Starting Over (Withered Rose Book 3), page 24
No, it isn’t, I remind myself. God is still on the throne. He’s still in charge.
“Let us begin,” the judge says. He’s an older man—even older than John—with no hair and hard eyes. He’s hefty, but I’m not sure if it’s the robe or truly his size, then again, his chin wobbles as he leans forward and motions to the lawyers in the room.
“Opening statements,” he orders.
The prosecution goes first, a man and woman who work together to make me look like the spawn of Satan. They point their fingers at me and call me names in their remarks, even go as far as saying I seduced Amory into marrying me so I could rule over three different gangs at once. Even if that were true, I have no idea what that has to do with me killing one random man in a hotel, but I bite my tongue and suffer the insults in silence.
When it’s John’s turn to speak, he does his best to bandage the wound. I’m not the child of the devil, or a power-hungry seductress, I’m just a woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He brings up a picture of Gio that makes my eyes burn with tears and tells everyone that he’s the real villain here.
“It all started with him,” John says, walking slowly around the room. “This man kidnapped his own sister and dragged her into a life she never wanted to live. And because of that, she’s here now.” He points at me, and I do my best to keep from crying, even though John said that shedding tears would work in my favor.
I don’t like what he’s doing to my brother. I don’t like that it feels like I’m throwing him under the bus, but at the end of the day, John’s only telling the truth. I just wish the truth wasn’t so dark.
The next hour is painful. The prosecution paints a picture of a woman I don’t even recognize. They make me sound worse than Eliana; according to them, I was running the sex trafficking ring myself, taking women from Melissa’s shelters and handing them over to Volkov and Gio. When they didn’t pay me my share, I turned on them and seduced Amory to help me gain troops for the war I wanted to launch against the Wolves and my own brother.
I sent Wolfgang out to take down as many Russians as he could. When he failed, they responded by killing Amy’s father. Gio betrayed me by selling secrets to Volkov, to which I responded by raining bullets down on the Wolves.
They prove Gio’s betrayal by playing security footage he stole from us. There are tapes of Amory and I in bed, which makes me scream in shock and stun everyone in the room. The judge threatens to have me gagged if I don’t keep quiet—he doesn’t have to tell me twice, but I can’t stop the quiet sobs that wrack me as the prosecution plays another tape.
When they turn on a third, John speaks up. “This isn’t evidence, Your Honor! It’s shameful. They’re just trying to hurt my client.”
Mercifully, the judge agrees and tells the prosecution to turn off the videos.
I wipe at my eyes, hoping my makeup isn’t totally ruined. I had to sit there in silence while an entire courtroom watched videos of me making love with my husband. The shame I feel is so heavy, I don’t know how my chair can stand the weight any longer.
I can’t stop myself from glancing back into the crowd to find Amory. He’s sitting in the same spot, but his head is in his hands. He’d also cried out when they first started the tapes. Carter had to go over and haul him out the room for trying to climb over the railing again. The only reason he wasn’t arrested is because the judge agreed with John, declaring the tapes to be crude and unnecessary. Apparently, Amy was fined for his outburst. Not that he cares.
Beside him, Wolfgang rubs his back and whispers something in his ear. Amy lifts his head and immediately finds me looking at him. He forces a smile that doesn’t last at all, it cracks as he hiccups and wipes at his eyes.
I love you, I mouth the words to him and he nods, struggling to find the strength to mouth it back.
I love—he manages, and then tears stream from his eyes and he buries his face in his large hands again. Wolfgang leans over and pats his own chest, wordlessly apologizing on Amy’s behalf. All I can do is nod and turn back around.
The prosecution obeys the judge’s orders and finally puts away the lewd tapes, but they have one more. It’s the video of me shooting that Russian man.
“She did it because her brother got his hands on her disgusting sex tapes,” the male lawyer says, pointing right at me. They have a life-sized poster of the man I killed on display in the middle of the courtroom. There’s a ring of flowers hanging over the frame, like a little memorial has been set up for him.
I stare at his picture as the judge dismisses us for the day, trying my hardest to remember his name.
