Empire of Sin (Empire #2) by Rina Kent

“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.”