Chapter 15
When we pulled into the compound, the first thing I saw was my Mercedes sitting in the driveway like it had been waiting for me. My car was here. Not some borrowed shit or something Kaseem provided. MY car. My independence sitting right there in white leather and chrome.
I got out the truck, stopped walking right in front of it and just stared at it.
Kaseem came up beside me and wrapped his arm around my waist.
"Your car got delivered this morning," he said quietly. "I had Neil handle it. You're free to move how you want now. I'm not about to keep you locked up. That's not the type of nigga I am.” he lied. That was exactly the type of nigga he was, but he was trying, so I forgave him.
I turned and looked at him, and something in my chest shifted. This man had kidnapped me. Had forced me into a marriage. Had controlled every aspect of my life for weeks. And now he was giving me the keys back to my freedom.
I kissed him like I loved him. Shit, I damn near did. We kissed like I was trying to show him that I understood what that meant. That I saw him changing. That I appreciated it even though everything else was complicated as hell in our lives right now.
"Thank you," I said against his lips.
"Don't thank me. Just be smart with it," he said. "You got something you need to be doing right now?”
"Yeah," I said. "I need to work on that computer situation for a minute. I need to see what I actually got."
He nodded like he understood.
"Aight. Do your thing. I'm gonna go check on some shit with Namier. You can go in the office but call me or come out here if you need anything."
I watched him walk off, then I went into the house and into his office. The one that Kaseem had basically given me access to when he snatched me up and brought me here. I closed the door behind me and sat down at the desk, pulling the reader out of my purse.
I'd had maybe five minutes in the judge's office.
Five minutes to slide that reader as close to his computer as I could get it without being obvious.
Five minutes of me sitting in that leather chair, looking at papers on his desk like I was just interested in the decor, while actually my hands were working as fast as they could.
Now I had everything, and I needed to see what that everything was.
I plugged the reader into my laptop and waited for the files to transfer. I went through everything intentionally. I didn’t want to miss anything. I found a lot of unbelievable shit about this man.
Then I ran across some deleted audio. I took a deep breath before listening.
When they did, My hands were shaking. Not from the adrenaline of what I'd just pulled off, but from something else. Something I'd heard in that deleted recording.
A name I hadn't heard in eight years.
Demontae Sullivan.
I sat there staring at nothing, my mind going back to being seventeen years old. To the summer before senior year. To the boy who'd made me feel like I was the only girl in the world. At one moment in time, he was my everything. That was short lived and only lasted a summer.
Demontae Sullivan had been fine as hell.
Older than me, he was nineteen to my seventeen - with money, confidence and a smile that made girls lose their minds.
He'd approached me at a pool party thrown by one of my girl older cousins.
Had asked my name like he actually gave a fuck what the answer was.
Had taken me for rides in his car and made me feel grown.
For three months that summer, Demontae Sullivan had been my entire world.
And one day, he wasn’t. The way things ended had broke my heart and I mourned him and our relationship for the longest. He was my first love, but as I got older and realized he’d never came back for me, I started to figure out that I wasn’t anything to him to begin with.
I was a naive teenager that he manipulated, and since then, since the stunt he’d pulled and made me apart of all those years ago, my life had been fucked up since.
The transfer finished and I started going through the rest of the files with shaking hands.
Bank statements first. The judge had accounts I didn't even know existed.
There were regular transfers to an escort service in Houston.
Not just one or two. Dozens. Hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past five years.
They had discreet names, but I was able to uncover them.
The transactions were coded as "consulting fees" but the destinations were all the same - Elite Companions LLC.
There were also transfers to a woman's name - Jessica Moore - with the notation "personal loan." Fifty grand here, thirty grand there. Over a million dollars total going to this one woman over three years.
I dug deeper. Found property records. The judge had bought a condo in his girlfriend's name. Was paying for her car, her clothes, her entire life while his wife was at home.
But that wasn't the real dirt.
The real dirt was in the deleted files.
I had to use recovery software to get them back, but they were there.
