Rebirth: The Blind Heiress Makes A Deal With The Devil

The street in front of the court building was still crowded, though not quite like the circus of the first week.

Reporters hovered near the concrete steps with their heavy cameras resting against their shoulders, microphones held low, waiting for whatever scraps of news might spill past the glass doors.

...

Inside the courtroom, the silence felt heavy.

Isabella sat at the long wooden table, her hands folded tightly in her lap. Her knuckles were white. Her skin was far too pale, a dull, sickly gray that made her sightless eyes look enormous and shadowed in the dim light.

Every breath she took felt like trying to swallow glass; a sharp, sour wave of nausea had been rolling through her stomach since she woke up, and even the air conditioning in the room felt too thick, too warm.

Beside her, Aaron sat leaning back in his chair, long legs stretched slightly forward. He looked entirely untroubled on the outside, but his eyes never stopped moving.

He reached over, his heavy, warm hand wrapping completely around her small, cold fingers. He pulled a tiny silver box from his jacket pocket, popped it open, and slipped a small piece of candied ginger between her lips.

"Swallow," he murmured, his deep voice barely audible over the hum of the overhead lights. "Slowly."

Isabella took a shallow breath and did as he said, letting the sharp taste sit on her tongue. "I’m fine, Aaron."

"You look like a ghost," he whispered back, his thumb rubbing the side of her hand, resting against her pulse point. "If you need to throw up, tell me. We stop the room."

"I’m fine," she repeated, though her stomach gave another painful twist.

The doors at the back of the room clicked open.

Arthur Pendleton walked in first, smooth, tailored, carrying his leather briefcase like a shield. Right behind him came Kian.

Kian looked sharper than he had a few days ago. His dark suit was tailored, his hair brushed back, but as he stepped into the aisle, he didn’t look at his lawyer. He didn’t look at the judge’s bench.

Like clockwork his eyes went straight to Isabella.

He stopped for a second, his gaze sweeping over her face.

He saw the gray skin, the exhaustion bruised beneath her eyes, the way her hand was buried in Aaron’s larger one, her unseeing gaze fixed staring blankly ahead into the dark space of the room.

A strange, sharp heat flickered behind his eyes. She looked weak. She looked sick.

She looked exactly the way she had looked almost a year ago when she caught the winter flu and stayed in bed for three days.

She was small, pale, and entirely dependent on Aria and Kian taking care of her.

It was true. She really was sick.

Kian’s chest swelled with a sudden, intoxicating rush of air. The maid hadn’t lied. The girl in the house hadn’t made it up. Isabella was carrying his child inside her.

Then, his eyes shifted to the man sitting beside her.

Aaron was looking right back at him. The big Russian had a faint, lazy curve at the corner of his mouth, the kind of look he gave when he was waiting for a dog to bark. It was meant to make Kian angry. It was meant to pull him out of his skin, a total bait.

However, Kian didn’t bite.

Instead, Kian slowly pulled his lips back into a smile of his own. It wasn’t polite. It was full of a cold, quiet arrogance, his head tilting up just an inch as he looked down his nose at Aaron.

Aaron’s smile faded just a fraction. His blue eyes narrowed, a single beat of sharp stillness passing over his face before he smoothed it over.

Kian turned away without another word, sliding into his chair next to Arthur, greeting the assistant attorney with a quiet nod.

"All rise," the bailiff called out.

The room stirred. Everyone stood as Judge Daniel took his place at the bench, his heavy robes rustling into the tall leather chair. He adjusted his dark-rimmed glasses, sorted through a thin stack of papers, and looked down over the rim of his lenses.

"Be seated," Judge Daniel said flatly. "We are resuming the matter of Kingston versus Carter. Mr. Nikolas Chernov, we left off with your team preparing to submit physical documentation regarding the medical history of the petitioner. Where are we with that?"

Niko stood up, adjusting his suit coat. "Your Honor, unfortunately, the independent lab conducting the chemical breakdown of the eye drop samples suffered a major equipment failure six days ago. A power drop burned out the primary testing sensors."

