“He grabbed me by the throat,” I said, my hand unconsciously rising to where the bruises had faded to yellowish smudges. “He told me I was coming home with him, that I belonged to him.”
“During this assault, did the defendant say anything about the civil trial?”
“Yes. He bragged about paying two jurors fifty thousand dollars each to deadlock the trial no matter what evidence they saw.”
A murmur rippled through the courtroom. Judge Collins tapped his gavel once, silencing it.
“Your Honour, the Crown would like to play State’s Exhibit 15, the audio recording from the night in question.”
The judge nodded, and a court technician pressed a button.
Marcus’s voice filled the courtroom, slurred but unmistakable: “You know what today cost me? My reputation. My standing. Do you have any idea how much it cost me to buy those two jurors? Fifty thousand dollars each to make sure they’d never vote your way, no matter what evidence they saw.”
I stared at my hands as the recording continued, reliving every terrifying moment. When it finished, the silence in the courtroom was absolute.
Victoria let it linger before asking, “Is that an accurate recording of what occurred that night?”
“Yes.”
“No further questions, Your Honour.”
Marcus’s lawyer, Edward Blackwood, approached with practiced confidence. “Mr. Lajeunesse, you testified that my client controlled your finances completely. Yet you were able to flee and survive on your own after leaving the hospital, correct?”
“I called my former professor for help. He loaned me money and helped me buy a car registered in his name.”
“So you had outside resources available to you all along?”
“A single person I could trust, yes. Someone Marcus had already tried to intimidate years earlier.”
“So you had the means to leave at any time, did you not?”
I felt a flare of anger. “It wasn’t about money. It was about fear.”
“Fear,” he repeated skeptically. “Yet you had no problem seekingout a high-profile attorney to sue my client for millions of dollars.”
“Objection!” Victoria called. “Argumentative.”
“Sustained,” Judge Collins said.
Blackwood adjusted his approach. “Mr. Lajeunesse, isn’t it true that you and Mr. Delaney had an argument on September 17th because he discovered you’d been meeting someone else?”
“No. That’s not true.”
“You expect this court to believe that my client, a respected businessman and philanthropist, violently assaulted you because you went to a park?”
I met his gaze steadily. “Control isn’t rational. Marcus didn’t need logical reasons to hurt me. He did it because he could.”
Blackwood’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Moving to the night at the motel. You claim Mr. Delaney confessed to jury tampering. Yet isn’t it convenient that you happened to be on the phone with your attorney when this supposed confession occurred?”
“I called Damian when Marcus started breaking down my door. He told me to call immediately if Marcus ever contacted me.”
“And the recording? Did you tell Mr. Delaney you were recording him?”
“No. I was hiding a phone while being assaulted.”
“So you deliberately recorded him without consent.”
Victoria stood. “Objection, Your Honour. One-party consent is legal in Ontario, and Mr. Lajeunesse was the victim of a home invasion.”
