Every Rose has it's Thorn.

Chapter 19 - Where is the Justice?

A Week Later;
Jeremy Irvine...

Closing the heavy wooden door once I let the lawyer out - the clunk echoed through the house. Dropping my head against the old, durable wood and taking a deep breath. Anger was coiling inside me. Anger that this had even happened in the first place, but now this. Where the fuck is the Justice?

Is it any wonder that rape and sexual assault victims don't tend to come forward?

Fucking Jonah had his plea-hearing in court this morning and not only had that bastard pled not guilty, but he had been released on bail. His dear old parents had forked over the 20-grand bail request - and now, he was a free man, until the actual case went to court, which we still don't have a date for as of yet.

Shayne had crumbled when we received the news from my lawyer. Matthew Hollingsworth the 3rd, had been my lawyer in London for as long as I could remember. Initially, he had flown up to defend me when I had been called into court. Thankfully with his expertise and the cold hard facts of the case, I was found not guilty by reason of self-defence. Granted it was in defence of Shayne, but I was not looking a gift horse in the mouth. Once he had defended me, Matthew offered to represent Shayne in her own trial against Jonah. I think that my lawyer had ended up taking a liking to Shay and wanted to help her in any way he could.

Unfortunately, thanks to Jonah and his loud-mouth; the media had caught wind of the story and we had been bombarded with reporters and paparazzi trying to catch us together, begging for any little detail of us.

Were we a couple?

How had we met?

Would we get through this?

Are there any plans to get married?

I was used to this intrusion on my life - and I knew that Shay was to an extent, but she had never been the sole focus of this attention before and honestly, I am worried about how she is coping with it. I have watched her retreat further and further into herself. Since we got home from Aberdeen after the attack - she has left the house once and that was to accompany me to court. The rest of the time she has shut herself away inside this house, Hell she doesn't even go out on to her own decking anymore. I want to make it better. I want to ensure that she is safe and can get past what happened to her. But I honestly have no idea how to accomplish that.

Slipping the steel bar into place, as I have grown accustomed to doing while we are here. Jay and Hailey would be here soon, and I would lift it to let them in but for now, it made Shay feel safer, so I did it without question. The rest of the house lay in darkness as all the blinds and drapes were closed to ensure none of the paparazzi could get any pictures of us inside. Making my way back into the front room where Shay was curled up in the corner of the long sofa - her ankles and feet tucked underneath her, her long once vibrant red and black hair now hung lifeless and limp, devoid of make-up - and she was still hands down the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Long gone were the tight-form-fitting clothes that she had once worn with confidence. Now replaced with baggy sweats and over-sized t-shirts that showed no sign of the phenomenal figure underneath. It truly hurt to see her like this. A shadow of her former self.

Now that Jonah was out - I can't imagine that she would get back to who she was any time soon. I know I have no right to tell her how to be, or what to wear but I wished that she could see that it didn't matter what she wore - if he was going to do it, there was nothing in this world that would have deterred him from his goal. For now, she seemed to take some sort of comfort from the loose clothing, and I wasn't going to take that away from her.

"...did you put the bar in place?" She glanced up at me before going back to picking at her nails.

"Of course," dropping onto the sofa next to her, she shuffled herself around until she was curled into my side. My arms, automatically, wrapped around her and held her close, lightly pressing a kiss to her head, "want to talk about it?"