Chapter 55

Soren

O ne.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Eight.

Nine—

I stopped at nine, removing my eyes from my wristwatch and back to the court just in time for the judge to tell me the stage was mine. I took a deep breath, placed both hands on the desk, and pushed back my chair to stand. I had the court's full attention, and for good reason, as the words I said next were the ones they had all been waiting for.

"I would like to call Shay-Lee Christian Rogers to take the stand, Your Honor."

Once the permission had been granted, the doors to the courtroom opened, and in what felt like a choreographed scene, Shay-Lee entered the room. He didn't walk; he couldn't walk, so instead, one of the officers had to push his wheelchair down the aisle. The silence in the room was so stark you could have heard a pin drop, and with all eyes on Shay-Lee, I allowed myself to steal a quick glance at Camilo.

It was the first time I'd seen a different expression on his face. His lips were set in a hard line, jaw tensed, and brows furrowed over soft eyes. Eyes that didn't belong to a fighter but a lover. A lover with a broken heart. I could understand his pain, as watching Shay-Lee being brought to the stand was brutal—gut-wrenching. The boy seemed broken, too broken. From the casts on his legs to the faint bruises on his face, he was a living tragedy. A terrible result of man's cruelty. But despite all that, he was here, and he was strong. And above all, he was ready to fight for his life.

Once he was settled and sworn in, I stepped forward.

It's showtime.

"Can you please state your name for the record?"

Clearing his throat, Shay-Lee leaned closer. "Shay-Lee Christian Rogers."

"Can you please tell me the names of your parents?"

"Eva Rogers and Christian Wynter Rogers."

"Are they here today?"

"Only my father is." He looked down. "My mother's dead."

"Could you point to your father for me?"

Like a branch shaking in the wind, Shay-Lee lifted one thin arm.

"Please write in the record that the witness just pointed at Christian W. Rogers," I asked the court reporter before turning my attention back to Shay-Lee. The room was still dead silent, making each word spoken sound a thousand times louder.

"Mr. Rogers, are you aware of the narrative the prosecution has been telling the court about the day you were attacked?"

He nodded, eyes locked on his hands. "I am."

"And what do you have to say about it?"

He visibly swallowed before pulling his shoulder. "That it's not true."

"What is not true?"

He lifted his head only to look behind me at where Camilo was sitting. "Camilo would never hurt me."

I wished I could have given Shay-Lee more time to focus on Camilo, but sadly, we didn't have the luxury at the moment, and I had to move on.

"Do you love him?" I asked.

"Yes."

Such a simple yet powerful answer—as it should be when it comes to love.

"So you didn't cheat on him as the prosecution claimed?"

Shay-Lee shook his head, eyes still locked with Camilo. "Never."

"So why did you end up living at Mr. Bianchi's house?"

He focused his stare on me. "That was a part of our plan."

"And that plan would be?"

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "To run away."

"And why would you want to run away, Mr. Rogers?"

"To get free."

"Free of what?"

Shay-Lee didn't respond immediately. Instead, he froze with his eyes glossy with tears. He was clearly scared, but I knew he could do it. He just needed more time, so I decided to help.

"Mr. Rogers, we'll come back to that question later. Meanwhile, could you tell me if you remember anything from the day of the attack?"

He shook his head before brushing the back of his hand over his cheek, wiping away some of his tears. "No. I don't recall the last seven days before the attack happened."

At this point, Jones tried to step in but was silenced by the judge, who allowed me to proceed.

"Could you tell me the last thing you remember before the attack?"

"Camilo and I agreed to wait until graduation before running away." As he spoke, he moved his hand over a golden necklace that hung around his thin neck.

"You were excited about it, weren't you? About a new beginning?" A soft smile pulled on my lips, just imagining sharing those intimate moments with the person you loved. In my case, it was always the same man with the dreamiest set of green eyes one had ever seen.

