"From the ashes, we shall rise"
WARNING: THIS BOOK CONTAINS EXPLICIT CONTENT , VIEWERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED
The second book of the tainted series, it can NOT be read as a stand-alone.
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I made eye contact with my mom as I stood in the aisle looking at her after she just used me as her pawn, making sure that he's gonna be put away forever because of what happened between the both of them; Everyone in the entire place just watching her make a fool out of me.
Erica softly gripped my hand to pull me out of the trance I was in before sitting down beside her, keeping my eyes adjusted on my own mom using the harsh factors of my relationship for her own idea of a tactic just to win over people in the jury. A sigh escaping as Zayn eyes found me in the crowd again, the both of us pained.
Thankfully I had been completely away from most of it, I was lucky enough to not hear the entire thing. Otherwise I don't think I would have been able to keep quiet during all of the exposure of what had meant to be a private and informal hearing. There was no telling exactly what he actually heard, and I just had a feeling it was nothing good at all. As if I needed that.
Most likely hearing about the pain I've been through while he goes all of this, and I had to work on trying to get out of bed every single day. None of that was easy for me at all, considering I felt like my lungs had collapsed the entire time because I had been drowning.
And it was like no one could even see that I was struggling, but maybe it's also because I didn't allow them to witness me like that. No one outside of my family besides Vincent, and he would never mention this to anyone.
"Ryder has struggled for a very long time, and in order to be able get her life back. It'll a lot more peaceful if her kidnapper wasn't around manipulating every second of the day, attempting to turn her against me until he didn't need her anymore then kicked her away as if she was garbage." My mother said with a very thick voice full of emotions, while looking at me the entire time with tears in her eyes. "Ask what mother would love to see her daughter crying about the guy who ruined her life?" She asked.
A sigh came from me as I adjusted in the seat before looking at Zayn once again, trying to determine what he exactly thought about what she was saying. Now that I had learned all of it was fake, and it was something to save our relationship it felt a tad bit personal as if I didn't want him to know about this.
Funny enough I had actually wanted him to think I was doing fine, and wasn't broken up about it. But that was just me being incredibly petty, mixing with the hormones.
"Do you believe that your daughter was under the influence of Mr. Malik, the night your husband and eldest daughter was murdered?" A new lawyer asked deeply, while holding a pen in his hand. "As if he talked her into helping him achieve this?" He asked.
Questions like that made me sick, considering the fact I would never partake in something like that. But everyone didn't have any given clue about what my father meant to me, a lot of these cases had a lot of twisted misfortunates that came to light. That just wasn't the case for ours.
