"Your client wants half his properties? Is she a thief?"
In the High Court of Appeals of New Hampshire, a snicker slipped off the lips of a prosecutor who stood questioning a witness.
The prosecutor was tall and lean, his three-piece brown suit tailored to perfection with his expensive leather shoes gleaming under the court lights.
"Objection, your honor! The prosecutor is badgering the witness—my client!" On cue, the attorney on the other end of the room shot to his feet in fury, pointing at him with shaky hands.
The judge hummed and threw a stern look the prosecutor's way. "Prosecutor, refrain from making such statements about the witness."
Slipping a hand into his pocket, the prosecutor offered the judge a polite nod, though the corners of his lips threatened to curl as he turned to the witness again.
"You say you caught your husband making out with the air hostess?"
The woman nodded hesitantly, "I did."
"Weren't you also the one who arranged everything about your vacation, from the flight to where you'd both be staying?"
"I was."
"So you did all that, and then coincidentally caught your husband making out with the air hostess?"
"Yes."
"Mrs. Parker, you set your husband up, didn't you?"
The woman's eyes trembled, "I-I didn't do such a thing!"
Seeing this, her attorney shot to his feet again, "Your honor, the prosecutor is deviating from the matter at hand!"
Before the judge could respond, the young man huffed and turned to point at the attorney.
"Your client rents everything, makes all the arrangements, then happens to find her husband in bed with the air hostess an hour after he took sleeping pills..."
Before he could land, the woman interrupted with a frown, "My husband never took sleeping pills."
To this, he raised his brows questioningly, "Oh? Then why was there an opened packet on the nightstand? Mrs. Parker, I know exactly what's going on here, so I will state it as it is."
"What happened is that you saw your husband being friendly with the air hostess, just as she said, and you grew jealous."
"So you sent her to his room, just so you could frame him for cheating and leave the marriage with half his assets."
"You have no actual proof he did anything with her, and there's no record anywhere of Joshua Parker ever cheating on you with another woman!"
The words came so sharply, one after the other, that the woman was rendered speechless.
That was not what happened.
This prosecutor… he was twisting everything and trying to make her out to be be liar.
Her eyes darted to the judge. When she saw him subtly bobbing his head, she feared for her case and reacted.
Leaping at the prosecutor from across the desk, she shrieked, "You know he did! You know very well he did it, so why defend that bastard? Damn you, you hear me?! Damn you, Kyle Mercer! You may be a glorified prosecutor, but you're no different from that bastard!"
On the floor, Kyle Mercer simply guarded his face with his hands until the court security rushed to pull her off him, her shrill screams dwindling as they dragged her out of the room.
Pressing his lips together, he rose to his feet again and bowed slightly to the judge before returning to his seat.
As soon as he sat, the middle-aged man beside him couldn't help grinning from ear to ear.
"The rumors weren't lying. You're really the best prosecutor in town!"
Kyle glanced at him from the corner of his eye, his heart swelling pridefully from the praise.
Shrugging coolly, he hushed, "Don't get excited so soon. The judges haven't come to a verdict.
At this, Joshua Parker instantly stopped smiling and waited.
But deep down, the two men already knew what the verdict would be.
If the attorney's defeated look wasn't enough to convince them, his client's outburst a moment ago certainly was.
"The court has come to its verdict."
Hearing this, the small crowd in the back straightened up, as did Kyle and Joshua.
"After a week of having this case dragged out, the court has come to the conclusion that Joshua Parker…"
The judge paused, lowering his eyes to look at the paper in front of him before he parted his lips to speak again. "…is not guilty!"
Instantly, a chorus of boos erupted from the gallery.
Joshua Parker jumped to his feet, temporarily forgetting himself as he shook Kyle's hand firmly in excitement.
A moment later, security appeared by their side, leading the two men out to shield them from the discontented crowd.
Outside, they were protected on both sides as a car pulled up for them to enter.
Once inside, Joshua whipped out his phone to check the news headlines, unsurprised to see the trending hashtags calling for him to be removed as bank chairman, alongside it was a call for Kyle Mercer to be disbarred as a prosecutor.
Putting away his phone, he turned to Kyle.
"If you ever need to take out a loan, say, to enter a partnership with your firm, I'll be sure to put my position as bank manager on the line for you."
