Empire of Sin: Chapter 31

My mood has been shit since yesterday.

Since Anastasia said we were breaking up.

I haven’t seen her—properly, at least—since that encounter in the firm’s hallway. Not only did she leave work after dropping that bomb, but she’s also ignored my calls.

I was a few seconds away from turning into a raging arsehole. Even though, per Dan’s words, I already was one.

He invited me and Sebastian for dinner at one of the few restaurants he approves of. He’s posh like that, a picky eater to a fault, and never eats out unless it’s absolutely necessary.

I might have glared and glowered during that whole dinner until they’d finally had enough and kicked me out for ruining their meal.

When I went to her flat, Anastasia was already sleeping in a curled-up position on the sofa. I wanted to wake her and continue where we left off, but I couldn’t when I saw that delicate frown on her face.

This morning, she got up earlier than me and went to work.

With all the prep I’ve had to do with Sandra, I haven’t been able to go find her. And when I finally got the chance during a small break, she wasn’t in the IT department. Chris mentioned she was out with Gwen.

So I shot her a text.

Me: Meet me after work or I swear to fucking God, this will get real ugly, real fast. You don’t want to get on my nerves any more than you already have, my little liar.

She didn’t answer.

Not that I expected her to.

Which means she’s taking the difficult road. A stupid mistake that she’ll pay for once I’m finished with court today.

That’s where I am right now, in court, barely holding on to my patience, because although I prepped Sandra, she’s on the verge of breaking down again.

Pearce didn’t even bring out the big guns yet, but a simple look at her father and she starts shaking all over.

“If you keep giving that reaction, it’ll only play in his favor,” I whisper to her. “You’re not here to win his case for him, you’re here to make him pay. Are we clear?”

She nods, sniffles, then slowly regains her composure after exchanging looks with Lauren. My associate lawyer is definitely better at the sentimental stuff than I am.

Anastasia is, too, but she chose not to be present today, and it’s fucking with my head more than I’d like to admit. Maybe, like me, Sandra is used to her silent support and gentle touches and fucking natural softness. Maybe like me, she feels like she’s losing her footing and will be stumbling into nowhere.

I internally shake my head to focus on Pearce, who was questioning Matt’s wife, and Sandra’s stepmother, who’s been basically calling her stepdaughter a whore for the past ten minutes.

“Your witness.” Pearce gives me a lopsided smile that makes his face appear maniacal.

He’s so sure he’ll win both the criminal and the civil case, and he has all the right circumstances to fall back on. Not only is the prosecutor in charge of the criminal case not aggressive enough, but the amount of bribing happening in the background is astounding, to say the least.

That fucker Matt, who’s sitting in a relaxed position with a permanent smirk on his face, seems to be waiting for the whole charade to end. And once it does, I’m sure that big-bellied bastard with the slowly balding head will make Sandra’s life a living hell for merely going up against him.

That’s what bastards like him do; when you stand up to them, you either have to kill them or they’ll chop your head off.

The first time I tried to run away with Teal and Mum had found us, we were in for brutal floggings that broke our skin. Then she locked us in a closet for a whole day with no food or access to the bathroom.

She only let us out when a “client” specifically asked for us. She bathed us then, made us look pretty for her fucking pedophiles and told us that if we ran again, she’d kill us and sell our corpses.

After that incident, Teal withdrew further into her shell and barely talked. Me, however? I knew that if we didn’t escape, that bitch would kill us anyway or she’d get us hooked on drugs so we’d never get the chance to leave.

So I planned our next attempt well. I waited until the fucking bitch was half passed out on drugs, then gave her a bottle of water that I’d put sleeping powder in. The same powder she’d put in my drink when she had pedophiles over, because when I turned eight, I started to fight, and the fuckers didn’t like that.

“Did you ever love us?” I asked her when she was half-dazed, close to collapsing.

I’ll never forget the lunatic snarl on her face when she grabbed me by the hair so harshly, she ripped some out. “Are you fucking daft? How can someone love their golden goose?”

She laughed then and I pushed her away so hard, she passed out. It was the first time I’d done it, and it filled me with waves of adrenaline.

So much so that I grabbed Teal’s hand and we left.

Once and for fucking all.

So no, Sandra’s case is not a mere case. It’s her chance to finally break free.

