“Miss Blake, can you tell the court your experience with your kidnapper?”
“It was horrible,” she answered almost immediately.
My heart shattered at this point.
She continued, “He kidnapped me, locked me up with some other girls. He starved us for days and then put us up for sale like vintage cars.” Her tone was laced with disdain and pure hatred.
I couldn’t believe how quickly she turned so cold.
“You must’ve been afraid,” the prosecutor added, nudging Blair in the direction she wanted her statement to go.
“I was terrified. We all were,” Blair said, pretending to wipe a tear from her eye. “He was a monster, and he subjected us to things I cannot freely reveal to the court—horrible, horrible things.”
I lowered my head, fingers rubbing my eyes. She was doing it again—she was performing for an audience, and everything she said was believable.
The prosecutor stepped closer to her. “When you say ‘he,’ you’re referring to the defendant, Mr. Nikolai Tarasov, correct?”
Blair, for the first time since this hearing began, turned to face me, her eyes locked to mine. “No,” she said.
A low murmur around me as tension and confusion hovered over the court.
“I’m talking about Richard Kane,” she clarified. “He was the monster who kidnapped us—he was the owner of the human trafficking ring. Not Mr. Tarasov.”
The murmurs grew louder this time, chaos slowly rising from the crowd.
“Order!” The judge slammed his hammer on the pad.
Blair shocked everyone when she went ahead to add, her voice bold and audacious, “Mr. Tarasov had nothing to do with our kidnapping. In fact, he was the one who saved us all.” She looked right into my eyes, and her expression softened. “If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be alive today.”
Voices fell silent. The judge’s brows lifted, and the members of the jury exchanged glances.
I couldn’t believe my eyes and ears. The woman I thought was going to bury me for good ended up burning her bridge to save me.
She spoke the truth regardless of the outcome. And right now, I wasn’t sure whether to damn her for her deception—or thank her for retracing her steps.
As the noise in the courtroom faded into the background, time seemed to slow down. My eyes were narrowed on her, and when her lips parted into a small smile, I felt something spark inside me.
Despite my confusion, one thing was certain. She’d done the right thing. She told the truth and cleared my name.
Chapter 27 – Blair
Outside the courthouse, I hurried to my car, got in, and slammed the door shut behind me. I reached for my keys with trembling hands, started the engine, and drove off immediately.
The last thing I wanted was to be spotted by anyone at the Bureau or worse, the press.
My grip tightened around the steering wheel as I sped up, my mind racing from what I’d just done. The plan was to testify against Nickolai Tarasov and finally put an end to him. But when it came down to it, I just couldn’t do it.
The man was innocent and wasn’t going to be a part of the people who conspired against him. There was no going back; I’d crossed a line and pissed off a lot of my superiors. Maybe I was even in a bigger problem now because I just made the Bureau look stupid in the courtroom.
I glanced at the buzzing phone dashboard console—it was an incoming call from director Martha Voss. “Shit,” I murmured under my breath, my heart pounding like a drum in my heaving chest.
The phone kept buzzing incessantly, and I couldn’t bring myself to answer it. I knew what the conversation was about, and I wasn’t ready to have it yet. At this point, I was as good as fired already.
I floored it, and the car surged forward with a fierce growl. I wasn’t sure where I was headed; I just wanted to get away from this madness as quickly as possible. My phone’s screen kept lighting up with calls from my colleagues at the Bureau.
Nobody saw it coming. Nobody thought that I would betray my own and choose a criminal over them.
I wiped my palm across my face, ignoring everyone’s calls as I drove on. My heart was hammering in my chest, and a thousand thoughts were tugging at my mind, threatening to rip it apart.
