Empire of Sin(Empire #2)(78)

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?”