“Video?” Reign inquired. “What video?
“Reign, go back upstairs.”
“Absolutely not,” she said, angling so that she was a mere three feet in front of Tiya. “What video?”
“The one that was recorded in his bedroom,” Tiya taunted, with a wild laugh but she flickered a quick look in the direction of the security guard near the entrance.
“Tiya, I’m warning you,” Devesh said, face darkening with anger.
“Awwwww, she doesn’t know,” she said in an innocent tone.
“Tiya, don’t do it,” Devesh warned and he moved forward trying to block her view of Reign.
She scoffed, putting her eyes on Reign. “The one that shows my brother screwing you—”
Reign flexed, and Tiya scrambled out of her chair and quickly took three steps back.
“I’ve never seen a rear end so wide in my life,” Tiya taunted, ignoring Hiran’s gesture for her to be quiet.
She should have listened to Devesh. Or her husband.
Reign snatched up the glass of soda on Tiya’s tray and introduced the contents to his sister’s face.
Tiya inhaled a mouthful of liquid and could barely breathe.
“There is no video,” Devesh said, and his voice was deadly calm. He held Reign against him so she wouldn’t give his sister the beat-down she’d been aiming for since Reign had set foot on California soil. As if nearly slicing her neck wasn’t enough to show that Reign was not to be toyed with.
He leaned in closer so they were a breath apart and repeated. “There. Is. No. Video.”
“You fool,” she screeched, pounding a fist into her husband’s chest. “You didn’t get the master or a copy?”
“Howard was giving me a look at the master right then all those men came into the theatre. I told them to give us a few moments, but they came in before the right movie was queued up. He—” Hiran gestured to Devesh. “Destroyed the rest of them before Howard was picked up by the police.”
“That’s not an excuse. You had keys to his place,” she snarled. “You could’ve went by and found something on his computer.”
Devesh almost released his hold on Reign to let her finish teaching Tiya a valuable lesson. The depth of the couple’s deception was unnerving. Did they know the levels of depravity that they found on that man’s systems?
“We could’ve made millions!” Tiya shook her fist in her husband’s face. “Like that Kardashian whore.”
“The police took everything,” Hiran admitted and took a step back from his infuriated wife.
“So they have all our money right now,” she said, slamming her hand against his chest.
“Hey, we’re going to need y’all to keep it down in here,” a beefy security guard said, ambling over to where the four of them were standing.
They were silent for a moment as Reign put her focus on Devesh, waiting for an explanation that wasn’t forthcoming.
Devesh passed his cell to Reign and said, “We’ll talk about that later. For now, could you finish these out for me?”
Reign studied the screen for a moment, then looked back to him. “Are you serious?”
“As fast as you can.”
She nodded and put her focus on the task at hand.
“I’m going back to India,” Hiran said to Devesh. “There’s nothing for me here.”
“I should’ve never married you,” Tiya growled, punching him again. “You’re weak. Spineless. Coward. You’re a man. You’re supposed to take care of me,” she protested with a wry twist of her thin lips.
“Take care of you; not become a slave trying to do it.” Hiran sighed, and the sound of it was sad and defeated. “It was never enough. It will never be enough.”
“So you’re just gonna leave me here with your little brats?”
“My brats? Not yours?” Hiran’s laugh was brash. Something Devesh had never heard from the man before. “That’s fine. They’ll come with me. My family will help me. Can you say the same for yours?”
Devesh kept his focus on Reign, who was clicking away while his sister’s marriage was imploding right before their eyes.
“That’s how this works?” Tiya asked. “You’re going to leave me with nothing?”
“And what’s the reason you’ll have nothing?” Devesh whispered. “Have you thought about that? No one in this family will help you after what you did.” He flickered his look between the couple. “You ran through that money so quick it was as though you never had it. Now you need more. You can’t even blame it on drugs or something tangible.
“Our parents indulged you way too much, and you feel the world owes you; that everyone owes you something. But you made the choices that brought you to this point in life. You’ll have to live with that, little sister.” Then he leveled a stony glare at Tiya. “Did you know Howard had a tape of Mumma and Papa?”
Tiya’s hand went up to her mouth. Reign’s head whipped upward to him.
“And he had several images of your little girl in a pedophile sharing network.”
Reign gripped Devesh’s shirt, “Did he—”
“No,” he answered. “There weren’t any pictures of Leena or Kamran. We made sure of it.”
“We?” Reign shot back. “Who’s the we you’re talking about?”
“He wasn’t supposed to do that,” Tiya said with an angry look at her husband who shook his head. “He was only supposed to give us Devesh and Reign.”
Reign slid the phone into Devesh’s hand. He turned the screen to face Tiya.
“I have a one-way ticket to Omaha for both of you,” Devesh explained. “And a single residence room waiting.”
“You can’t do this,” she said, alarmed, probably because she realized that the opposite might be the case. “I’m going back to India, then.”
“With what money?” Devesh challenged as Hiran seemed oblivious to the exchange since he was scrolling through his phone.
