from Pain to Pleasure (Gainesville Book 1) (43 page)

“He passed the psych exam, though.” Carly frowned. “If he does anything out of line, I’ll have him restrained.”

Eyes opened wide, Danielle grabbed Alex’s hand. “He won’t be in handcuffs?”

Alex hugged her. “I’ll be behind you the whole time.”

“If he makes a move toward you, he’ll have 10,000 volts shooting through his body.” Carly patted Danielle’s hand. “We’ll all keep you safe.”

Alex smiled as he thought about Brian being tased. It was much deserved. “Can we do anything more to help her feel safe?”

“Not with him pretending to be normal.” Carly knew Brian was a psychopath. Since he knew how to fool doctors and judges, she wasn’t sure she could provoke him enough to show his true colors. However, she planned to try. “Let’s see how today goes.”

The courtroom became noisier as it filled up. Danielle shifted nervously. Soon she would have to sit beyond the barrier. She held Alex’s hand in a death grip, terrified to let go. It had been months since Brian last attacked her, but she had doubts anyone could protect her from him forever.

Alex thought about her and the baby. She was still on modified bed rest because of the cerclage. He had worried the stress of the trial would cause more complications. That was the last thing they needed.

“It’s time,” Carly called.

Alex stood and ushered Danielle to the prosecutor’s table. There were a comfortable chair and a footrest for her. He glanced at her eyes. She looked hydrated enough. The pitcher of water on the table with glasses was a slight relief. He pestered her about her water intake.

* * *

Brian’s lawyers stood on either side of him. They guided him to the courtroom. He was glad to be free of prison clothes. Even more so the hand- and leg cuffs he wore on the trip over. That felt like he was on a chain gang; hardly able to move. The thought of wearing those daily until the trial ended made his blood boil.
Stupid bitch! If she would’ve just done as she was told, none of this would’ve happened
.

He had fooled everyone on his defense team that Danielle cheated on him, and he had a temporary lapse when he attacked her. He told them her father was the abuser. The psychiatrists were harder to deceive. They tried to trip him up. Good thing he expected it. He knew how to pass a psych test.

The side door to the courtroom was opened, and he walked through with his head held high. However, when he saw Danielle next to Alex, all sanity was lost. Her belly protruded. That threw her infidelity in his face. He nearly bolted her way to smack some sense into her.

When he sat behind the opposing table, he smirked at the couple. They hadn’t paid nearly enough in his eyes. He sported the injuries from his last encounter with a fellow inmate. Every day, he endured beatings. He was sure Alex had someone spread the word he was a sexual predator. If that was all he had to deal with to prove it was all her fault, he would. He was sure he could convince 12 idiots he was the victim.

Danielle flinched when her eyes settled on Brian merely feet away.
Oh, God. He’s up to something
. She backed up, accidentally pushed a chair and almost fell.

Alex caught her and held her close. “Don’t look at him.”

He turned and glared at Brian. Then he almost laughed. The black eye and swollen lip were well deserved. After the surgery, Damien leaked what Brian had done for him. They knew that wouldn’t go over well in the county jail.
Hope he suffers
. Within minutes, the judge entered, and Alex had to go to his seat.

Next to his mother, the day dragged on until Alex had to testify. He hated to leave Danielle, whose hands still shook. Once sworn in and seated again, Alex stared daggers at Brian. The questions from the prosecutor forced images to flood his mind. He described how Brian treated her before he left for Russia and the bruises he had seen that week. When he was asked about conversations between Danielle and Brian, he had to be careful to stick to what he heard. The judge frowned when he heard Brian had used her laptop camera to spy on them.

Then came the hard questions. He shed a few tears as he relayed both the events at the hotel, and when Brian attacked the second time. Against Danielle’s wishes, he mentioned the vaginal tear and her fear of sex. That lead to his observations about how she was affected psychologically.

Danielle gripped the table edge while Alex testified. When it was the defense’s turn, she closed her eyes. “I don’t feel well,” she muttered to Carly.

“Anything I can do?” Carly whispered.

Danielle took a deep breath and shook her head. She didn’t want Brian to see her fear. “Maybe I just need a drink.” She took a sip of water.

