(Brad)
The video was still playing in my head when Judge Ames called the recess.
I had watched it twice on that screen before I could fully process what I was seeing. Jade. Her apartment. The apartment I was paying for. A man I had never seen before pulling her toward him like it was something they had done before and would do again.
And Jade letting him.
I stood when the judge stood and sat back down when everyone else sat and I did both of those things without fully being present in my own body. Gerald was saying something beside me but the words were not landing. My eyes were on the table in front of me and my mind was somewhere else entirely.
Gerald touched my arm.
I looked at him.
"Outside," he said quietly. "Now."
I stood and followed him out of the courtroom into the corrido
