My husband slapped me in front of his mistress outside our Dallas mansion—he was still laughing when a black SUV screeched to our gates. Then the man inside called my husband by a name I’d never heard before.

Ryan’s arraignment was three days later.

The courtroom was packed. Reporters. Cameras. Women who’d come to see the “Dallas Con Man” in person.

I sat in the front row with Clara and Crawford. Lila and the kids were at the ranch with a babysitter. I didn’t want them to see Ryan in chains.

When they brought him into the courtroom, I almost didn’t recognize him.

He’d been in jail for three days. He’d lost weight. His hair was cut short. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit. His hands and feet were shackled.

He looked right at me. He smiled.

The same smile he’d given me on our wedding day.

The judge read the charges. Bigamy. Wire fraud. Identity theft. Embezzlement. Two counts of first-degree murder.

Ryan pleaded not guilty to all of them.

His lawyer asked for bail. The judge denied it. He ordered Ryan held without bond until the trial.

As they led him out of the courtroom, Ryan stopped in front of me. The guards tried to pull him away, but he fought them.

“Emily!” he yelled. “You think this is over? I have friends. Powerful friends. You’ll never see a dime of that money. You’ll never see Lila again. I’ll burn it all to the ground first!”

The guards dragged him away.

I sat there, shaking. Clara squeezed my hand.

“He’s just talking. He can’t do anything. He’s in jail.”

But I knew Ryan. He didn’t make empty threats.

That afternoon, Crawford got a call from the bank.

Ryan’s lawyer had filed a motion. He was claiming that half of the Bennett trust was marital property. That Ryan was entitled to one hundred million dollars. Even if he was convicted of murder.

“It’s a long shot,” Crawford said. “Texas is a community property state, but there’s a law that says you can’t profit from your own crimes. Still, it’ll tie the money up in court for years. Maybe a decade.”

“Let him,” I said. “I don’t care about the money. I just want him to go to prison for the rest of his life.”

But the money was the least of my problems.

A week later, the prosecution turned over Ryan’s defense strategy.

He was claiming he was innocent. That I’d framed him.

His lawyer said Ryan had been having an affair, yes. But he’d never stolen any money. That I’d found out about the affair, and in a fit of rage, I’d faked all the evidence. The bank records. The video. The USB drive. That I’d paid Vanessa to lie. That I’d even killed my own parents and blamed it on Ryan to get the inheritance early.

It was insane. No rational person would believe it.

But juries had believed crazier things.

Especially when the defendant was a charming, handsome white man, and the victim was a rich heiress the press had already painted as unstable.

The trial was set for six months later.

Six months of depositions. Six months of being called a liar. Six months of Ryan’s lawyer digging through every part of my life, looking for anything he could use to make me look bad.

He found my therapy records from after my parents died. He found a prescription for anti-anxiety medication I’d taken for six months. He found a photo of me at a party, holding a glass of wine, taken when I was twenty-two.

He told the press I was a “drug-addled alcoholic” who’d been “grieving and irrational” for twenty years. That I’d made up the entire story about Ryan to cover up my own crimes.

Vanessa was called as a witness for the prosecution. She testified that Ryan had given her the USB drive. That she’d heard him admit to stealing the money.

Ryan’s lawyer tore her apart on the stand.

“Ms. Miller, you were sleeping with a married man, weren’t you? You knew he had a wife and child. Yet you continued the affair for two years. Is that correct?”

Vanessa squirmed. “Yes, but—”

“And when he broke up with you, you were angry. Weren’t you? You wanted revenge. So you made up these lies about him. You faked the evidence. You got together with Emily Carter—Bennett, whatever her name is—and you plotted to destroy a good man’s life.”

“That’s not true!”

“Isn’t it? You have a prior arrest for shoplifting, don’t you? And you filed a false police report against an ex-boyfriend five years ago, claiming he assaulted you. The charges were dropped when the police found security footage proving you’d hit him first. You’re a liar, Ms. Miller. A professional liar. Why should this jury believe anything you say?”

Vanessa left the stand in tears.

The press had a field day. “WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION EXPOSED AS A LIAR.”

I was next.

I spent three days on the stand. Ryan’s lawyer asked me the same question over and over, a hundred different ways.

“Did you kill your parents, Mrs. Bennett?”

“Did you fake the video to frame your husband?”

“Are you really just a bitter, scorned woman who’d rather see an innocent man go to prison than admit he didn’t love you?”

I answered every question calmly. Honestly. I told the jury about the slap. About the photo of Clara and the kids. About the video where Ryan admitted to killing my parents. About Linda Marlow.

But I could see it in their eyes. Some of them believed me. Some of them didn’t.

One woman on the jury, a middle-aged school teacher, stared at me with pure hatred every time I spoke. I knew she thought I was a rich, spoiled brat who’d made up the whole thing.

The trial dragged on for four weeks.

On the last day, Ryan took the stand in his own defense.

He cried. He told the jury he’d made a mistake by cheating on me. That he was sorry. That he loved Lila more than anything in the world. But he swore he’d never stolen any money. Never killed anyone.

“Emily is a good woman,” he said, his voice cracking. “But she’s been sick for a long time. Ever since her parents died. She’s paranoid. Delusional. I tried to get her help. I tried to stand by her. But she got worse and worse. She started accusing me of all these terrible things. I didn’t know what to do. I never meant to hurt anyone.”

He looked directly at the jury. Tears were running down his face.

“I’m not a monster. I’m just a man who made some bad choices. Please. Don’t take my life away from me. Don’t take my daughter away from me.”

Half the jury was crying.

The woman who hated me was nodding along.

I thought we were going to lose.

The jury went out to deliberate. We waited. And waited. And waited.

Three days later, they came back.

I held Clara’s hand so tight I thought I’d break her fingers. Crawford sat beside me, his face like stone.

The judge asked the foreman if they’d reached a verdict.

The foreman stood up. He held a piece of paper in his hand.

“We have, Your Honor.”

“On the charge of bigamy, how do you find the defendant?”