AllFreeNovel
Share Us
At the mention of his friends' names, Brandon's expression lost all signs of humor. Behind his lawyer, Messina grinned. My heart fell into my stomach as I recalled the first conversation Brandon had ever had with the man. He hadn't revealed his own name, but he'd mentioned his friends' names as a way of establishing street credibility with Messina. These were friends who were still in jail serving time for a crime they had all committed together. Apparently Messina had a longer memory than we'd given him credit for.
"Answer the question, Mr. Sterling," the judge prodded.
"Yes," Brandon said. "I was."
"And where are they now?" Cipolla asked, unable to keep the glee completely out of his voice.
"Objection your honor. Relevance," Zola said from his seat.
"Counsel, where are you going with this?" asked the judge in an increasingly irritable voice.
Brandon frowned. "They are incarcerated. At Suffolk County prison."
"For what crime?"
Brandon down at his lap, then up at me, looking incredibly sorry. "Murder."
There was a bit of an uproar around the courtroom, prompting the judge to bang his gavel again.
"I have here," Cipolla said, "original court documents pertaining to the jury. It says that Mr. Sterling was originally represented by a state defense, but gained new representation with a lawyer paid for by his future father-in-law, Stan Keith. Is that correct, Mr. Sterling?"
Brandon frowned, clearly annoyed. "Yes."
"And it also says here that soon after that, your attorney entered a statement from Miranda Keith into the record as an alibi for you. Is that also true?"
Brandon blinked. "I really don't know about the exact timing of all of it. I was a twenty-one-year-old kid. It's been a while."
It was a good diversion––not untrue, but also not a complete answer. The room tittered a little, showing it was still a bit more on his side than Cipolla's. But Cipolla kept chipping away.
"Seems a bit funny," he remarked casually. "You get a new fancy attorney, a girlfriend, and a new alibi all in one week."
"Objection. Speculation. Move to strike counsel's testimony," Zola said.
"Sustained," said the judge. "Mr. Cipolla, you will refrain from making conjectures about the witness."
Cipolla held up his stubby hands in mock surrender. "Sorry, your honor. I'm just curious. Because really, Mr. Sterling, how do we know that you're telling the truth? Particularly when you've had a history of tampering with the court system before this––"
"Objection!" yelped Zola, hopping out of his seat. "Speculation! Misconstrues prior testimony. In addition, your honor, this is outright slander. We will reserve a motion for sanctions."
"Fine," said Cipolla. "But if your fiancée was half-unconscious and barely able to remember anything that happened to her––"
"Objection!"
"I'll rephrase. Suffering from a head injury," Cipolla said before the judge could even correct him. "And you were the only one in the room at the time? How do we know? It's really just your word as a man who has changed his story once before in a court of law, against my client's, isn't it Mr. Sterling? How are we to believe anything you say?"
"Objection! Compound. Move to strike counsel's argument and his testimony!"
"Sustained."
Brandon didn't look angry. He wasn't smiling. He looked down, then looked up at Cipolla, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He looked like the cat who had caught the canary. I was utterly confused. How could he look almost...impish...when his testimony was being refuted completely?
"You don't have to believe it," he said. "My phone was on the entire time. My entire security team heard everything, as they said in their depositions, and as they will tell you when they take the stand after me."
The courtroom erupted.
"Order!" shouted the judge as he banged the gavel. "Quiet down, everyone now!"
But the damage was done. Quickly, Cipolla dismissed Brandon with no further questions, clearly frustrated by the way his cross-examination had panned out, and I was left wondering how Messina's shitty defense attorney had missed the fact that three different men had witnessed the entire exchange.
As Brandon stepped off the stand and walked down the length of the court room, he just looked at me, the slight ticking in his jaw the only sign that he was feeling any sort of stress. I raised my left hand to my lips, showing the smattering of diamonds around my ring finger as I tapped my mouth to blow him the subtlest of kisses through the chaos. His fierce expression didn't change, but the glimmer in his eyes told me he understood. He knew that I loved him. He understood how thankful I was that he had come.
~