Brian’s lawyer walked toward Alex. “Is it true you pursued Miss Brooks although she was dating Mr. Foster?”

Alex knew they would ask. “I was her friend and helped her through a rough time.”

“Wow.” The lawyer smirked. “You call impregnating someone else’s girlfriend ‘helping?’ Was that before or after you put his brother in the hospital?”

With great difficulty, Alex kept his cool. “We
did
have sex, and she
is
having my baby. I wouldn’t have been with her if Brian didn’t treat her like a punching bag. Now she knows sex isn’t just punishment.”

“Objection!”

Alex hid his grin behind a hand. He had hoped he could get that in. The volume of the room went up as everyone discussed what he said. When the judge called the room to order, there was silence. The next few questions told him Brian had been in Danielle and Marie’s laptops. They had doctored photos and emails Danielle sent to Brian about her and Alex. It was obvious Brian claimed he was driven temporarily insane by the affair.

“How can anyone be expected to handle this with grace?” The lawyer passed the messages to the jury. “Mr. Foster was thousands of miles away while his girlfriend was in Mr. Hick’s bed.”

A lunch break was taken in the middle of Alex’s time in the witness stand. By the time he finally stepped down, he felt the jury glare at him. The defense made him out to be a relationship wrecker. Somehow, they found out about a few couples he had broken up in the past when he slept with the woman. It was most likely Sherri. She hated him. Upon redirect, Carly lessened the blow, but the damage had been done.

When he was close to Danielle, he bent down and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.” Danielle was slightly dejected, though. She hadn’t expected Brian’s lawyers to dig into Alex’s past, only hers. With a hand on her belly, she hoped it couldn’t get worse.

The judge nodded to Carly. “Should we end it for today? How is she doing?” He had been told Danielle had complications with the pregnancy.

Carly turned to Danielle. “Can you handle a few more hours or so?”

“I don’t want this to drag on forever.” Danielle felt fine. Having her feet up helped.

Alex reached over and held her shoulder. “If you’re having any pain, we need to stop.”

“I’m not,” she assured him. “I’d like to continue as much as we can today.”

Carly stood. “She would like to keep going, if that pleases the court.”

The judge smiled. “That’s fine. I’d like this one to be over as soon as possible, too.”

After the hotel security witnesses and Detective Marshall had been at the stand, Danielle’s name was called. Alex squeezed her hands and kissed her forehead. His smile gave her a bit of strength.

Brian’s eyes followed her all the way to the front of the room. He seethed.
That asshole knocked my woman up. I’m gonna kill her
. His hands shook with the need to wrap them around her neck. A hand on his arm made his head whip around.

“Don’t even think about it,” one of his lawyers said.

With gritted teeth, Brian nodded. He curled his fingers into fists. It became more difficult by the minute to control his rage. He stared at Danielle, sure when he was acquitted that she would come back to him… whether she liked it or not.

Danielle’s entire body shook as answer-by-answer, she told the room what her life with Brian was like. Tears fell several times. It wasn’t easy to bring all those painful memories to the surface. She stared at her wringing hands, unable to meet anyone’s eyes. Some in the jury gasped at some revelations.

In the audience, Alex didn’t hide his tears. He was overwhelmed by the detail that Danielle was forced to go into about her abuse. She hadn’t told him even half of it.
How’d she survive?
He couldn’t imagine how she endured so much. The many visits to the emergency room pissed him off, though. No one reported Brian over the years. His days of fooling the rest of the world were over.
You’re going down
.

“What made you keep the baby?” Carly asked.

Nervously, Danielle glanced up at Alex. He leaned forward and blew her a kiss. She could see he had been crying. “Because I love Alex and—and… he—he saved me.”

“You fucking whore!” Brian jumped to his feet, not a shred of sanity left in him. “You cheated on me, whore!”

The judge slammed his gavel down. “Get your client to calm down!”

Brian sat after his attorney hissed at him to shut up. “I’m good. Sorry.”

“Are you still afraid of him?” Carly asked.

Danielle nodded her head. “Terrified.”

“I’ll show you terrified.” Brian leaped over the table before him and rushed the witness stand.

