Two years into their scheme, Kristopher Abrams was looking for a lawyer for his burgeoning plastic surgery business. He was a serious man with a wife and a few kids and seemed to have the money for their retainer. But when he needed legal advice and had his calls missed, dropped, or evaded for three weeks, he got suspicious. And he did some digging. And he figured out the truth.

Kristopher Abrams threatened to call the cops about the entire ordeal. Two years of fraud. But when Hank offered him a cut, Kristopher opened his wallet and shut his mouth.

A year later, everything changed at once. Hank's first self-help book was published and he started on the motivational speaking circuit, and moved his permanent residence from Virginia to Florida, which Lydia would never understand. Jax used his references at his job in Virginia to get a higher-paying job in a district attorney's office down in South Carolina. Kristopher left his wife and almost immediately struck up a relationship with Lydia, as they were the only two left in Virginia. The firm, which they had affectionately called KFW, slowly disintegrated as their addresses changed and none of their 'clients' could find them anymore.

Somehow, all four of the KFW founders became wealthy in their own right, and their friendship turned into a more stereotypical adult friendship—they would see each other every now and then, reminiscence on their previous illegal activities, and talk about their lives.

And then things changed. But Lydia, in her innocence, didn't know about the change until a Wednesday evening in December 2020, after she had married Kristopher, and while she was actively cheating on him with none other than Jax.

"I feel guilty about this." Lydia said quietly when Jax walked through the door of her hotel room, "I'm married now. It's not like when we were bar hopping and pretending to be a law firm."

"Lydia, I don't think you understand." Jax said, taking her hand in his and sitting down on the edge of the bed. "I've been in love with you for so long. So long. And I watched you marry Kristopher, and I watched you get this new family, and I watched you forget about me. I never forgot about you, though. I've loved you this entire time."

"I love Kristopher." Lydia shook her head, "He's just going through a lot right now, and I miss the attention. That's all this is, Jax."

"Oh, I know he's going through a lot."

Lydia looked at Jax in surprise.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I did this for us, Lydia." Jax said, a light appearing in his eyes that Lydia didn't like the look of, "I did this."

"You did what? You killed your friend and set your other friend's daughter up for it?"

"No, not that." Jax shook his head, "But it was a nice twist; I wasn't expecting that."

"So, then what? What did you do?"

Jax took a deep breath, the grin on his face stretching from ear to ear.

"I've kept track of Kristopher since you married him, darling. I knew that if I could just make him a little more miserable every day, then I would feel like he was unknowingly repaying me for stealing you away."

"He didn't steal me away, Jax, I chose him. You and I haven't dated since high school."

"We've been close."

"It was just sex!" Lydia exclaimed, "It wasn't a relationship."

"Regardless, I still wanted to make your husband's life difficult. And when your stepdaughter decided to go to college just a few minutes from where I worked, it made everything so much easier than I was expecting.

"I thought about it for a long time. Kristopher and Hank were close when the four of us were doing KFW together. I knew they still kept in touch, and that Hank donated generously to Kristopher's practice. What if Hank started dating Kennedy? He'd been cheating on Liz with younger women since the year after they got married. I could swing Kennedy his way, and then wait for either one of them to tell Kristopher about it. Shatter his worldview.

"I got him a speaking gig at Clemson and told him to meet me for drinks at a bar by the school after he was done. When the night came, I sent an intern from the office to go and let him know I was hung up at work and wouldn't make it. And the intern, whose name I already forget, happened to talk loudly about how great the bar was, right next to Kennedy's car as she was leaving Hank's speech.

"Hank behaved exactly as I expected him to, at first. He started sleeping with Kennedy. But I didn't think he would actually fall in love and then become obsessed with her. I got lunch with him back in January and he told me he wanted to leave Liz for this girl, and that he hadn't told Kristopher anything yet. My little plan had started to run away from me.

"He called me when Kennedy dumped him, you know. He called me, screaming and banging his fists on walls and crying. I've never heard a man break down like that before. I told him that Kristopher probably forced her to, at which point he told Kristopher that Kennedy was stealing from him and that he would no longer be donating to the practice. I told Hank he should try and win Kennedy back. I considered that one a big win, regardless of whether or not your husband actually knew about the affair.

"And then, all of a sudden, it's September and I read that Hank's dead. I called you, do you remember?"

Lydia felt like she was going to be sick.

"Yes." She managed to get out.

"I thought it must have been Kristopher, but then you tell me he's in shock—which also tells me he's with you, in Virginia. When he asked me if I knew anything about it, I didn't know what to say...so I decided to pay dear, sweet Liz a little visit."

"Leo was your idea." Lydia said quietly.

"Leo was my idea." Jax confirmed, "I was even in the background of Liz's newscast when she announced the reward for information about Hank's death. And then I just let Leo handle it. Until he actually found evidence against Kennedy and the trial got moved up here. I didn't want Hartlen to have the case, but he wouldn't give it up because of all the coverage it was getting. So, I spiked his drink the night before the first day of trial, he slept for 21 hours, and the case became mine. I could steer everything away from me or any involvement I had with Hank.

