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 Thorne'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.
"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.
"Jury" judge Falton intones 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.LN.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' employment
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.
What if I went through all of this, showed myself as an essential witness, lied in court, all for the jury to realize I was just a big fraud?
Then Nathan White doesn't go to prison.
He walks out of this courtroom as a free man.
And I'm a dead woman.
"Please, pass me the form." Judge Falton's deep voice startles me as the foreperson gives him the form with the verdict.
Why is it so cold in here? I've got a headache from forcing myself to stare ahead of me. It's like I'm scared Nate's ocean eyes have the power to kill me on the spot if I even glance at them.
The judge takes forever to read the verdict. I just want to fucking know if I'm going to die or not. Is that so hard to ask?
There's always been a war on the North Shore of Silver Falls. We're a desolate town, abandoned by anyone who ever tried to make it a decent place. All that remains there are abandoned developments, old streets that haven't been redone in decades, broken houses we can't afford to fix, a high school that only spits out delinquents.
And two gangs fighting for power.
Every few years, the balance tips. If my gang, the Kings, aren't ruling, then it's because the North Shore Crew NSC has stolen the power from us.
There are ways for us small gangs to gain more power. We work for bigger criminal organizations, sell their drugs, their arms. We kill people for them so it's not linked back to them. In the case of my father, he also steals women off the streets if needed.
Nathan White is part of those bigger organizations. Big sharks who come to our small, desperate town and make offers we can't refuse. Nate works for the Cosa Nostra, the Bianco family, to be exact. Just under a year ago, he came to the North Shore and offered my father to work for him. In exchange, he would give the Kings protection from the law and from our enemies, NSC.
But my dad is a stupid fucking man. His pride doomed us all when he refused the offer. And Nate is cuning. He did the one thing that would make my father bite his nails. He took that exact same offer to NSC. Before we could blink, the town was theirs and our team, the people who relied on us, lost everything.
I did my best to fix the shit situation my dad put us in, but my best wasn't enough. Nathan White is not a forgiving man. In fact, he is a complete psychopath There was no forgiving my family for my father's refusal.
Thankfully, the man is also a megalomaniac, and when Nate got greedy and got rid of his boss, Mateo Bianco, to take his place, I had already made a deal of my own with the Cosa Nostra's worst enemies.
The Bratva Wolves.
They were more than happy to offer me the same deal Nate White had.
They only needed me to do one little thing in exchange.
Get rid of him. They wanted the guy who continued to steal their territories.
It was part of our deal. And it took me a few months to figure out how.
Then Vladimir Vblkov, the head of the Bratva Wolves, tried to kill Nate, and got himself killed instead. The news of Volkov dying spread fast, and I already had my contact in the Wolves. He knew Nate didn't kill him, but that he was there that night. He wasn't killed by Nate, unlike what I testified in a court of law yesterday, but the man was involved, and the chance is too big to pass up.
All I have to do is get rid of him, and God knows I could never kill him. The Wolves want Nate out. Death, prison, it doesn't matter. They've already started helping us take over the town. It's my turn to hold my end of the deal.
I struggle to breathe when the judge finally speaks. My heart is ringing in my ears, my life flashing before my eyes. Am I about to die, or strike the deal of my fucking life?
"In the case of the State of Maryland vs. Nathan White, charges for murder, possession of a weapon during a violent crime, and illegal possession of a firearm, the jury found the defendant..."
I think my heart is going to explode...
It took only a nanosecond before he pronounced his verdict, but it could as well have been a tortuous minute.
"Guilty on alI charges."
I let out a sigh so loud, the people siting in front of me turn around, a matching sympathetic look on their faces. They probably think I'm glad a murderer is being put away for life.
Nate is innocent of the crime he's being accused of, but he is a murderer. He should be sentenced today on many other accounts. Arms trafficking, racketeering, drug trafficking, extortion, obstruction of justice, conspiracy to commit crimes, and everything else he used to do as part of the Cosa Nostra.
He might not have killed Vladimir Volkov, but his sister did. And I'm sure even a psycho like him would rather take the fall than snitch on his own blood. He's stuck. Because I said I was there. I said he did it, and he won't let his sister go to prison.
And that's all that matters. He's going away for life.
The judge and defense attorney go through some more talks, polling the jury to make sure it was a unanimous decision, and my need to smile twitches my jaw. There's a new energy rushing through me. The North Shore belongs to my family again. The Kings are back, and we have the Bratva Wolves behind us. The only person linking NSC to the Cosa Nostra is about to go to Prison.
They have no one, nothing. They are dead.
I have my mouth straight, the fear of being in the same room as Nate still weighing on my shoulders. Until I see him walking away in handcuffs, knowing he's never getting out, I won't be able to breathe properly.
Judge Falton gives Nate an unimpressed look over his glasses.
"I will add that, while you are not being charged for other crimes, the court is aware of your criminal past and suspicion of being part of a criminal organization. The jury did not take this into consideration for their verdict, and it does not influence your sentence, but I know who you are, Mr. White. It is my task today to impose a sentence. Nathan White, for the murder of Vladimir Volkov, I sentence you to a life of imprisonment without parole."
The gavel comes down hard against the wood, and power resonates deep within my entire being, ringing the bells of victory.
Nathan White has made my life miserable over the last few months. He is the only man who made me feel true fear again. And now he knows that you don't fuck with Kayla King.
Despite my best attempts, the need to look at him as they take him away is too strong, This man made me discover things I didn't even know about myself. I can have one last look. Like a little gift to myself.
He is looking back at me, his dark hair tightly packed in a tight bun, his eyes piercing through my soul behind his black-rimmed glasses.
I will never see him again. He's going away forever. I will never feel his hands on my skin, his mouth on mine, his personal brand of torture coursing through my body. My soul is forever broken by him, and yet something in my heart hurts.
I will never feel the things only he can make me feel again.
He turns around one last time, shining bright white teeth at me. His smile always looks like death. Like he has something up his sleeve.
But nothing happens. Of course not. He's cuffed, surrounded by four police officers who are about to take him to jail.
There's no thing he can do about it
But he still winks at me, knowing that even if he's rotting in prison, Nathan White will haunt me forever.