Ignoring Pearce’s obvious attempts to rile me up, I stand, buttoning my jacket. “Mrs. Bell, you said you knew Sandra way before you married Mr. Bell. Is that right?”

Karen Bell, a woman in her forties with a bony body structure and bleached hair, twists her lips, but answers, “Yes.”

“For how long before the marriage?”

“Three years, I think.”

“You married Mr. Bell when Sandra was thirteen years old, so that means you’ve known her since she was ten, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“That means you’ve been around the family for a considerable amount of time.”

“Objection.” Pearce stands. “Counsel isn’t asking a question.”

“I will.”

“Then do so, Mr. Van Doren,” the judge, a middle-aged black man, says.

I focus back on Karen. “Did Ms. Bell ever show signs of abuse at that time?”

Karen twists her lips again. “No.”

“Not even when she asked you to take her to the clinic because she was bleeding before her period came along?”

“Objection! Hearsay.”

I carry on, pushing into Karen’s space until she’s trembling slightly. “Not when she begged you and cried on her knees in front of your office and asked you to help her because she couldn’t walk on her own? Because she had blood on her skirt and down her legs and suffered from a ripped hymen? What did you do then, Mrs. Bell? When a ten-year-old was bleeding because she was raped by her father, what did you do?”

“Objection, Your Honor. Counsel is reciting unfounded information without evidence.”

“Sustained.” The judge glares at me. “Unless you have evidence to back your claim, I’m going to strike everything you said from the record.”

“I have evidence.” I step back, then take the file Lauren has ready for me and try to ignore the tears in Sandra’s eyes as she locks them with Karen’s. “I would like to submit into evidence, the testimony of Dr. Norman Schmidt, Mrs. Karen Bell’s ex-partner, who’s now residing in Switzerland.”

The judge summons both me and Pearce to the bench and I give him the file while speaking in a low tone, so the jury can’t listen. “This is the medical record Dr. Schmidt created when Mrs. Bell, then Miss Rens, called him to Mr. Bell’s house to look at an unconscious child with bleeding from her vagina. She told him not to report it and that taking the girl to the hospital was not an option. When Dr. Schmidt insisted on taking her with him to the ER, Mrs. Bell kicked him out. I’ve also included a copy of the testimony he gave at the police station, which the police chief reportedly “lost” the same day. A day later, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents barged into Dr. Schmidt’s office and informed him that he was being deported for accumulated charges of malpractice—which he had no idea existed until ICE gave him a one-way ticket back to Switzerland.”

Pearce makes a face as the judge reads the files. “Mr. Norman Schmidt is a doctor who was deported and had malpractice claims filed against him for raping two women, Your Honor.”

“Dr. Schmidt was never convicted.”

“He can’t be cross-examined since he’s in Switzerland, Your Honor,” Pearce says.

“The certified medical records he sent can still be used in court.” I smile and Pearce’s face instantly darkens.

The judge stares between the two of us, then tells everyone present, “We’ll take a recess to review the newly submitted evidence.”

As the attendees slowly rise to leave, Matt shares a patronizing look with his wife and she immediately lowers her head, her fingers still shaking.

Hmm. Interesting.

Instead of tucking his tail between his legs and crying to his beloved mafia for help, he walks to Sandra, whose eyes widen as her shoulders hunch. “You’re making a grave mistake, you ungrateful little—”

“One more word and I’m reporting this,” I cut him off as I stand by her side, then glare at Pearce. “Control your client better, would you? Or does that also need to be done for you like every single case you’ve taken?”

His lips curl in a snarl. “This isn’t over, Van Doren.”

“It sure as hell isn’t. Because your client just breached the restraining order.” And with that, Lauren and I escort Sandra out of the courtroom.

“Thank you,” she whispers shyly.

“Don’t thank me yet. We’re not done.” I make eye contact with the prosecutor in charge, Gerard. He’s been present during the trial since it’s strongly tied to the criminal case.

His brows are knit together and he doesn’t seem amused by the new evidence I brought forward. I could’ve given it to him or discussed it with him beforehand, but he’s on Pearce’s side, not mine.

Which is why I metaphorically twisted his arm so he’d look further into it and, for once, go aggressively against Matt.

He narrows his eyes at me and I wink.

