have,” he says, but I can hear the doubt in his voice.
“What’s the charge to something like this?”
“Julian, we’ll win this,” Dad says, a bit of worry in his eyes, but that’s not what I want to hear right now.
“How many years could the judge sentence me if this case goes south?” Which it’s likely to go. Once a buzz like this about you is out, whether you’re guilty or not, it sticks. People remember that about you when they hear your name.
“Son—”
“Come on, Dad, Nathan has been out for blood for years now, you said it yourself. You think he won’t see this through to the end?” I mutter, then glance back to look at Old Grey and the rest of the lawyers. “Lay it on me, how many years?”
“Well,” Old Grey starts, shifting in his chair, looking uncomfortable. “They are accusing you of kidnapping which does not have a statute of limitation; criminal harassment which at your age and background we can get that off as a misdemeanor but I assure you, with the video, they might ask for the full extent of the law and have you charged for that as a felony.”
“Also, they’ll want to point out that you’re a sex offender,” one of the other lawyers says.
“What?” Dad grits out, banging his fist on the table, but I think I saw that coming.
“Yes, John,” Old Grey says. “Mia is still a minor, and well, they are putting everything on this hoping that it all sticks so the judge will sentence him to the fullest extent.”
Of course, they would do that. So, in other words, I’m totally and royally fucked.
And all because I bothered to give in to my whims and compulsive desires for that Little Minx.
“Well then,” I say, glancing down at my watch. “Isn’t it time to go to the courthouse and do this thing?”
The lawyers get up to leave but Dad doesn’t. He sits there, staring at me. Old Grey glances at me, then at my dad, a silent message passing between the two that makes a frisson of dread go down my spine.
“No,” I say when the room clears, leaving me, my dad and Old Grey. I don’t need to hear what they want to ask, because I already know.
“Son,” Dad sighs, looking a decade older in that moment. “It might help you.”
“I said no.” It’s a simple as that.
“If you give them a bit of information, that the relationship you had with her was entirely consensual, some of the charges will be off the table,” Old Grey says. “It might help reduce the charge, then we can get the judge to reduce the rest of whatever they wanted to charge you with down to maybe several months of community service closer to Stanford.”
Yeah, but that’s like going in there and singing a broken tune that I wasn’t sticking my dick in her pussy without her participation. That she didn’t want me to make her come on my dick, clenching hard like she wanted to send me to hell, or that she wasn’t screaming my name and begging me to teach her how to make herself come.
The whole thing is already humiliating enough without adding that shit, but dad already knows why I won’t do it.
“Henry, can you give me and my son a moment?” Dad asks, making me sigh. I don’t want to hear whatever he has to say.
“Sure,” Old Grey says. “I’ll meet you in court in twenty minutes.”
“Yes, we’re right behind you.”
When Old Grey is gone, Dad gets up and walks over to my side, taking in the view of the city like I am, not saying a word. I appreciate the silence and the fact that right now, he isn’t pushing.
“If you think I’m going to change my mind about giving them some fabricated dirt to use on her…”
“I wasn’t going to ask you to do that,” he mutters, cutting me off.
“What then?”
“I was going to ask if you believe her.”
This time I turn around to stare at him in shock.
“What?”
“Well, she did tell you she didn’t know what her father was doing and that she believed she was in danger when she did all that stuff.” Dad shifts on his feet, never glancing away from the view in front of us. “Do you believe her?”
“How did you know all that?”
“Your brother told me that day when he came begging me to do something.”
Goddamn it, Liam and his fucking big mouth.
“I don’t know,” I grit out, my jaw