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PROLOGUE
KAYLA
Bad - Royal Deluxe
Four years ago…
A silence like I’ve never experienced blankets the cold courtroom as the judge returns. As we all stand, I can feel Samuel Thomas’s eyes burning holes into my skull. His boss is going down, and now everyone knows it’s because of me.
I could take Sam down too. Intimidation of a key witness. His words yesterday were spoken quietly, but I heard them loud and clear. He cornered me in the parking lot, his giant body pinning me against my car.
Don’t do this, Kay. Go back tomorrow and tell them your testimony is a lie. You think he’ll go away forever, but surely you know him enough to realize he will not stay in prison, no matter what his sentence is. The only person in danger if you go through with this is you.
Everyone sits back down, and I do my best not to turn my head to the side. In my peripheral, sitting with his attorneys, Nathan White’s presence calls out to me.
My entire life changed in a matter of weeks. Where I grew up, snitches get stitches. Or more often, they get shot in the face. Especially if they’re lying about it.
But everyone comes to a point in their lives where they must choose whether they want to be the predator or the prey. Whatever little morals I used to have went out of the window when I was offered a chance at survival.
I have to get rid of the bigger fishes who try to take over my pound.
Or how can I be the biggest?
“Jury,” Judge Falton says, as he turns to the foreperson of the jury. “Have you reached a verdict?”
“Yes, your honor, we have,” she answers.
My hands tighten around my thighs to stop them from shaking.
“Is it unanimous?”
“Yes, your honor, it is.”
Looking down, I watch as the letters tattooed on my right hand’s knuckles move across my skin from my anxious gripping.
K.I.N.G.
I rub my thumb against the mouth of a skull on the back of my hand.
Did my life as a criminal impact their verdict?
Attorney Garcia-Diaz made sure to make me sound unreliable on the stand yesterday.
Miss King, is it true you are part of a group called the North Shore Kings and that this group exercises gang-related criminal activities on the North Shore of Silver Falls? Am I wrong to say your father is the leader of that group?
Nate fucking smiled at me when she asked that question. He pushed his glasses up his nose with his middle finger to tell me to go fuck myself. He knew exactly what I was doing on that stand, probably planning ten steps ahead.
Objection, your honor, Luton, the state attorney, said without a second thought. Irrelevant.
Garcia-Diaz snorted, her perfect figure turning to Luton. I’m simply asking for an update on your witness’s employment status.
Sustained. Judge Falton pointed at the pretty defense attorney. This witness isn’t on trial, Mrs. Garcia-Diaz. Please. Kindly focus on the defendant.
She didn’t care, though. It wasn’t what mattered. The jury heard her entirely true accusations. If anything, some of them already knew. The Kings might be a small gang for big criminals like Nate White, but the city of Silver Falls knows us.
Who would believe a criminal testifying against another one? Anyone with two brain cells to rub together would know we all have our own agendas.
And they would be right.