"I was," he answered, voice choked. "Still am," he added, and a noise from behind me caught my attention. Turning around, I found Diesel staring back at Shay-Lee. He looked like a man under a spell; hypnotized couldn't even begin to describe the possessed look in his desperate eyes. I drifted away until I found Ashton. He, the same as everyone else, was invested in what was happening, only that his eyes were locked with mine.

My chest filled with warmth, and my body was boosted with confidence. This was it. This was my time to do something right.

"But just like that—" I snapped my fingers. "—all those dreams went away when someone decided you shouldn't be happy."

I turned to face the jury. "Since the beginning of this trial, you have been repeatedly told that my client, Mr. Gómez, was a cruel man who acted out of maliciousness and hate and that he had taken it upon himself to get back at Shay-Lee for leaving him. Clearly, this wasn't the case, as my client had no intention of hurting the victim. But someone else did wish to hurt them both and succeeded." I turned back to Shay-Lee. "Tell me, Mr. Rogers, is the person you believe responsible for what happened to you in this court today?"

Shay-Lee stayed still for a dragging moment before he slowly nodded his head.

"Y-Yes," he whispered in a hoarse voice.

"Is this person my client, Mr. Gómez?"

He shook his head, eyes looking down. "No."

"Would you please point to the person who you believe did this to you?"

Shay-Lee's whole body tensed, his shoulders trembling as he slowly lifted his arm and pointed it in the direction of the monster behind this hell. Chaos erupted in the court as Shay-Lee finally held his head straight up, looking directly into his father's eyes while pointing at him.

"Order!" the judge called out, using her gavel to calm everyone down, to no effect. After all, they all got what they came here for—a horrifying scandal.

Unable to resist the urge, I glanced over my shoulder at where Christian was sitting with a poker face on; not a single emotion was displayed on it. Yet, I saw the rage burning behind his ugly eyes. I saw the evilness of the true monster lurking inside the body of a man. And while I knew how far the horrors he inflicted on his son went, I had no intention of revealing them. Not today. Not ever. That secret belonged to Shay-Lee, and when we prepared for his testimony, I promised him it would not be brought up. Despite that, Shay-Lee still agreed to talk to some extent, and that was precisely what he did next.

"Mr. Rogers, if you'll allow it, I would like to go back to my previous question. When I asked the purpose of your plan with Mr. Gómez, you answered that it was for you to get free. Free of what?"

With a bravery I had never seen before, Shay-Lee held his head straight up. The tears rolling down his cheeks didn't stop him from speaking the painful truth.

"Of him." He nodded his head in the direction of his father. "Of the devil who'd been torturing me my entire life."

And just like that, the truth was out.

"Would you mind elaborating?" I asked once the voices in court calmed down again.

"How much time do we have?" he asked coldly, his eyes still locked on his father. From then on, for a long, dragging hour, Shay-Lee began telling things one could not even imagine. He didn't only speak about his father but also mentioned Orson, the sadist who worked for Christian and who, more often than not, abused Shay-Lee himself.

On the day he was attacked, among other things, Shay-Lee was raped. The prosecution tried to play it off as a consensual act between Shay-Lee and Orson, but I knew better. Of course, I wasn't about to mention it. Thankfully, Shay-Lee was lucky enough to forget what had happened to him. Unfortunately for me, the images I saw from the crime scene would forever be engraved in my memory. It was a horrible scene, one that I knew wasn't the act of a single man. Christian wasn't working alone, but that was a different matter.

Shay-Lee went on to tell more about living life in the shadow of a monster. It was hard to listen to, but not as hard as it was for him to speak about it. I knew it took everything he had, and it wasn't even half of the unspeakable things he'd experienced on a daily basis for the past nineteen years of his life. When he was finally done talking, Christian had gotten up from his chair and began making his way out of the courtroom. To my surprise, Shay-Lee had none of it.

"You're running away?" he asked, voice unwavering. "Why? You can't handle the truth, Dad?"

Christian didn't bother with answering his son and instead left. I knew they wouldn't arrest him on the spot as they should have, but this motherfucker's time would come.