"And then you came to me. When you came to me, I think it was the happiest I'd been in years. About the girls finding our website."

Lydia cringed to herself. She had come running to Jax instead of her husband when she discovered Rebecca snooping around, and she had let herself get swept up by his charm, just like all those years ago. She wasn't proud of it. But she had opened the door to allowing it to happen all over again.

"I'm going to put Kennedy Abrams away for decades," Jax said, the light in his eyes growing manic, "I'm going to ruin her life and then keep ruining Kristopher's. And you can do it with me. We can be a team again, just the two of us."

Lydia jumped off of the bed and backed away from Jax slowly.

"Are you insane?" She whispered, even though she knew no one could hear them through the soundproofed walls, "I'm not going to ruin my husband's life. I love him, Jax. I still love him. I don't know how many times I can tell you that without you understanding. I love Kristopher Abrams. I don't love you. Our time has passed. We're in the past, now."

"I don't think so," Jaxson shook his head, "I didn't do all this, putting in years of work, just for us to not be together at the end of it. I refuse. I refuse to believe that I wasted so much time and energy on—"

"You need to leave," Lydia shook her head, "You need to leave this room. Right now."

She made a move towards the door, but Jaxson blocked her path.

"I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving until you promise me you'll leave him. And you have to leave him, or else I'll tell him about us, and he'll leave you."

"There is no 'us!'" Lydia yelled in exasperation, "There hasn't been an 'us' for over a decade! And if you tell Kristopher, I'll turn you in for everything you just told me, and you'll be disbarred."

"You wouldn't do that." Jaxson shook his head, "You don't have the guts. You love me too much."

"I do not love you!" Lydia yelled, "I will call the DA first thing in the morning, I swear to you."

"Don't you dare," Jaxson walked towards Lydia slowly. She backed up as far as she could until she hit the wall behind her. Jaxson walked forward until his nose was inches from hers, "I won't let you."

"You can't control me, Jaxson." Lydia said quietly, locking eyes with him and trying to look as confident as she could.

"I can, though." He smirked and before she could even think, he had a fistful of her hair and banged her head against the wall behind her.

Lydia yelled out in a mixture of pain and surprise as she faintly heard Jaxson mutter something about "there's more where that came from," but didn't wait for him to do it again. She started screaming at the top of her lungs, calling for help while inwardly cursing Kristopher for getting an expensive hotel with soundproofed walls.

"Help!" She screamed as Jaxson tried to cover her mouth, but she turned her head in every direction to keep him away, "Help me! Somebody help!"

Without thinking about it, Lydia dropped like deadweight and heard a surprised 'oof' come from Jaxson as he dropped her on the ground. She crawled underneath his legs and stood, looking around for something that could serve as a weapon. She saw a half-empty wine bottle sitting on the nightstand next to Jaxson and lunged for it. She grabbed it by the neck and immediately smashed it over Jaxson's head.

He howled out in pain as shattered glass fell to the floor and lunged for Lydia. She dropped to the ground and dove under his legs, feeling tiny pieces of glass embed themselves in her skin as she went. She grabbed the biggest shard from the broken bottle that she could find and plunged it into Jaxson's calf, causing him to fall to the ground screaming.

Lydia jumped up and backed away, Jaxson's blood on her shirt. It was done. She had shown him she was serious about this. She wasn't defenseless. He would leave now.

But instead, he plucked the glass out of his leg and looked up at Lydia with a demonic smile.

"I'm going to kill you, Lydia Farrow. I'm going to kill you, and Kristopher's life will be nothing."

Lydia backed away until she hit the nightstand, watching while Jaxson struggled to get up. She grabbed the first thing her hands could feel—the large ornate lamp sitting on the nightstand.

She ripped the lamp out of the wall and, before Jaxson could get up, brought the base of the lamp down hard on his head. He fell back to the ground, still yelling. Still yelling. So, he was still alive, and he could still kill her.

Without thinking about the gravity of what she was about to do, Lydia brought the heavy base down again, ignoring the lampshade bouncing across the glass-and-blood-stained floor.

He was still screaming.

She brought it down again.

Another scream.

Another hit.

Silence.

Lydia took three steps backwards and looked at the scene in front of her. Blood was coming from Jaxson's head, and quickly. The floor was covered in blood and glass. Jaxson was lying on the floor, very, very dead. Lydia didn't think she had ever seen somebody so completely...dead.

And Lydia. Her entire shirt was drenched in blood. She could feel it dripping. She reached up and carefully touched her cheek, feeling tiny spots of blood there as well. She hoped none of the blood was hers.

A knock sounded on the hotel room door.

Rebecca.

Lydia looked outside. It looked dark enough to be 8:00.

Another knock came.

Lydia looked around her. She didn't have an excuse for this. She didn't have a reason that would sound rational right off the bat.

But Rebecca had been the other person there when Kennedy killed Hank. She might be used to this stuff by now.

A third knock.

Lydia looked out the peephole and saw Rebecca standing there, ready to talk about whatever it was she wanted to talk about. Lydia took a deep breath and slowly opened the door.

"Rebecca. Hi."