Boris Ivanov … the name comes back to me in my prison cell at night. I whisper it over and over, wondering who he truly was and what sort of life he’d lived until I took it from him.
Yes, I did kill Boris, but I didn’t murder him. It wasn’t a death stemmed from malicious intent. I didn’t pull the trigger out of hatred—I hadn’t even realized I’d grabbed the gun until after it’d gone off.
Does that excuse what’s happened? Does that mean I should walk free?
I have no answer… but I pray to God to have mercy and spare me, nonetheless.
The next day is the same routine. I get to wear an off-white dress this time and Annie doesn’t bother shackling my ankles. John is calm and quiet, trying to stay focused. Today is his turn to take the stand and tell my side of the story. I feel nervous at his silence, but the sight of Amory and the rest of our friends and family crowded in the courtroom today puts a smile on my face.
Again, Amy hops the rail and hugs me. Annie and Carter yank us apart, but not as quickly or as roughly as the day before. I even feel Wolfgang pat my shoulder as I walk by. He says something in German that I don’t understand, but I smile and nod anyway. I need all the kind words I can get. I’m tired of hearing nothing but insults and lies.
The prosecution has Boris’s picture on display again. It’s got a fresh ring of flowers rimming the poster and I notice a small family of Russians sitting on the other side of the courtroom as I take my seat.
“Boris’s family,” John tells me as he leans close. “They’re here for sympathy points on behalf of the prosecution.”
I nod nervously.
“Don’t worry.” John pinches me gently. “We’ve got people here for sympathy too.”
I glance around the room, trying to find whoever he’s talking about, but I don’t see any more familiar faces. There’s a striking woman with a streak of grey hair through her otherwise dark glossy bangs. She’s in the far corner of the room, staring right at me, but I don’t recognize her at all. Before I can point her out to John, the judge walks in and we all fall quiet and stand on cue.
“Let’s begin with the defense today,” the judge orders.
John stands and squeezes my shoulder before walking off.
He points at Boris’s photo. “That man wasn’t innocent…” Then John brings up a life-sized print out of the man’s rap sheet. He’s committed every crime you can think of.
“Meanwhile,” John holds up my rap sheet. It’s written on a sticky note. “My client has never been convicted of a single crime. This case is her first offense and it’s absolutely bogus.”
John has photos from my wedding day on display now. I look miserable in each one.
“She never wanted to marry Amory Jäger,” he explains to the judge. “But she’s in love with him now—not because she’s a demon spawn who used the mafia to her own benefit. Rosa Jäger loves her husband because she’s a sweet woman with a kind heart. She found it in her heart to love a man who would have killed her if he’d been ordered to.” John points at me. “This woman is not a murderer. She’s a victim.”
The crowd disagrees with angry murmurs, but John keeps right on talking. He displays bank statements that detail the monetary transactions between Gio and Amory, the money Amy paid to marry me. The contract we signed as a mafia couple.
“She was bought and sold like livestock,” John explains. “Does that sound like a murderer to anyone?”
The prosecution counter by saying I became bitter after being ‘bought and sold.’
“She saw an opportunity to rip apart the people who enslaved her,” the woman lawyer says. “She took down her enemies one by one.”
They bring Emilio to the stand so he can explain how I seduced Amory back into my bed after he managed to get away from me. Emilio tells the judge that I assaulted his late daughter and used my wiles to ruin their happy engagement and take Amy from her. I have to grip my seat to keep from flying out of it and attacking him. I know Emilio is hurt for what happened to Eliana, but I never thought he would sink so low.
John tries to turn the story back around, explaining that Amory and I found our way back to each other out of love, but I feel like his words are falling on deaf ears at this point. Despite how bad it looks, he surges on. We go back and forth through testimonies and evidence for the next three hours until the judge calls a lunch break.
John passes me a ham sandwich and a Coke. I drink the Coke greedily, it’s the first time I’ve had one since before I was arrested. “This isn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” he says as he sits across from me. “They surprised me by bringing Emilio to the stand. But this isn’t over, Rosa. Hang in there.”
