She sounded nervous.
She said Sutton had called her drunk, ranting about how I was ruining his life.
But in the middle of his rant, he’d let something slip.
He told Waverly that the whole lawsuit had been his girlfriend’s idea.
Not Teter, the Myrtle Beach girlfriend. A new one, a woman named Darla, who Sutton had been seeing for about 6 months.
According to Waverly, Darla had told Sutton that he was entitled to half of everything I had because I’d built my career on the back of family support.
That the money I’d given him proved we were partners and that I owed him more.
Waverly said, “Adam, I think this Darla woman has been in his ear the whole time. Sutton’s not smart enough to come up with a lawsuit on his own. He can barely operate a microwave.”
I thanked Waverly and immediately called Cordelia.
She was very interested.
She did some research and found that Darla had a history.
She’d been involved in two prior civil suits, both against former partners, both alleging informal business arrangements that were never documented.
One was dismissed, the other settled for a small amount.
It was a pattern.
Darla found men who had access to money, either their own or their families, and she weaponized the legal system to extract it.
Cordelia was practically vibrating with energy.
“This changes the narrative entirely,” she said. “Your brother isn’t just an ungrateful sibling. He’s a guy manipulated by someone who does this professionally, and I can prove it.”
She drafted an amended filing that included Darla’s litigation history and Sutton’s admission to Waverly that the lawsuit was her idea.
Waverly agreed to provide a sworn statement.
My cousin, the one family member who’d stayed honest, was about to help bring the whole thing crashing down.
The deposition was scheduled for a Tuesday.
Cordelia told me to wear a suit, be calm, say as little as possible, and let her do the talking.
“You’re the stable, successful brother who gave everything and got sued for it,” she said. “That’s the story, and it’s true, which is even better.”
The night before the deposition, Jolene and I sat on our back porch.
Hank was asleep at our feet.
The air was warm and the neighborhood was quiet.
Jolene leaned over and said, “You know, a year ago, you were sitting at your parents’ kitchen table, begging them to see reason. Tomorrow, you’re going to walk into a room and your brother’s going to have to look you in the eye and explain why he thought any of this was a good idea.”
I nodded.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
I thought about it for a second.
“Ready,” I said. “I feel ready.”
And I meant it.
The deposition was held at Cordelia’s firm in a conference room with floor-to-ceiling windows and a long oak table.
I arrived early wearing a navy suit Jolene had picked out, feeling ready.
Sutton showed up 15 minutes late.
He looked rough, not in a dramatic way, but in the way that someone looks when they’ve been making bad decisions for a long time and the bill is starting to come due.
He’d lost weight. His clothes didn’t fit right.
He walked in with Grady Tate, who looked like a man who deeply regretted getting out of bed that morning, and Darla, who I was seeing in person for the first time.
She was lean, polished, and had the kind of sharp eyes that catalog everything in a room within the first 3 seconds.
She was not there as a legal party.
She was there as moral support, supposedly.
Cordelia noticed her immediately and said nothing, but I could tell she’d filed it away.
The deposition started with Grady asking me questions.
He tried to establish that I had been involved in Sutton’s business decisions, that I’d attended meetings about car purchases, that I’d given input on which vehicles to buy.
I answered each question honestly.
No, I had never attended a meeting.
No, I had never given input on inventory.
No, I had never seen a business plan because there wasn’t one.
Yes, I had given Sutton money.
No, it was not an investment.
It was a gift.
Every time, Grady kept pushing, trying to find an angle.
“Isn’t it true that you told your brother, and I quote, ‘I believe in what you’re doing’?”
“I probably did say something like that,” I said. “The same way you tell a friend their new haircut looks good even if it doesn’t. It’s called being supportive. It’s not a binding contract.”
I saw Cordelia suppress a smile.