Arthur was on his feet instantly. "Your Honor, if counsel is admitting they have no verified laboratory report to present to this court today, then any reference to these supposed drops must be struck from the record."

"The sample was not destroyed, Your Honor," Niko countered calmly, turning toward the bench.

"The testing has simply been delayed by two weeks while the manufacturer replaces the equipment. We are asking the court to hold off on closing the evidentiary window for this specific item until the secondary run is completed."

"The court is not in the business of holding up a trial for unverified claims, Your Honor," Arthur said, stepping forward, his tone smooth and biting.

"My client has faced accusations of gross misconduct based on a bottle of liquid that has yet to yield a single piece of admissible scientific proof. This delay is convenient for the petitioner, nothing more."

"Convenient?" Niko turned his head, his eyes hard. "A power failure that specifically wiped the floor’s digital logs ten minutes after the night crew checked in is hardly a matter of convenience, Mr. Pendleton."

"Are you accusing my client of tampering with a third-party facility?" Arthur raised his eyebrows, looking almost amused.

"Because if you are, I suggest you present a police report, Mr. Chernov. Otherwise, keep your wild theories out of this courtroom."

Judge Daniel hit his small wooden gavel once. The crack echoed off the wood-paneled walls.

"That is enough from both of you," Judge Daniel said sternly. "Mr. Chernov, without a certified lab report, this court will not entertain speculation about what may or may not be in those eye drops. We will revisit the matter when the lab produces its final document. Until then, move on."

Arthur gave a small, smooth bow of his head. "Understood, Your Honor."

Kian let out a long, silent breath, resting his hands flat on the table. One obstacle down. The evidence was stalled.

For the next forty-five minutes, the room became a battlefield of legal words. Arthur took the floor, trying every path he had left.

He brought up standard marital reconciliation procedures.

He brought up joint property valuations that hadn’t been fully cleared.

He tried to force the judge to order mandatory couple’s counseling before any divorce papers could move forward, arguing that the breakdown of the marriage was far too recent, barely a month and a half since the initial filing and lacked proper legal grounds under state guidelines.

Niko met him at every turn.

"Mrs. Carter has made her position entirely clear," Niko argued, his voice firm, filling the silent room.

"She has been living separately from Mr. Carter for a month now. She has surrendered access to joint accounts, and explicitly stated under oath that the marriage is irretrievably broken. Forcing a victim of prolonged psychological control into a room with her spouse under the guise of ’mediation’ simply because the timeline is short is not only absurd, it is punitive."

"There is no legal proof of psychological control, Your Honor," Arthur pushed back, though his voice had lost a bit of its bite. "We are simply asking for the standard statutory cooling-off period given how quickly this filing has moved."

"Denied," Judge Daniel said flatly, shuffling a page. "The petitioner’s intent to dissolve the marriage is clear, regardless of whether it’s been four weeks or four months. Counsel, if you have no further procedural objections, we will begin scheduling the final asset division."

Kian’s jaw worked. He looked at Arthur, his fingers tightening against his thighs. Arthur’s face was still, but his eyes were calculating.

Surely Daniel wouldn’t drive him to the edge even for the sake of looking neutral.

They were losing the ground. Niko was pulling the rug out from under them, piece by piece, stripping away every delay Arthur had spent weeks building.

Arthur took a quiet breath, stepped forward, and cleared his throat.

"Your Honor," Arthur said, his voice dropping into a solemn, heavy tone that instantly drew the eyes of everyone in the room.

"There is one additional, highly material matter that has come to our attention. A matter that directly impacts any final judgment this court might enter."

Aaron’s eyes sharpened. His thumb stopped moving against Isabella’s hand.

Niko frowned, straightening up. "Your Honor, discovery is closed for this session."

"This is not a matter of standard discovery, Mr. Chernov," Arthur said, turning slightly to face the room. "New information has recently been brought to my client’s attention. Information indicating that Mrs. Carter may currently be pregnant."

The room seemed to freeze.

The quiet hit like a physical wall. The faint hum of the air conditioning suddenly sounded deafening.

Beside Aaron, Isabella’s entire body went rigid.

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