Chapter 24
Jordy
Our day in court finally came, much faster than I anticipated.
Kitt’s shoulder still wasn’t healed, and he was forced to hide the sling under his suit.
Anyone who didn’t know him well, wouldn’t even be able to tell that he was injured, but I could see the way his usually tailored suit sat a little bulkier around his chest, and the stiff way he moved.
Kitt was going to have his work cut out for him, and unfortunately, I couldn’t always be in the courtroom with him.
In fact, he didn’t want me there. I wasn’t part of the prosecution team.
I was just one of the witnesses they were calling to the stand to make their case, and he didn’t want me sitting in the courtroom unnecessarily where I could be intimidated by my abusers.
All of them.
His plan to target Grace Calderon first had worked.
She couldn’t argue her innocence when she’d literally been caught red-handed in the process of trafficking children out of the country.
So, she had taken a plea deal instead. In exchange for all the information she had on Preston Vanshaw and Edgar Barr, she’d been given a life sentence in a comfortable, high security prison.
She’d never walk free again, but she’d at least be able to live out the rest of her life in relative safety.
It had been a nightmare of paperwork, but we now had an opportunity to take down Vanshaw and Barr, along with several other important members of the bell ringers as well. If our case was successful, we could finally put their entire operation out of business.
Assuming the boredom didn’t kill us first.
“This is one thing they never show you on Law and Order,” I mumbled as I stared at the little staticy television screen in the waiting room where I spent my time whenever I wasn’t needed in the courtroom.
“On television, they always make court cases look so dramatic. Like, they come in, make a few dramatic speeches, and then the jury just decides the fates of the criminals. But this is taking forever.”
I jumped and nearly toppled out of my cheap plastic chair when something cold pressed against my forehead.
“At least you’ve got something to look at,” Clay said as he handed me one of the sodas that he’d retrieved from the vending machine before taking a seat next to me.
I wiped away a streak of condensation that had been left behind of my forehead. “Look at?”
Taking a sip from his own drink, Clay nodded toward the screen that was currently showing a projection of the courtroom.
Kitt was pacing back and forth in front of the jury as he explained something, though I didn’t bother to listen, too distracted by the sight of his long legs in his bespoke suit and the intense look he got in his eyes when he was working.
Honestly, how were any of the jury expected to focus when he was standing there looking like that?
“Right.” I nodded when I realized what Clay was talking about. “I’ve got plenty to look at. And I better be the only one looking.”
Clay snorted into his soda. “Geezus. Never expected you to be the possessive type. Sheath your claws, sweetheart. You’ve got nothing to worry about from me. Although, I’m pretty sure juror number five has been undressing your man with her eyes since the trial started.”
As Kitt passed by the jury stand in question, I watched the juror in question.
Yep, the woman was definitely eyeing Kitt like he was a perfectly cooked steak, and she hadn’t eaten in a week.
I couldn’t help but laugh and chugged half my soda to drown out the noise.
Well, that was one way to get the jury on his side, but the woman would be sadly disappointed. She wasn’t his type. Too tall, too curvy, and most importantly, too female.
“Thanks,” I told Clay as I tapped my half-drunk soda against his.
I wasn’t just thanking him for the drink. I needed the joke as well. Facing the realities of this trial wasn’t easy. Kitt had already presented plenty of evidence against the bell ringers, but we still had a long way to go.
Kitt had started off opening the case with the most straightforward information.
The “beginning of the story” in a sense.
Sebastian Roth had taken the stand, still sporting his injuries from his showdown in the safe house, and explained how this whole case had started when his private investigation firm, Alias Investigations, had caught wind of a string of missing child cases.
He hadn’t expected anything to come from his investigation, until he noticed a reoccurring pattern in the way the children vanished. That was when it got serious, and he eventually realized that an organized pedophile ring was behind the disappearances.
The incidents that he spoke of took place several years ago.
It was strange for me to think that even back then people were already trying to bring down the bell ringers.
I’d gotten away from the bell ringers by then and was living on the streets at the time, selling myself to any John willing to open their wallet.
Everything had felt so hopeless back then, but even when I felt completely alone, there had been people fighting for me that I didn’t even know about.
Throughout his entire retelling, the Vanshaw & Barr’s lawyers regularly tried interrupting Sebastian and questioning every claim that he made.
They even went so far as to accuse him of exaggerating his injuries.
Surely, no real person would jump out of a burning building while carrying their unconscious lover.
That was the kind of stuff only found in romance novels. Not in real life.
Sebastian responded by slamming his leg up onto the podium and pulling up his pant leg for everyone to see the scars that covered the limb from ankle to knee, explaining which of the scars were from the original injury and which were left from the surgeries needed to fix the shattered bones.
He even invited the prosecution’s lawyers to come and feel the scars for themselves, just to make sure they weren’t fake.
None of the lawyers took him up on the offer.
Sebastian’s part of the story ended after he was blown up.
He was still involved, but his injuries had kept him out of the action.
Apparently, the man had a habit of putting himself in dangerous situations, as evidenced by the swollen black eye and the stitches in his shoulder and neck that were visible peeking out of the collar of his shirt.
It was a good thing the investigator was dating a nurse, or he probably wouldn’t survive.
From there, he’d stepped down from the witness stand, and Gabe Long took his place.
Instead of a roguish private investigator, this time the jury was presented with a strait-laced former FBI detective.
Gabe explained, like he was reading straight off a list of facts, exactly how he’d been brought in to handle the case once it was clear Sebastian was being targeted by an organized group.
He, Sebastian, and a pair of civilians—who conveniently went unnamed—were forced to go into hiding while they tried to figure out who was after them.
It was at this point that the defense’s legal team had the brilliant idea to try discrediting the unnamed civilians that had helped Sebastian and Gabe.
Apparently, involving civilians who lacked the professional skills for a proper investigation meant that any findings from that investigation could not be trusted.
The moment someone implied that the civilians involved with the case were not trustworthy, there was a noticeable shift in the atmosphere around Gabe. He didn’t say a word, but his stoic demeanor turned icy, and the entire courtroom seemed to drop several degrees.
I swear I saw several jurors shiver in their seats.
It was never mentioned, but apparently Gabe was now dating one of those civilians in question—a physical therapist who was best friends with Sebastian’s little nurse—and he didn’t appreciate anyone questioning the integrity of his partner.
Gabe never raised his voice, or showed any signs of aggression, but he made it very clear to everyone listening that the civilians who’d been dragged into the incident were unfortunate casualties, and that they should be commended for their bravery.
Plus, even if civilians did help with the case, no one could deny the reality of what they’d found in the end.
As soon as Gabe said that, Kitt took the opportunity to introduce the facility that Gabe and Sebastian’s investigation had found out in Honey Island Swamp.
After that, no one cared about the involvement of a few civilians in an investigation when they were faced with the reality of children being kept in a secret prison out in the middle of a swamp.
I hadn’t paid too much attention to that part of the case. It brought back too many memories I preferred to leave behind, and my memories were already hard enough to ignore.
I’d spent some time at that facility. Not a lot, thankfully, as it wasn’t where the bell ringers typically kept their high-earning Angels.
It had only been about a week as a layover while I and a few other kids were being transported to a new location, but the eeriness of the swamp was hard to forget.
It was a great hiding spot. National parks were protected land, and the dense vegetation and hostile terrain meant the facility wouldn’t be accidentally seen by some random hiker that wandered too far off the trail.
It had been a miserable place that I never wanted to think about again, and I’d only lived there a week. I couldn’t imagine growing up there as some other kids had.