Chapter 816 Stopped
Zane had fallen in love with Sonia because of her kindness, and more importantly, he could see hope when he looked at her.
Sonia had been so deeply in love with Toby, only to end up getting divorced by the very man she gave her heart to.
It was quite common for women to get their hearts broken by men in their circle. There were even a whole bunch who had it worse than Sonia.
Those women often give up on themselves, and eventually on life after getting hurt.
However, Sonia, on the other hand, was able to bounce back quickly. She even managed to make herself fall out of love soon after.
She always had that hopeful glint in her eyes. Not only did she not fall into a spiral, she put all her focus into saving the barely-salvageable Paradigm Co., and making it into what it was today.
Sonia was not someone who would stay trapped in a person or in a situation.
She might have battle scars all over her body, but she would always get out as soon as she could. Always one to have the right mentality, she never allowed herself to be drifted by the flow.
She knew that neither heartbreak nor Toby were her life’s priority, and so she wasn’t going to lose herself for the things and people that didn’t matter the most to her.
Instead, she got them out of her head fairly quickly, and with that, she started to create a better, more productive life for herself.
As simple as it might sound, this wasn’t something that just anyone could do.
Zane could even go as far as to believe that if Sonia had been forced to act as a puppet of her family, she would have never conformed. Instead, she would break free from them and create a path of her own.
He believed so because she was always someone with a clear head. She knew what she wanted, and she had the courage to go after her dreams.
She was unlike him and the rest of the bunch, who not only weren’t gutsy enough, but would always end up being brainwashed by their family values, and eventually live the life they never wanted.
It was Sonia’s hopeful gaze that never stopped looking forward that had first caught Zane’s interest. At some point, that interest began to turn into romantic feelings.
Now that he listened to her share her plans for the future, he was suddenly hit by the realization that it was impossible for him to let her go.
Sonia soon realized the fiery gaze on her after she had shared her dreams with Zane. “What is wrong?” she asked, a frown on her face.
Fearing that she would see the raw emotions running in his eyes, Zane quickly dropped his gaze and shook his head. “It is nothing. I suddenly remembered something, that’s all.”
“Oh.” Sonia nodded and didn’t say anything more.
However, Zane was slightly disappointed by her lukewarm reaction, so he asked, “Are you not going to ask me what came to my mind?”
Sonia gently shook her head again. “What is there for me to ask? Everyone has a secret or two. I don’t have to pry into everything.”
More importantly, she wasn’t at all interested to know what was in his head.
Also, they were only normal friends. She could never be thick-skinned enough to ask him something so private.
Zane shrugged when he saw that Sonia wasn’t interested. “Okay, then,” he huffed, even though he wouldn’t have told her even if she had asked.
I’ll probably scare her off if I told her, he mused.
He needed time to calm himself down too.
It had taken him a lot of strength to decide to give up on her, but now that she had rekindled the flame, he was reluctant to give up again.
He knew that it wasn’t right of him to act that way, which was why he needed to calm down and adjust his mentality before he did something that he would end up regretting.
The two of them soon fell into silence as they waited for the court session to begin.
The wait went on for the next 10 minutes. After all the involved parties were present in the room, the judge took a glance at the time and announced the start of the hearing.
The court session was actually for the sake of formalities. They had solid evidence of both Jessica’s offenses, after all. Jessica couldn’t possibly talk her way out of her crimes since she had verbally confessed to them.
She was finally sentenced to half a year in prison, with the consideration of getting parole.
Despite it being a light sentence for someone who had committed those crimes, Jessica immediately panicked and wanted to appeal for a second ruling. Even half a year was too long for someone who didn’t want to go to prison.
It was her constitutional right as a citizen of the country to file an appeal, so the court allowed it.
However, everyone knew that the court wouldn’t change her sentence even if she had the second trial.
That was why Sonia wasn’t that concerned when she heard Jessica’s request to appeal.
Jessica knew better than to act out when she had so many scrutinizing eyes on her, so she gradually calmed down after her outburst.
She managed to calm herself down, but after learning about how the second trial would go, she sat there with a blank face, her eyes staring into the air. She looked as energetic as a soulless zombie.
An unperturbed Sonia threw her a glance before standing up to leave the courtroom.
There was no reason for her to stay any longer since the first hearing had already ended on a good note. She would come again for the second hearing.
Zane, too, stood up and followed after Sonia, but not before he glanced over at Jessica another time and clicked his tongue in disapproval.
They had to walk past Jessica to leave the courtroom, but just as they were walking by her, Jessica was enraged by how Sonia treated her as though she was invisible. Her eyes looked alive again then. She seemed to have thought of something suddenly when she let out a smirk and shouted, “Sonia, aren’t you interested to know who your birth parents are?”
Upon hearing her words, Sonia froze at the spot before whipping her head around to glare at Jessica. “What did you say?” she growled.
The smirk on her face turned more evil when she saw the way Sonia reacted to her words. “I said I know who your biological parents are. I bet you would be so surprised to know that they are—”
Her words were interrupted when the bailiff suddenly covered her mouth.
“Shut your mouth. Court has been adjourned. You have to return to the detention center with us. Stop dilly-dallying and go!” the bailiff barked as she threw a glance at another officer.
As soon as the other bailiff caught her gaze, she nodded and stepped forward before the two of them brought Jessica out of the room.
In order to hide the truth from Jessica, they tried their absolute best to not show a trace of panic on their calm faces.
They were reminded to never let Jessica say a word about Sonia’s birth parents, but due to their momentary negligence, Jessica had managed to reveal to Sonia a hint of the secret.
They could only blame their luck that they had let it happen under their watch.
Even though they had stopped her in time, those who had seen how abruptly they had covered her mouth could have easily guessed that they were trying to cover something up.
The only thing they could do now was hope that Jessica hadn’t realized their true intention.
Sonia let out a frown while she looked at Jessica throwing a fit as she was dragged away by the bailiffs. “The officers looked like they intentionally stopped her from telling me who my birth parents are,” she speculated.
Zane’s eyes seemed to brighten when he heard her words. He then laughed. “How is that possible? You may not know this because you are not part of the system, but after the court has been adjourned, the criminal is the first person who has to be brought out. It could get nasty if the family members of the victim were to get aggressive. And that is why the bailiff was so rough with Jessica. She needed to bring her to the police car as soon as possible. She was just doing her job.”
“Is that so?” Sonia raised her eyebrow and looked at Zane skeptically, in which the man gave a few serious nods in return.
“Of course!” he gushed.
Sonia began to chew on her lower lip as she pondered over his seemingly unbelievable words, but after a while, a smile broke across her face, and she said, “You are probably right. That officer doesn’t even know me or Jessica personally. There is no reason she would do that, right? I probably thought too deeply into it.”
Zane didn’t answer, and only let out a forced laugh. After all, he did feel quite guilty for lying.