I nod and burp.
Back in the courtroom, I sigh as the prosecution tears into me again. They shock everyone in the room when they bring Conrad to the stand. He places his hand on a Bible and then tells so many lies, I hear Gisela break down in sobs behind me. It’s a shock to everyone, but I don’t let the sting of his betrayal get to me.
Conrad’s wearing an orange jumpsuit and his wrists and ankles are shackled as he testifies. He’s on the stand because he doesn’t have a choice. I heard about his arrest last week, right before my trial began. He turned himself in, but he obviously didn’t walk away the way Amory and Wolfgang and the others did. He’s testifying so he won’t spend the next ten years in prison. He’s probably doing it for Gisela’s sake, which is why she’s crying so hard while my eyes are dry. He’s betraying me and his own cousin for his wife. It couldn’t have been an easy decision, but that doesn’t make it any easier to hear his vicious lies.
Conrad never makes eye contact with me as he tells the judge how I had Amory wrapped around my finger. How I even tried to convince Gisela to join me in overthrowing the Hunting Grounds. The prosecution uses his statement as best they can, painting an even crueler image of me than the previous day, but they mess up when they try to blame me for Morgen’s death.
Somehow, John manages to pin Morgen’s ‘murder’ on Volkov. It’s not a solid case, but he shows us the texts Volkov sent to Amory and the photo of him bound and gagged in his house in Staten Island. That does severe damage to the prosecution’s credibility and actually puts a smile on my face. Things get even worse when they try to blame me for Ja’meek’s death. He was a soldier of the Stronghold who died on a mission with Amory in Staten Island.
Not only is John able to prove I was in a safehouse at the time—using some of the stolen security footage that Gio had access to—but he also reminds the judge that King James just confessed to sending Ja’meek on that mission weeks ago when he was first arrested.
For the first time, I sigh in relief and allow hope to bloom in my heart. When I glance back through the courtroom, I catch Amory sitting up for once. His eyes are still red and bleary, but he doesn’t look as defeated as before.
This is good, I tell myself. This is the turning point.
John hammers it home when he brings in his surprise witness. Even my jaw falls open at the sight of Melissa Hart taking the stand to testify for the defense. She tells the judge how she found me dazed and bloody when I first showed up in Norman, how she took me in and treated me as her own daughter. She explains how afraid I was of being taken back to New York, all while dabbing at the tears in her eyes.
It's a powerful testimony that draws sympathy from everyone in the room, just like John promised. On cross-examination, the prosecution tries to tear Melissa apart. They remind everyone that her women’s ministries were accepting dirty money and that women from her shelters had been disappearing for months right under her nose. They try to hint that she was helping me run Volkov’s sex ring and that when Arthur intervened—being the gallant and heroic officer that he was—we conspired and had him killed.
Melissa nearly faints on the stand at the accusation, but she manages to hold on and look the pair of lawyers in the eye as she says, “My son was an officer, but he was not honorable. I don’t say that with pride. It horrifies me to admit the truth. But God loves the truth and I love God. I must be honest.”
I almost stand up and applaud when she finishes her testimony. John makes sure to right the wrongs of the prosecution when he presents bank statements from Melissa’s account, showing the judge how Arthur had been accessing her accounts without her permission for months. He completely debunks the prosecution’s theory of Melissa helping me kidnap women from her shelters by bringing Pastor Marcia to the stand to testify about how sweet Mel is and how she would never harm the women she cared for.
Next, Father Serrano takes the stand and I almost burst into tears of joy. He tells the judge how serious I’ve always been about my faith. How apprehensive I’d been about marrying Amory because he wasn’t saved back then. He delivers his words with a kind smile on his face that the prosecution can’t crack when they try to destroy his credibility.
They ask him to roll up his sleeves and show everyone his rose tattoo, proof that he’d once worked with the De Lucas as part of the Italian mafia. Father Serrano is unbothered and complies without complaint, ignoring the gasps from the journalists who’ve been allowed inside. I hear cameras flashing as they take pictures, but they stop when Father Serrano explains that he’s been out of the mafia for as long as I’ve been alive.
