Page 157 of Forgotten Prejudice

“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.