Audio files labeled by date. Most of them were just recordings the judge had made for himself - case notes, reminders, nothing crazy.
But there was one from three months ago.
Thirty-two minutes long. The label said: "Call with DA re: Zaire Carter case. "
I clicked play and listened.
The judge's voice came through first, clear as day.
"We need to talk about the Carter case. This is getting out of hand."
The DA's voice - I recognized it from the courthouse, he responded: "What do you mean? We've got him on murder."
"Based on what?" the judge said. "We don't have a body. We don't have physical evidence. We have one witness and that witness is unreliable as hell. You know this."
There was a pause.
"Demontae Sullivan has been cooperative," the DA said. "He's been feeding us information to keep the heat off the Brick Boyz while we're focused on the Carters. But he's not going to testify. Says if he gets on the stand, it puts a target on his back."
My blood went cold hearing his name. Demontae. Working with the DA. Cooperating. The boy I'd loved was a rat. And how the fuck did he know Zaire? Was he connected with the body that was dumped here? That was the work of the Brick Boyz. What was I hearing right now?
"How do you even know he's credible?" the judge asked.
"It's one criminal turning on another criminal," the DA said. "He's trying to save himself."
"You can't be sure of that," the judge said, and I could hear frustration in his voice. "You're basing a murder case on an informant who won't even testify, and another one who’s vanished off the face of the earth. That's not enough. That's not probable cause. That's speculation."
"What do you want me to do?" the DA asked.
"You're fucked up," the judge said bluntly. "You've really fucked this up. We need hard evidence or we need to speed the trial up and or this kid go. Those are your two options. Because right now, you've got nothing. And if this goes to trial, a defense attorney is going to tear you apart."
"Give me two weeks," the DA said. "Let me see if I can find something else."
"You've got seven days.” the judge said. "That's it. After that, I'm ruling in favor of a bail review and you're going to have to either produce evidence or let him walk."
The call ended.
I sat there in complete silence, my heart pounding so hard I thought it might break through my ribs. This happened before the judge ever knew that Kaseem wanted to sit down with him. He’s been knowing that what they were doing with Zaire’s case was wrong.
Demontae Sullivan was also the man going against Kaseem’s family. And he had ties to the people that Kaseem was at war with. This was a small world and I was at a loss for words.
Demontae Sullivan was a man that I never wanted to think about again. And here I was.
He’d been feeding information to the DA to keep himself safe while throwing the Carters under the bus.
I closed my eyes and tried to breathe.
This was bad. This was so fucking bad.
I had to tell Kaseem. I knew I had to tell him.
But if I told him, then he'd know about Demontae.
And if he knew about Demontae, he'd ask how I knew about my past. And if I told him about my past, then I'd have to tell him about everything else.
And if I told him about everything, then everything changed.
My palms were sweating bad and I was so scared. I wasn’t ready for where this shit was headed. If this went left…
My marriage changed. My life changed. The way he looked at me changed.
I sat there for another twenty minutes just trying to figure out what to do.
But I already knew the answer. I couldn't hide this.
This was evidence that could help Zaire.
This was evidence that could destroy the case against him completely.
This was bigger than my past. This was bigger than my secrets.
I had to tell him.
But first, I needed to use this information strategically.
I created a new encrypted folder on my laptop and compiled everything - the bank statements, the escort service records, the property transfers, the audio file, all of it.
I labeled it: "Judge Atkinson Comprehensive File.
" I time-stamped it. I saved three copies on encrypted drives.
This was insurance. This was ammunition.
Then I opened a secure email client and started writing.
I addressed it to the judge at his personal email - the one I'd found in his deleted files, the one he used for his "consulting" arrangements. The email was short and direct:
"Your Honor,
I have copies of everything. The bank statements. The escort service payments. The property transfers to Jessica Moore. The recorded conversation with the District Attorney regarding the Zaire Carter case.
I also have the audio file where you and the DA discussed using an unreliable informant to build a case against an innocent man.