Our work didn't end with Shay-Lee's words. As if the universe had decided to play fair for once, my team had gotten their hands on two videos that were filmed in Dion's club. The first video showed Camilo being beaten up by Christian and Orson. The audio left no doubt about their intentions. The second video might have had no sound, but it showed Orson holding Shay-Lee at gunpoint inside Shay-Lee's car. Both videos, along with Shay-Lee's brave testimony, were enough to prove that this trial was one big scam, perfectly composed and orchestrated by the devil himself.

Christian W. Rogers.

"You did amazing," I told Shay-Lee as soon as he got off the stand. We had a short recess before the judge would address the court. I had a good feeling about today, a really fucking good feeling.

"Did I?" Shay-Lee asked, voice weak.

Smiling at him, I nodded. "You did. You were so brave."

I wouldn't say he smiled, but the corner of his lip twitched before he tried looking behind me at where Diesel sat the whole time. Since we had a break, the guards had taken him out of the courtroom. It was a shame because I'd hoped they'd have a chance to talk.

"Can you tell him something for me?" Shay-Lee asked, and I immediately agreed.

"Of course."

"Tell him that I'm sorry it took me so long."

I wanted to tell Shay-Lee that he had absolutely no reason to apologize, but I also knew it wasn't my place.

"I'll make sure to deliver your message," I promised.

The hearing ended with Shay-Lee's powerful testimony and evidence. I left immediately after, not wanting to give Ashton the chance to catch me. Before the second half of the day started, he'd said he wanted to know everything. And while it had gotten me excited and nervous at the same time, I knew that it had to wait. We were a mile away from the finish line, so close you could practically hear the crowd's cheering and roaring. Therefore, distracting us from the case would be a critical mistake at this stage. One more day, that was all we needed to get through.

Quickly enough, the hours passed, and before I knew it, it was a new morning. The prosecution didn't seem excited to be in court today, not that I could blame them. After Shay-Lee's shocking testimony yesterday, they had clearly lost. The prosecution delivered their closing arguments, and so did I, and now it was time to wait. The ball was officially in the jury's hands after the judge gave them their instructions. Now, they needed to deliberate as to whether Camilo was guilty or not, and that could take anywhere from a couple of minutes to several days.

When we were called back less than an hour later to hear their decision, I knew it was either a good sign or an utter disaster.

My heart rate increased as the jurors filed back into the courtroom, clearly having made their decision. Straightening up in my chair, I took a deep breath. Nerves kicked in my gut, and my leg bounced under the table.

The foreperson of the jury stood up, the decision in her hand. She cleared her throat before she began reading from the paper, word after word until she reached the reason we had all been waiting for with bated breath.

"Considering the evidence presented yesterday by the victim and the defense team, which shed new light on the case and made us doubt the prosecution's claims, we, the jury, find the defendant not guilty on all counts."

Not guilty.

For many years, I had heard that verdict being said, and it always felt like an achievement. Nothing more than a validation of my good work. But right now, it felt so personal and raw that I could cry with joy. Unable to control myself, I placed my hands on Diesel's back and shook him. At the same time, calls of joy erupted from his friends. I swear to God, I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt this kind of joy. But as I turned around and saw Ashton, tears of happiness in his eyes while he was looking at us, I actually did remember the last time I'd been this content.

I used to think I was a solo player. For years, I'd told myself the lie that a trial was a one-man show. It was a story I told myself to excuse how lonely I often felt. Even more so after Ashton was out of my life. But after long months of hard teamwork, I knew I wasn't alone, and neither was Diesel, who was sitting right beside me, soon to be a free man.

After getting the attention of everyone in the court, the judge turned her focus to Diesel. "Young man, after the rather dramatic few days we've had, I'm inclined to believe that a great injustice has been done to you, and I would ask the police to reopen their investigation of the case. Now, then, without further ado, I hereby accept the jury's decision and dismiss this case against Mr. Gómez and order the immediate release of the defendant."

I couldn't describe what happened next. There was simply too much joy to form it into words. But I would say that it felt like I could finally breathe again.