Chapter 15 Jace
Jace
“No,” I said simply, closing the door. The latch clicked, solid and final—and then the knocking came back, sharper this time. Insistent. Like he thought persistence might make me forget the last time he was here.
I curled my hand into a fist.
“Fucking Patel,” I muttered.
From the living room, soft and tentative, Elior called, “Daddy? Who was it?”
My spine went rigid.
“Just someone who’s lost,” I said, pitching my voice carefully. “Stay where you are, baby.”
The knocking didn’t stop.
Once. Twice. A third time.
I opened the door before Elior could get curious enough to move, stepped out, and shut it behind me with deliberate care. The porch was cool, the late light slanting low and gold across the railings. Patel stood there with his hands in his jacket pockets.
“What,” I said flatly, “do you want?”
“Jesus, chill,” he said, holding up his hands. “I knew you’d be home. I wasn’t trying to get him alone.”
I didn’t blink. “You show up unannounced after what happened, and you expect me to believe that?”
His mouth twitched. “You’re being dramatic.”
I stepped closer, just enough that he had to look up at me instead of past me. “And you’re being really fucking stupid, sticking your head where it doesn’t belong.”
Something in my face must’ve finally registered, because the humor drained out of him and he straightened, his thick dark brows lowering and his lips thinning.
“Okay,” he said, quieter now. “Fine. I deserved the door. But this isn’t about that.”
“Then say it fast.”
“They want Elior to testify.”
The words hit like a live wire.
“The fuck? No,” I said immediately. “Absolutely not.”
Patel sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Jace—”
“Aarev. You’re out of your fucking mind,” I snapped. “He just found out a few days ago that his mother was murdered by his pathetic excuse of a father. He’s barely holding it together. Putting him on the stand across from Malachi would only retraumatize him.”
“I know,” Patel said. And for once, it looked like he meant it. “But listen to me.”
I didn’t want to. I wanted to shove him off the porch and listen to his head bounce against the concrete walkway.
“Elior’s testimony would be devastating for the defense,” Patel continued. “The abuse, the indoctrination, the lies about his mother. It corroborates everything we’ve been building.”
“That’s not his job,” I snarled. “He doesn’t owe us anything.”
“I agree,” Patel said. “But this isn’t just about Malachi. It’s about Elior.”
I laughed, sharp and humorless. “Bullshit.”
“The public is already circling him. You’ve seen the headlines. Survivor or accomplice. If he speaks—if people hear him, see him—they might stop speculating. They’ll humanize him. This could protect him long-term.”
I clenched my jaw. “By ripping him open on national record.”
“By giving him his own narrative,” Patel said. “Instead of letting others write it for him.”
Silence stretched between us, thick and dangerous.
“I won’t push him,” I said. “And I won’t ask him to do something that might break him.”
Patel’s gaze slid—not to me, but past me.
Toward the house.
I felt it immediately. That prickle at the back of my neck. I turned just enough to follow his line of sight.
The living room curtain had shifted.
Just a little.
And behind the glass, pale and still, Elior stood watching us. One hand braced against the window frame, eyes wide—not frightened, not confused.
Listening.
My chest went cold.
Patel swore under his breath. “Shit.”
My sentiments exactly.
This conversation wasn’t over.
Not anymore.
I didn’t say anything to Patel. I didn’t give him the satisfaction.
I turned, opened the door, and stepped inside without looking back to see if he followed.
Elior was standing a few feet from the window, exactly where I’d seen him. He hadn’t moved. His arms were folded loosely around himself, shoulders slightly hunched, but with a rather determined expression on his face.
I closed the door behind me and locked it.
The sound was loud in the quiet.
“Baby,” I said gently. “You weren’t supposed to—”
“I know,” he interrupted, softly. “I’m sorry for being nosy. But… I heard what you guys were talking about.”
Patel lingered near the entryway like he suddenly remembered his place. For once, he didn’t speak.
I crossed the room to Elior in two strides, cupped his face, checked his eyes like I could read the damage there. “You don’t have to do anything,” I said firmly. “You hear me? Nothing he said out there matters. This is your choice, and I already told him no.”
Elior leaned into my hands, eyes fluttering closed for half a second. Then he opened them again, clearer than I expected.
“I want to do it.”
“Elior, you don’t understand what you’re agreeing to.”
“Maybe not completely,” he answered. “But if it’s just telling the truth, then I think it’ll be okay.”