“Repentance, forgiveness … these are the fundamental elements of the Christian faith,” he says, and then he launches into a ten-minute sermon that leaves some people in tears. I even catch Pastor Marcia nodding her agreement while he speaks.
Embarrassed by their distasteful attack on an innocent Priest, the prosecution ends the second day of testimony with their heads hanging low. They don’t even give any remarks before the judge dismisses us for the day.
John is so pleased with the turnout; he takes my hand and beams at me before Annie slaps the cuffs on again. “We’ve got this,” he says firmly. “One more day.”
On day three, the final day of my trial, the courtroom is overflowing. The crowd outside is still as divided as the crowd inside, but I feel confident. Amory looks much better, reaching out for me as I pass by. He’s fresh out of warnings from the judge and has racked up almost half a million in fines for hopping the rail so many times. Today, he stays on his side of the beam and simply takes my hand as I brush past. It’s a small gesture, but it sets my heart racing.
This is it, Jesus, I pray inside.
The prosecution starts off strong, bringing Volkov’s son to the stand to tell everyone how happy he’d been in his engagement to Eliana. I almost laugh because even I know that’s a lie. Eliana was Volkov’s mistress, she wasn’t engaged to his son at all—in fact, two days ago the prosecution had Emilio testify to me seducing Amory away from Eliana. Now she was happily in love with Volkov’s teenage son?? Right up until I apparently had her killed out of jealous spite because of her ongoing affair with my husband.
John fights back by bringing Belén Moreno to the stand. She testifies through her tears, sharing stories of how cruel Volkov and his son had been to her and Eliana—and even Emilio. My heart breaks for her, she’s only nineteen and she’s being put on the stand to testify for the defense, going directly against her own father’s testimony. I wonder how difficult things must be for her at home, if Emilio is treating her kindly.
The prosecution has one last trick up their sleeves. In their final statements, they display a giant photo of Arthur in his police uniform. And right beside it is a set of photos from his crime scene; he’s lying on his back in a pool of his own blood, his throat slit and his tongue cut out.
A snitch’s death.
Melissa shrieks in the back of the courtroom at the sight of the photos. After a few agonizing moments of her hysterical cries, the bailiff removes her, and the judge urges the prosecution to continue. I glance back in time to see Pastor Marcia and, shockingly, Amory running out to comfort her.
The prosecution reminds everyone how valiantly Arthur tried to do the right thing. He’s the one who turned me in. He’s the one who started this investigation. Without him, New York City would still be ruled by the mafia.
“And look at what his kindness got him,” the male lawyer says. “This is what happens when you show mercy to these monsters.”
John is nervous when it’s his turn to deliver his final statements. Neither of us predicted the prosecution would end with Arthur’s display, especially after John showed Melissa’s bank statements the previous day and proved that he wasn’t a saint at all.
John doesn’t waste time combating the Arthur story. There isn’t really a point. Even though Arthur was dirty, he was still a cop. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how scummy you are, if you’ve got a badge, you’ll never be guilty.
Instead, John shows pictures of Petra and tells the judge that she was killed by Boris. The very man whose murder they’re trying to pin on me.
“It was self-defense,” he insists. “If Rosa hadn’t fired first, Boris Ivanov would have killed everyone in that room.” John replays the video of his killing and pauses it right before I fire my gun. “If you look closely,” he says to the judge, “you’ll see our victim is armed too.”
I squint at the television screen.
John is right. The image is a bit blurry, but you can tell Boris is holding something in his hands. I know it’s a gun, I just hope the judge recognizes it as one too.
John turns off the television. “You’ve heard a lot from a lot of different people. You’ve seen things that have probably given you a terrible idea of who Rosa truly is and a false idea of who some others may have been.” I don’t miss the conspicuous glance he casts at Arthur’s photo. “The point here today isn’t to defame Rosa or to praise others. The point is to prove this… Rosa fired first.” The courtroom gasps as one. “But her actions weren’t unwarranted,” John insists. “It was kill or be killed.”