A scream echoed as Danielle ducked and cowered on the floor. “Oh God. No. Please.”

She flashed back to a day with her mother when she was young. Her father was on a rampage, breaking things. That meant they would both be beaten until he had enough. Her mother hoped they could stay hidden until he fell asleep. No such luck. He found them, and the belt came out immediately. Their screams went unanswered. He only had enough when they were finally silent. That was one of the days her mother tried to protect her. After a while, though, she gave up.

Alex raced to help, but before he reached the front, two deputies took Brian down with Tasers. As soon as he stopped twitching, they cuffed him. At the judge’s direction, they forced him to his seat and put him back in full restraints. Alex helped Danielle into the chair again.

“You try anything again, and you’ll be in a cell for the rest of this trial!” the judge shouted when Brian was secured.

Brian nodded. “Yes, sir.” He knew he had just fucked himself over.

“You sure you’re OK?” Alex took Danielle’s trembling hands in his. “Should we ask for a recess?”

She shook her head. “No. I need to get this over with.”

Alex knelt before her and held her belly. “Don’t push it. If you feel overwhelmed, say something.”

“OK.”

The judge leaned toward them. “Are you OK to go on, Miss Brooks?”

“Yes,” Danielle said meekly.

With a frown, the judge replied, “No need to fear him any longer. He won’t do that again.” He glared at Brian, and then waved a hand at a deputy, who moved behind Brian. “I won’t have that sort of behavior in my courtroom.”

“Thank you, sir.” She stared at Alex’s hands. She told him, “I’m fine. Go sit, so we can get this over with.”

Alex sat with his mother again. She was quiet throughout the day. Grateful for her support, he picked up her hand and squeezed it. “Thanks for everything.”

“I love you, son.” She kissed his temple.

From there, the jury looked at Brian differently. Danielle glanced their way several times. A few cried. She hoped that meant he would be found guilty of everything.

“Let's talk about the most recent events.” Carly struggled to keep her voice even. She had seen pictures of Danielle's injuries. “In the hotel room, how did Brian get in?”

Danielle stared at her hands. “He kicked the door with the security latch on.”

“I know this isn't easy, but what did he do when you told him you were pregnant?”

Danielle tried not to imagine the scene, but it played in her mind like a movie. “He went crazy.” She quickly wiped the tears away. “He tried to hit my stomach. Then he choked me.”

“While Alex was trying to get in the room to help you, what did Brian do?”

Danielle glanced up at Alex. She had never told him, although she was sure he knew.

His heart pounded. Alex waited for her response. Her screams echoed in his mind. She hesitated so long; he wasn't sure she would answer. Then she took a deep breath, and he held his.

“He...” Danielle closed her eyes. “He—he raped me while he held my neck. I couldn't fight him. He didn't stop—until he was… done.” She broke down. It overwhelmed her to admit it.

Carly handed her a few tissues. “I'm sorry you had to tell us that.” She waited for Danielle to collect herself.

Alex wanted to console her but knew he couldn't. His immediate suspicion that Brian had raped her then did not lessen the blow. His tears fell freely again. He looked up when Carly spoke again. The next few questions were about things he had seen or heard. He was proud of his girl for continued although he knew it emotionally drained her.

“When Brian was away, were you free to live a normal life?” Carly asked. She held the questions about Brian’s friends and brother until the end.

Danielle looked up. “No.”

“What would happen if you went outside Brian’s rules? Say go to a party?”

Again, Danielle shook as she wrung her hands. “Someone would come and punish me.”

“The same way Brian punished you?”

“Yes.”

“He sent other men to rape you?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know them?”

“Yes.”

“Did you report it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“He’d kill me.”

Brian’s lawyer jumped to his feet. “Objection. Speculation.”

“Sustained,” the judge replied.

“I’ll rephrase.” Carly took a deep breath. “Did Brian ever tell you what he would do if you reported his treatment of you or that of his accomplices?”

“Yes. He said he would kill me.” Danielle broke down. She still thought he would.

When she was calm again, Carly continued, “Tell us about the pregnancy. Have you had any complications?”

Again, Brian’s lawyer shot up. “Objection! What does that have to do with this case?”