“The money that—”
Hiran coughed into his hand, ending Tiya’s sentence. “Actually, I used the last of it to pay the movers, who charged us triple by the way,” he said shooting a glare at Reign. “We’ve been living in a hotel suite. There isn’t any money for a ticket for you to India. I can’t even buy a bus ticket to Los Angeles.”
“I’ll pay for you both to get to Nebraska,” Devesh offered. “But the children will remain here with us. Mumma would not do well without seeing her grandchildren. She’ll be worrying about whether they’re being taken care of. We can raise them right, here.”
“We?” Reign asked, blinking her confusion. “What do you mean—we—Indian man?”
“I mean, that the children—my niece and nephew—are at the point where they can learn to be better. We can influence them and—”
“I need a plainer interpretation of that whole “we” thing, Mr. Maharaj. Because your mother and father are in no position to care for another set of children full-time.”
“Alright,” Devesh said facing her head on. “They will stay with us.”
“And you’re putting that out there without asking me first?” she snapped, moving so she was directly in his space. “You’re just telling me that I’m going to have to accept the children of my known enemy into my house?” Now it was Reign pushing a hand into his chest. “I’m supposed to split my time with them and my own children?” She shook her head. “I didn’t sign up for that. Hell, you’d better be glad your children made it here. I’m no spring chicken.”
“And you’re no old cluck, either,” he shot back.
She blinked, absorbed that retort and tried, really tried, not to smile. “That was funny.”
Devesh lifted his hand and gave himself a pat on the back, then pulled her away, whispering so only she could hear. “Honey, I know this isn’t what either one of us wanted, but I’m thinking of the children. And it serves another purpose. It’s less likely that she’ll do something stupid if her children are under our care.”
“Now, that’s some Game of Thron
es type stuff right there,” she whispered back, then pulled away to look up to him. She parted her lips to speak, but Devesh kissed her instead.
“It’s settled,” he said to Hiran and Tiya. “The children remain here, and—”
“We get shipped off to some Podunk place where we don’t know a soul.”
“How would my wife say it?” Devesh replied, leaning in so there was only a breath between them. “You don’t have to go, but you’ve got to get the hell up out of here.”
Chapter 42
Reign actually had to come up with that bail money. Howard Gaytan was arrested and charged with several counts of selling and disseminating child pornography. He was the gatekeeper for an underworld of pedophiles who entrusted him to keep their network, file-sharing catalogs, videos, and images of children they held in their possession and shared amongst each other. Though Devesh, Jay, and Anaya had altered the security tapes and had taken other precautions, Howard served up the three sleuths and others in order to get an immunity deal. The police brought charges of evidence tampering against them, but the case was weak because other than Howard’s word there was nothing that connected the trio to any crime.
Those charges were immediately dropped against Jay and Anaya when Devesh confessed, despite his lawyer’s advice, that he alone destroyed the tapes of his family. Devesh also made them aware that Howard was the one to drop the rest of the recordings in the mail to the women he had violated. And Brynn Weimer, the lawyer representing him, made a clear point that he had left all of the videos and photos of those exploited children fully intact for law enforcement to take care of things.
When Devesh stood before the judge, and the television cameras were situated in the back of the courtroom after Brynn put in a motion to bar any press, but it was denied. Some jail time seemed likely, so Devesh angered the prosecutor, Linda Rice, and ticked off his lawyer by asking, “May I have permission to speak freely, Your Honor?”
Linda immediately chimed in with, “Your honor, that is not appropriate. We have all the evidence and his own confession.”
“Oh, I’m not trying to get out of that confession,” Devesh countered smoothly. “But before he makes a determination or sentences me. I’d like to say something that says why I took the action that I did.”
Brynn snapped a look at him that meant she really wished Devesh would let her do what he paid for.
Judge Roseboro said, “You have the floor, but only for a few minutes.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.”
Both Brynn and Linda took a seat.
“Your Honor,” Devesh began with a quick glance over his shoulder at Jay before continuing with, “I had Howard mail those tapes to the women he had violated because he took their power away. I only wanted to give it back. They were women, too. Women just like my wife, my mother, my sister, my cousins—who he also violated that same way.” He paused and looked toward Reign. “If you knew what my wife went through for her to even allow me—her own husband—to see her naked, when another man—actually men—had taken her power. For her to know that someone else had a video of her doing something only that her husband should see, and that Howard would spread it to the entire world …” He shook his head. “I could not allow that to happen. So if I have to spend some time in jail because I did what it took to protect my wife and my family, I understand your position, because the law is the law. But when the law is that blind to punish me for doing what was right so that those images didn’t fall into anyone else’s hands? Not even the police—who are—wait for it—men and who have come under fire for misdeeds. That’s not any kind of fair.
“I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t stab anyone. I didn’t hurt—well, I did put a hurting on Howard’s behind, but he had that coming.”
Chuckles abounded from every area of the courtroom, even not-so-discretely from the judge and bailiff.
“Devesh,” Reign whispered, but it was loud enough that several people turned their heads toward her. “You might want to pull back on that honesty, thing—you’re digging yourself deeper.”