Kyle merely looked at him before nodding.
Afterward, Joshua returned to his phone and made a call.
"I told you it'd go well. Oh, baby, I miss you so much already. What? So what if they fired you? You're too good to be an air hostess anyway. Don't worry, I'll bring you into the bank to work for me…"
As he spoke on the phone, Kyle's eyes fell to the floor where he saw a novel peeking out from beneath the seat.
Picking it up, his brows lifted in surprise at the explicit image of two men kissing on the cover.
"Oh, that nonsense. My ex-wife used to read it. Toss it out of the car once you're done looking, would you?" Joshua paused from his call to say, then promptly returned to it.
Kyle was just about to do so when his eyes caught the tags.
Hmm.
A stalker romance. And the main lead was a Chad Duncan. What a dreamy, quarterback name. If the main character had such a name, the book had to be good.
As an avid reader, he rarely red subtexts or synopsis of anything before reading as he believed a book was good as long as the first three chapters kept him engaged.
But this was his first time coming into such close contact with this genre. Since he hadn't bought it himself, and he needed something to feed his eyes before they reached the firm, he decided not to toss it out and instead began the first chapter.
By the end of chapter one, he was already hooked and dove straight into chapter two.
It was a bulky book, so he could tell it had at least a hundred chapters, and as a sucker for long novels, he couldn't be happier.
"That's when realized. His stalker wasn't a woman. It was the head of…"
Bang!
The car suddenly slammed into something.
Kyle had forgotten to put on his seatbelt, and because of this, he was thrown forward from the impact.
His vision blurred when he came to and he instinctively tried to get out of the wrecked car, only to realize he was stuck with the passenger seat in front pressing against his legs, pinning him in place.
He tried to reach for his phone, all to no avail. Just when he gave up hope, another car pulled up by Joshua Parker's side and two men pulled him out.
Then they walked over to pull out the driver.
Thinking they hadn't seen him, Kyle choked back the blood in his lungs and called out loudly.
"Hey! I'm in here! Help me, please!"
Panic clawed at his throat, but his pride refused to let him sound desperate.
Seeing them turn toward him, he exhaled in relief, his voice cracking slightly as he yelled out again, "It's the front seat! I'm trapped between it and mine. Please help me out!"
But instead of the help he expected, a liquid suddenly began spilling down and into the vehicle.
At first, he thought it had begun to drizzle until he caught the whiff of the smell and froze.
"Guys… I-I think the fuel tank is leaking."
The words were barely out of his mouth when one of the men crouched to his level.
"Fuel tank? You're so intelligent but can't tell the difference between fuel and kerosene?"
Staring into the man's face, Kyle's pupils dilated.
"Carl Lawson."
Carl Lawson grinned. "In the flesh."
Kyle swallowed.
His arch nemesis just happened to chance upon the site of his accident, just what were the odds.
On a normal day, he would never ask this disgusting man for help, but today…
Swallowing, he looked Carl in the eyes.
"What are you doing here?"
"Getting rid of an arrogant bastard like you." Carl chuckled as he stood again. "We've been adversaries for so long, but honestly, you're becoming a big shot way too fast. And how old are you? Twenty-seven? I'm already thirty, and I'm lagging way behind."
"So I thought… what's the easiest way to solve this? At first, I just wanted to ruin your reputation. But when you took on Joshua Parker's case, I couldn't stand by and do nothing any longer."
"We prosecutors are such horrible people and thus, are destined for one place, so…" squatting again, he pulled out a match, and watched in relish as Kyle's eyes widened in fear.
"We can talk about this. I'll give you everything I own, Carl, everything!"
Ignoring his screams, Carl got on his feet again and took several steps backward before tossing in the match.
"Until we meet again, Kyle."
"Don't you dare! Don't you… argh!"
Kyle's gutwrenching scream filled the air as the car went up in flames.
His skin sizzled, the smell of his burning flesh filling the air and the horrifying pain of being burned alive taking its course.
Life seeped out of him faster than he could think. As his screams died, his eyes settled on the book he had been reading, the name 'Chad Duncan' crossing his mind one last time.
The next moment…
He sprang up at the sudden sensation of cold water on his skin, meeting the leering eyes of a young man at least five years younger than him.
"Chad Duncan, if you keep screaming in your sleep, so help me!"