Chapter 76

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

ASHLEY

His words cut deep. He knows nothing about my relationship with Scott, only what he's decided it was.

"My relationship with Scott has nothing to do with you."

" Was nothing to do with me. We're married, so now it's everything to do with me. And don't think the reporters won't have discovered it."

Oh god, would they have reached out to him? To my friends?

"Have you been checking my cell for messages? Has anyone tried to call me?"

His smirk makes my blood run cold. "That's not your concern."

"Have you spoken to them?"

He ignores me and stands up. "I need to go and speak to the reporter who's interviewing me."

"Zain!"

"Make sure you play your part, Ashley."

He walks out, leaving me alone with his lawyer.

"I hate him."

Peter looks at me. "As his lawyer, I can't really talk to you about him. All I can say is that he's been through a lot, and not everything is always what it seems."

"What does that mean?"

"He's not an evil person."

"He blackmailed me into marrying him."

"I know. I wrote the contract."

"Why? Why did you do it?"

"I can't answer that."

I glare at him.

"Do as he asks, Ashley. Play your part. Try not to let yourself be blinded by who you think he is."

"He locked me in the bedroom where my brother was murdered, and forced me to stay there for the entire night. That tells me who he is."

He got down on his knees and made me come, then carried me to bed and wished me goodnight.

"It tells you who he had to become." Peter's voice is firm. "Have you ever visited a maximum security prison? Do you know what a typical day was like for Zain in there? Do you have any idea how terrifying and confusing it must have been when he was first convicted? An innocent man sent to a prison that houses some of the worst people in the world. A young man. Twenty years old, and mourning the loss of his two best friends. Ask yourself how you would have coped. What would you have to do to survive fourteen years inside a place like that?"

"Then he shouldn't have—" I snap my mouth closed.

I was about to say he shouldn't have murdered my brother … but he didn't . It's an automatic response to what I've believed for the past fourteen years. I watched his interrogation. It's so clear that he's innocent, that I actually don't understand why they arrested him for it.

"Can I ask you something about the first trial?"

"I wasn't Zain's lawyer for that, but I can try to answer. What do you want to know?"

"I wasn't allowed in the courtroom for anything other than giving my testimony. My dad said he didn't want me to hear about what happened to Jason, and I remember the lawyer saying it could sway what I said on the stand."

Peter nods. "That's right. Especially with how young you were."

"Was it really all my fault?" It's something I've been wondering all week, something that Zain has made it clear that he believes.

He doesn't answer for a minute or two, then he sighs.

"You were the only witness." His voice is oddly gentle. "The prosecution played on your age and obvious devastation over the loss of your brother. Not to mention the trauma you must have suffered by seeing what you did. Like I said, I wasn't involved in the original case, but I can only imagine the impact your testimony and age would have had on the jury."

He's confirming that it's my fault. It's all my fault.

And it hits differently coming from him. He's so matter of fact. There's no accusation in his tone. He approaches it in a completely different way to Zain. A way that leaves no room for me to deny it, or argue.

"Were there ever any other suspects?"

He shakes his head. "They never looked for one. They had the perfect suspect in custody. Why waste more police time and resources?" He stands and comes around the desk to crouch in front of me. "Look, Ashley, I'm not going to lie. Without your testimony, they barely had a case. The murder weapon was missing, but they had you . A witness who was there, and had no reason to lie about what she saw."

"The knife was missing? But … I thought it was part of the evidence."

"It was. It was at the scene. They cataloged it, so there were photographs of it which they used for the trial. It never came to light until later that the actual knife itself went missing sometime after the arrest, but before the trial."

"But they must have tested it for fingerprints?"

"They did. None were found."

"So, it was me saying I saw him with it …" I close my eyes.

"They built their whole case around the fact that you walked in and saw Zain there, covered in blood, and holding the knife, yes."

I cover my face.

Is it any wonder Zain hates me? That he wants to ruin my life?

If he hates you that much, why did he do what he did last night?

My mind shies away from thinking about that.

"For what it's worth, right now Zain is still very much in a survival at all costs state of mind. It's going to take time for him to get out of that. If you can ride that out, there's a chance he'll eventually see that he doesn't need to do whatever he's doing to you."

I think back to finding him on the bathroom floor.

He claimed it was because I had his bed … but there were other rooms in the house. He could have even slept on the couch. Why the bathroom floor?

A little voice inside my head whispers that it's because the room is small. Almost cell sized.

That can't be it.

The man I know is calculated, focused.

Does he really need something like that to help him acclimate to being out of prison?

Is he really as acclimated to life outside of prison as he appears?

"How did you get the verdict overturned?" I force myself to focus on the here and now.

"It was a number of things. The knife was one of them. The way the police stopped investigating once they had Zain in custody, which was as soon as they were called to the scene. The lack of actual evidence showing he did it. With the amount of blood splatter, Zain should have had more on him than he did. There were no signs of a fight on him either. No scratches or marks of any kind. I also managed to find security footage of him driving through town at the time the attacks took place. There was no way he was there when it happened. He arrived shortly after. Jason was still alive when Zain got there."

Bile rises up my throat. "Did … did Zain disturb the real killer?"

"I think so, but obviously I have nothing to prove that."

"Could they have still been in the house?" I whisper.

"Maybe. Or maybe they left when they saw his car pull onto the drive. "

Or maybe they watched me walk in and discover Zain standing over my brother's body. Maybe they used that to cover their escape.