“No, the judge is allowing me to say something that needs to be said,” Devesh answered. “My lawyer has to gloss over some things on my behalf, the prosecutor has her own agenda, but the only thing I have in my favor is the truth.” Devesh turned back to the Judge whose chin was resting in his open palm.
“Now you all want me to spend time in the pokey when I gave law enforcement the full opening of what it would take to find each and every one of those children who is being held somewhere being abused and brutalized every day for men who only see them as property and a source of pleasure. Children who are alone and believe that pain is all the world has to offer them.
“I’ll do my time,” he said, pausing at Reign’s choked cry. “I’ll miss my wife, I’ll miss my children,” he said, looking at the twins and then to Jay, “I’ll miss my friend.” Then he took in all of the people on the rows behind Reign, Jay, Anaya, Aunt Kavya and the twins. “I’ll miss my family and friends, but what I won’t have is any regret over doing what was best to protect my wife from someone hurting her again.”
Brynn sent a pleading look in Reign’s direction.
“Your Honor,” Reign said, getting to her feet. “If I may speak on my husband’s behalf?”
“Yeah, we might as well hear from the entire courtroom,” Linda said sourly as she stood.
The judge banged his gavel then pointed it toward Linda who instantly reclaimed her seat. “I will hear you,” the judge said, “You have five minutes to wrap this up. The Lakers game is coming on and my wife’s cooking Italian tonight. I love both. And her too.” Then he grimaced and added, “Being here, not so much. But this is getting pretty interesting.” He gestured with the gavel for Reign to speak.
“Your Honor, he’s right,” she said. “I love him, but even now I struggle with allowing him to see me as I really am. There’s a man who once told me that Black men don’t like fat women and that I would have to pay him for sex.”
The bailiff, who had to be at least two inches over six feet, scrunched up his face and snapped his attention to the judge, who also frowned.
“When he told me that, I didn’t let a man touch me that way for almost twenty years,” she said. “I allowed myself to believe him and I became a victim of a man who did not see me as anything worth anything except for what was between my thighs. The same way my sister was a victim and killed by my uncle who only valued her for the very same thing. He thought nothing of throwing her down the stairs to keep his dirty secrets. We didn’t have a man in our lives who was willing to protect us. I didn’t have a father in my life to protect me.”
She focused on Devesh for a quick moment. “Only this year did I venture out to date someone. All these years, I thought I was so ugly that no man would ever love me for me. Now I have a husband that has gone to this degree to protect me. In this world where so many people only think of themselves, you can’t know what that has done for me. My husband protected me, and those anonymous women who can press charges on their own. And it was done in a way that still gave the police and FBI the opportunity to find those children and bring those men to justice.
“Somewhere those children are with men who feel they are justified in doing the horrible things that they do. Please put the energy and effort into finding each and every one of them, and putting those men in jail. I pray for those children every single day. While we’re in this courtroom, or when we’re going about our everyday lives—working, eating and laughing and talking about things that don’t really matter; those children know nothing but pain and fear and their souls are being drained of any life they may have. That, Your Honor, is a travesty that bears judgment, not what my husband has done.”
The judge sighed, studied Reign, Devesh, and even the family members who took up five full rows. He also looked to the media who awaited his ruling.
“Though, I do not condone you taking matters into your own hands …” He focused on Linda table and
asked, “How many women have come forward so far?”
“Ummmm,” Linda hedged, looking at her more polished colleague who responded, “About thirty-five so far, but that wasn’t—”
“Thirty five,” the judge repeated and glanced at Devesh. “And how many envelopes did you send that night?”
“Did Howard send,” Devesh corrected.
“Don’t mince words with me, Mr. Maharaj,” the judge warned.
“Seventy-three,” he answered. “I wanted the women to decide if they would involve the police and have their lives ripped apart.”
The judge peered at Linda. “And how many arrests have you made in the child sex trafficking case?”
“One hundred and …”
“Forty-seven,” Linda’s colleague supplied.
“One-hundred and forty-seven,” the judge mused with a quick look at his watch.
“And how many children have you recovered so far?”
Linda flipped through a folder, found some notes, and said, “Approximately three hundred; give or take. But this case is spread across several states and even internationally. It might take a while.”
Judge Roseboro banged the gavel. “I’ve made a decision.”
“Wait! What?” Linda exclaimed, jumping up from the chair.
“You haven’t even heard—”
“That you all have put away twice as many pedophiles as women who didn’t decide to come forward,” the judge finished. “That you’ve recovered nearly five times that amount in children who are safely back with their families.”
Devesh leaned over and whispered to Reign. “Did he just split things down the middle?”
“In reverse,” she replied.
Judge Roseboro narrowed his gaze at Devesh. “Did I hear you call it the pokey?”
Devesh gave him a sheepish smile and said, “That’s what my wife told me.”
“Haven’t heard that word in years.” Judge Roseboro banged his gavel and quickly got to his feet. “No sentence. All charges dismissed. I’m going home to my wife.”
Loving Me for Me Page 28