That’s right, motherfucker. Either you do the right thing or the media will riot against you. Many humanitarian and women’s associations are backing Sandra on this. Even the public switched to her side once Lauren and I tactfully leaked pictures Sandra secretly took of her bruised skin over the past year.

She didn’t want to do it at first, but after a chat with Lauren, Sandra agreed.

It’s been submitted into evidence, too, but there’s still no medical report to back it up. Some fuckers on social media even suggested that she could’ve paid someone to beat her. Anastasia used to methodically hack into various platforms and delete those comments so Sandra didn’t see them.

She didn’t tell anyone this, but I caught her once while she thought I was sleeping.

We spend all day in the courtroom and it’s bloody annoying and fucking exhausting, or maybe it’s because I’m irritated and all I want to do is go home.

No, that’s not the part I’m more interested in.

It’s the person I’ll find at home. The woman who’s been watching her back every step of the way and decided to push me out of her life.

It’s not going to happen.

Ever.

Not when she’s not telling me the real reason behind it.

Hell, even if she does, we’ll work around it. There’s no way in fuck I’m ending what I’ve finally found.

The light to my shadows.

Sure, it’s not bright or constant. Fuck, it could be mistaken for darkness, too. It’s dim, but it’s there, the light that I’ve probably been coveting since the first time I saw her.

Since the first time I laid eyes on her.

I just didn’t fucking realize it then.

Lauren, Chris, and I go back to the firm for a short meeting, but I need to see her first, so I tell them to start without me.

After every day spent in court for Sandra’s case, I get into this funky dark mood that makes my blood boil.

And Anastasia is the only one who drives it away.

I don’t care how often she tells me we have to break up, I’ll just refuse until she comes to her senses.

When I reach the IT department, though, she’s not there. I find Gwen lounging at her post, drinking a milkshake and reading from a stack of files Nate probably gave her.

When she notices me, she releases the straw in her mouth. “Oh, Knox. What are you doing here?”

“Have you seen Jane?” Usually, I try to be around here as little as possible, mainly because Anastasia likes to keep everything a secret.

But fuck that, she was never my dirty little secret.

Gwen narrows her eyes. “Why?”

“You don’t need to know.”

“Of course, I do. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you roaming around her, trying to intimidate her and stuff.” She stands up and places a hand on her hip, her drink clutched tightly in the other hand. “I protect my friends, you know.”

“And you’ll do that with a milkshake? I suppose this is the time I should act scared?”

“Not with a milkshake. I’ll tell Nate and he’ll fire you.”

“He can’t fire me, Gwen. I’m a junior partner, so he’ll have to make the board agree first.”

“Then he’ll just do that.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Can you just not bully the only female friend I’ve ever had?”

There’s desperation in her tone that makes me pause my arseholish remarks. Gwen might as well be Anastasia’s only friend, too.

She’s that lonely and used to acting solo.

“I’m not bullying her, Gwen.” My voice softens a little.

“How can I be sure?”

“Because I like her.”

We both freeze at that, me more than her, because what the fuck am I saying?

“Ohhhh.” She grins. “That sneak Jane never told me. You must be the friend she’s staying with these days.”

So I’ve become a fucking friend now?

“I am. Now, can you tell me where she is?”

“She took her laptop and went to the fourth floor. Apparently, there’s a place she can focus there. I haven’t been to it, but Jane says…”

I’m striding out before she can finish her sentence.

“You’re welcome!” Gwen shouts behind me.

I don’t focus on her, because I’m on a mission to get to Anastasia. She must be in the supply room.

Our room at the firm.

No idea why that fills me with a strange type of energy.

The moment I arrive, I barge inside and pause in the doorway. Soft light bathes the room, which is different from when we’re usually here.

And the reason for the change punches me right across the face when I find Anastasia sitting between someone’s legs, unbuttoning his shirt.

Someone.

Not me.

Someone else.

As in, another fucking man who has his hand on her arm.

The man is Daniel and he’s touching what’s fucking mine.

My vision turns pure bloody red.

Red like I’ve never experienced.

Red like I’ve never seen before.

Something inside me crashes, splinters, and blasts into a million fucking pieces.

And in the midst of the blinding, searing pain, only one thought remains.

The need to fucking hurt.