Chapter 14: The Surprise Witness
Just as the judge looked ready to order the case to trial, the door opened. An old man walked in—thin, tired, leaning on a cane.
David’s face went white.
“Your Honor,” our lawyer said. “We call Mr. Elias Voss to the stand.”
It was David’s own father. The man who’d lost everything to Lucas’s father decades earlier.
“I was there when the deal was made,” the old man said, his voice shaking. “I heard Lucas’s father threaten to ruin us if David didn’t help him run the ring. I heard him say he’d bury anyone who got in the way.”
He looked straight at David. “You didn’t do this for justice. You did it because you were too weak to say no. Just like I was.”
For a long moment, no one spoke. Then the judge banged his gavel and adjourned court until the next week.
Outside, reporters swarmed us. But Lucas didn’t answer questions. He just put his arm around Jude and me, and walked us to the car.
That night, we got a message sent to our lawyer: If you don’t drop everything now… the boy disappears.