Patel cleared his throat. “I can step outside—”
“No,” Elior said, surprising both of us. He turned his head slightly, still keeping one cheek pressed into my palm. “You can stay. I don’t want to do this twice.”
I didn’t like that sentence. Not one bit.
I lowered my hands but stayed close enough that my thigh brushed his, a silent reminder that I wasn’t going anywhere. “Talk to me,” I said quietly. “Not him. Me.”
Elior took a breath. Then another. He looked past us, not at anything specific, more like he was staring down a long hallway only he could see.
“All my life,” he said, “Father spoke for me. Father told the story. I want him to watch as I finally speak for myself.” His fingers twisted in the hem of his sleeve. “And… it would be nice if everyone didn’t think I’m a murderer.”
My jaw clenched.
Patel shifted. “Elior, I need you to understand—this would be hard. The defense will—”
One look shut him up.
“If it will help bring Father to justice, then I want to do it.”
I crouched in front of him, mirroring him without thinking, hands resting lightly on his knees. “Baby,” I said carefully, “testifying means reliving it. On record. Under oath. They will ask things I can’t stop.”
“I know it’ll be hard, Daddy, but I want to try.” A bit shyly, he added, “Please.”
The room went very quiet.
I leaned forward and pressed my forehead to his. “It’ll be your fault if I have to shoot up a courtroom.”
He laughed, the sound so precious in my mind.
“That wasn’t a serious threat,” I threw over my shoulder to Patel.
It totally was.
* * *
A few weeks later, the courthouse loomed like a beast waiting to be fed.
But that came after the in-between. After the slow and meticulous work of getting Elior ready without breaking him in the process.
I didn’t realize at first that it would feel like training for war.
It started small.
We practiced sitting.
That sounds stupid, but the stand isn’t forgiving—hard chair, no place to hide your hands, nowhere to curl in on yourself without looking evasive. Elior had a habit of folding inward when he got overwhelmed, shoulders caving, chin dipping. So we worked on it. Feet flat. Back against the chair.
We practiced breathing until it stopped being something he had to think about.
Patel frequently came by with binders and outlines. I stayed in the room every time. Sometimes standing behind Elior, sometimes kneeling beside him, sometimes just close enough that he could feel me there without looking.
If Patel asked something that made Elior’s voice hitch, I ended it.
No one argued with me.
We practiced questions.
Not the graphic ones. Not at first.
Just his name. His age. Where he lived now. The difference between what he was told and what he later learned. The truth, laid out clean and simple, without the defense’s poison framing it yet.
Elior was better than I expected, honestly.
He answered carefully, precisely, like he was placing each word exactly where it belonged instead of letting them all spill out onto his lap at once.
Still, some days wrecked him.
Some days he’d freeze halfway through a sentence, eyes going unfocused, fingernails biting into the skin of his palms. On those days, we stopped. We made hot chocolate and laid around. I let him sit on my lap like he needed, while I reminded him that none of this erased who he was now.
Therapy ran parallel to everything. Mark wasn’t a total fan of Elior taking the stand, but I don’t think many of us were. The U.S. Attorney’s Office sure was. But most of us understood how this all had the possibility of going so fucking wrong.
Mark was the one who finally put language to what I’d been circling around instinctively.
The lights, the echo, the shuffle of feet and coughs and whispered side conversations.
The way Elior startled when too many sounds stacked on top of each other, when fabrics scratched wrong, when lights made him wince, and when the air felt too tight in his chest. He could muscle through a lot, but forcing him to endure instead of accommodating felt like setting him up to fail.
So we started asking.
Patel did most of the official pushing with the USAO, but I was there for every conversation, arms crossed, daring anyone to tell me no.
We asked for softer lighting at the stand—no direct overhead glare. We asked for permission for him to bring a grounding object with him. A smooth stone, small enough to hide in his palm, something solid he could anchor to when his thoughts started slipping sideways.
We asked for frequent breaks. Not dramatic recesses—just pauses. Water breaks. A minute to breathe if his voice started to shake.
We asked for me to sit where he could see me.
That one caused the most resistance.
“The jury—” someone started.
“I don’t care about the jury,” I said flatly. “You want him functional or you want him dissociated?”
Mark backed me up with documentation. Patel framed it as trauma-informed practice. The judge, to his credit, listened.
Elior didn’t ask for much himself. That was the thing that got me. He’d look at me first, eyes searching, like he was checking whether something was allowed before he admitted he needed it.