Page 106 of Forgotten Prejudice

The cameras zoomed in on Soren’s face, and that was the moment I’d had enough of it. “Turn this shit off and get the fuck back to work,” I yelled at my staff, who jumped in surprise. They probably had no idea I’d been standing here for the past ten minutes, watching the news with them.

“Yes, Chef,” they called back in unison, moving their asses back to the kitchen.

Now left alone in the room, I slammed the door behind me before leaning back against it. Squeezing my eyes shut, I rubbed the bridge of my nose. I wanted to go to the courthouse and be with Ash today, but he vetoed me on that. The first time I saw Soren after he came back, I tried to punch him. In my defense, he was standing way too fucking close to Ash. Needless to say, Ash didn’t care for any explanation, saying that there was no place for such childish acts when our full focus needed to be on Diesel. He thought I was being immature about Soren and, therefore, forbade me from getting close to him or going to court. How was me not wanting Ash to hang around his ex being immature? It wasn’t like Ash actually had any way of helping in the case, yet he kept sticking to him like glue. We would all give our testimonies when we were called to, and that was it. Yet, Ash still hung around Soren and jumped to his feet whenever the prick told him he needed his help.

What a piece of scum.

My phone rang, cutting off my line of thought. Seeing it was Ash calling, I immediately answered.

“Hey, Ashy. Just saw a report about the trial. How’s it going down there?”

“It’s awful, Kai. Just awful. Have you seen Diesel?” He sounded distressed. “His whole face is a mess. He’ll die in there before the trial is even over.”

“Do we know what happened to him?”

“Of course not!” he snapped. “He’s still not speaking to anyone other than Soren, and even that, he hardly does. And today… he was just sitting there, his hands cuffed, staring at the floor. He’s hardly said a word to anybody in months. What are we going to do?”

I exhaled slowly while running my fingers through my hair. “What we’ve done so far, which is our best.”

“And have you seen the media coverage?” he went on, completely ignoring what I’d just said. “They talk about him as if he’s guilty, Kai. They drag his name through the mud like he isn’t a human being.” His voice carried nothing but pain, forming a lump in my throat.

“Maybe try to avoid it, then. Just don’t watch the news.”

“I don’t watch it, but they are everywhere. Outside the courthouse, around our street—some reporters even came and questioned me after I parked my car outside the supermarket.”

It wasn’t a surprise the media was seeking any crumb of information. One reporter even came to the restaurant today, but I kicked him out.

“You know what she asked me?” Ash hissed, getting my attention back. “She asked me if there were any early signs before Diesel’s violent rampage. How dare she say that?”

Diesel definitely had some anger issues, but I highly doubted he did what he was accused of. He loved Shay-Lee, and I was sure of that, but I couldn’t blame anyone for thinking he was guilty. So far, the story running through the news said that Shay-Lee had broken up with Diesel so he could be with Diesel’s boss, which led Diesel to lose his mind and get revenge. And while we knew this was complete bullshit, the media coverage did expose some new details we didn’t know about Diesel, such as him working as a stripper for months. It killed Ash because he felt like he’d failed. Personally, I thought Ash had nothing to do with Diesel’s poor choices. I mean, the kid chose to be an idiot, so how was it Ash’s fault?

“Are you coming back to the house? We can meet there,” I said after we both kept quiet for too long.

“I can’t. I’m going to meet Soren at the office.”

Anger spiked through my blood.

“Why do you need to meet him again?”

“You know why, Kai.”

My chest thrust out, and my heart rate increased.

“Don’t you see that he’s doing it on purpose? Using the situation to get back into your life? Our life?”

Ash sighed and then went silent for a minute before speaking. “I’m not doing this again. Anyway, Andrei’s here, and I need to go. We’ll talk later.”

He hung up.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I hissed, leaning my head back against the door while rubbing my face.

I trusted Ash. The one I didn’t trust was Soren, who still looked at my Ashy like he was a piece of meat. On top of all that, I was fucking pissed over how naive Ash was when it came to Soren. And to think, there was a time I actually believed he was going to be mine.

Soren

“I’m pretty sure we lost juror number five,” said Eiv, our private investigator, while he, one of my co-counsels, Charlie, and I looked over the jurors’ photos we pinned on the wall.

“Agreed,” I said, moving number five from the center to the left, making sure the picture aligned with the others.