NOAH'S POV
I saw the blood on my knuckles as my fist continued to collide with his face. The bastard was cuffed up and defenseless, taking the beating like a sitting duck, he probably expected the police to intervene.
That wasn't going to happen.
I felt a hand pull me by the shoulder and I turned, hard and ready to give the intruder a taste of my fist but then I stopped, coming face to face with Marley.
"Let go off me." I ordered, not wanting to hurt him.
Every fibre of my being wanted the bastard in front of me dead, he deserved it.
"Noah, Calm down." Marley said as he tried to hold me back.
A cough escaped his battered face.
"You want me to calm down?" I yelled, glancing at Marley and focusing my gaze back on the vile man splattered on the floor.
Marley knew just as well as I did how much of an animal this man was, after all we had spent our time trailing and investigating him, hoping for a breakthrough that had finally come and now he wanted me to calm down!
"If you kill him now, you're sparing him. It'll be an easy way out for him. he needs to suffer and for that to happen you need to let the law handle this."
It took a while for the words to sink in, he was right, a quick death was way too merciful, I release my grip on his collar and his limp body fell to the ground with a thud.
The rage that had blurred my vision was slowly subsiding and that was when I noticed the slightly terrified look on the officers faces, they had stayed rooted like statutes and watched me beat him to a pulp, I guess that was enough to inspire fear.
"And what in the hell are you guys waiting around for? Get that man out of his sight. Now!" Marley snapped at the officers and they hurriedly shoved him into the back seat of the vehicle and sped off.
"You should get that treated." Marley motioned to my bloody knuckles.
"It's not my blood, he's the one who's going to need treatment." I replied coldly.
There were still a few passerbys who stopped to get a glimpse of what was going down, hopefully it was to dark for any of them to have caught a glimpse of what had just happened, the last thing I need on headlines is "Famous lawyer goes berserk on Serial killer."
The forensic team and a couple other officers were still at the scene, collecting evidence and searching for anything else that might be of use.
"I'm leaving." I pulled my keys out of my pocket.
"There's no way I'm letting you drive." Marley grabbed my keys before I could object and signalled to a cop standing guard nearby.
"Do me a favor um..." he looked at the guy's badge and put on a smile "Gerald and get that car back to our company when you're done here. You'll probably lose your job if anything happens to it so I'd be extra careful if I were you, okay?"
"Yes sir." He took the keys from Marley and returned back to his post.
"I can drive myself." I said
"Not in this state, all you do is get yourself killed or some innocent pedestrian. I'll drive you back to the office." He chuckled and tossed his keys in the air before catching them again.
We retired back to my office and I collapsed into my chair, I should have felt victory for this but I somehow all I could feel was unfulfillment, like something was missing.
"Earth to Noah." Marley offered me a glass of whiskey I had stashed in my office, I took it from him and gulped down the content.
"You should have just let me beat him to death." I said plainly
"And then what?" He took the chair in front of me, eyes focused on the glass in his hand.
"Then nothing, he'd be dead. Problem solved, the bastard had it coming, you know that." I said and poured my self another glass.
"I do and I want him dead too, but think about it. What about the other lives he took, if you killed him then and there, the other victims he took people from, they don't get their justice, now do they?"
I closed my eyes, I hated when he was right and he was right quite a lot of times.
"You know I'm right, don't fight it." He chuckled.
"Stop reading my mind." I teased and laughed, feeling a bit better.
"Enough talk about the case, the girl. How was she?" A mischievous smirk crept on his face.
I rolled my eyes, I had almost completely forgotten about that.
"Other than being a rip-off of the original agreement, not much." And I wasn't lying Rayna didn't have the kind of aura I remembered Vivian having. She wasn't completely unattractive, but she just wasn't it. Either way I was keeping her as a lesson to her face.
"She can't be that bad."
"Do you want her?"
"You know that's a hard pass from me, she's not my type. She must really remind you of the other one though, since they're twins."
"There's still something very different about them, something incredibly innocent about this one and Vivian's the exact opposite." I remembered Rayna's terrified face when I told her to take off her panties, a part of me could imagine Vivian being aroused rather than terrified by that order.
"You're getting a double package, this is why you should always listen to me. How did she take it? Knowing her father had basically screwed her over."
"Not well, but she doesn't have a choice." I put the glass on the table and walked to the end of the office, that gave a beautiful overview of the city.
"What day is the trial scheduled?" I asked
"Uh?"
"The trial?"
"Oh, we're back to that. It's happening in two days, why?"
"We have to be ready, he has to get the maximum punishment for his crimes."
There was a pause from Marley, I turned back to see the concerned look on his face.
"You said to let the law handle it, I'm doing it by the book. What's the problem?"
"I just don't want you to do anything irrational."
"Meaning?"
"Maybe we should stay off his trial, we can follow up on his verdict afterwards, we've already done our part."
"Our part? We're lawyers Marley, this is our part, making sure justice is served."
His hand moved to his temples and he rubbed them slightly,
"We did the cop's jobs for them, our team was on this twenty four seven, Noah without us they probably wouldn't even have the guy. I'm not saying we should forget it, this guy gets you too riled up, I don't like it."
"I'll be fine." Since I was the lawyer in charge of the case, I'd get assigned to be the opposing lawyer in court and then I would get to see this go down.
******************************
I got out of my car and made my way into the court house, the day had finally come, the day for his trial. I ran a hand through my hair and walked up to Marley and the owner of the law firm we worked for and some other guy with a briefcase waiting in front of the court's door.
"Mr Gold, how nice of you to join us." Johnathan the CEO said and shook my hand.
I noticed something weird in Marley's expression, he was dodging my eyes. What in the world was going on with him?
"I hope I'm not late, when do I go in?"
"Go in?" Johnathan asked looking confused.
"Yes, for the trial, or was it moved to a different date." That couldn't have happened without me knowing or something about it being said on the news.
"I thought you had informed him Mr Marley." Johnathan turned to Marley who just gave an awkward smile.
"Would someone please explain what's going on?"
"Jason over here will be our representing our firm as the opposing lawyer." He pointed to the mid looking guy I had noticed earlier.
"Nice to meet you, Mr Gold." He extended his hand but I ignored h and shifted my eyes back to Johnathan.
"Why was I removed?" I was starting to get ticked off, Johnathan wouldn't dare do anything to upset me, I was too valuable an asset to him, which made me a bit confused as to what was going on.
"I asked him to." Marley blurted out and I shot him a deadly glance.
"See you inside." Johnathan said noticing the tension and walked into the court followed by the other guy.
"You had better start talking."
"I sent a plea to Johnathan, I saw how this was making you get so I told him."
I let out a sigh, I understand his intention but I was still pissed.
"I'm going to kill you for this." I hit him playfully on the shoulder and walked into the court. He smiled, knowing I had forgiven him and followed behind me.
We took our seats and I had my eyes glued on the replacement lawyer.
"The accused suffered several cases of abuse as a child and even as an adult, and while that's not validation for crimes it does show that his actions were a reflection of his mental state...we'd like to take the insanity plea and rather than jail be put in rehabilitation."
Wait, what?
I looked to the lawyer expecting him to object or say something but the imbecile stood there almost like he was in agreement.
"Does the opposing side agree?" The judge turned to Jason.
I could tell he was about to say yes and I shot up from my seat without thinking.
"Yes"
"No"
Our voices echoing the rooms at the same time.