"I have a question for Mr. Bonnefoy." Francis looked up, nodded silently and stood. He was led over to the box and pushed inside, the lawyer grinning and walking close. "Mr. Bonnefoy, how are we to believe that you and Mr. Kirkland raised all of those children with how young you both are? You appear to be around your mid-twenties and Mr. Kirkland looks to be in his early twenties yet the oldest boy is fifteen. How could Mr. Kirkland be his father?"
Francis flipped his hair out of his face. "Well you see. We both seem to be young like you say, but we are in fact much older than we appear. Looks can be deceiving you know." He winked.
The lawyer's smile hardened a little.
"Oh? And how old are you really then?"
Francis tipped his head back and thought hard.
"Hmm…around two thousand now." He smiled brightly. The entire room burst into laughter. "I am just kidding. I am about forty and Arthur is about thirty six."
The lawyer stepped away and a huge grin on his face.
"You cannot possibly be that old when you look so young."
Francis leaned back in the chair and ran a hand through his hair.
"Oui but we keep up well, do we not? We found the trick to staying beautiful forever."
Again he winked.
"Well that information isn't going to help you very much." The lawyer stepped up to a projector. "The blood test results are finally in and we have some pretty damning information to reveal." The lawyer turned a projector on and an image of the results was displayed. "Now, you can quite clearly see a few similarities straight away such as between Alfred and Peter, who are in fact brothers, but there is also quite a bit here that doesn't line up. Look here for instance-" He pointed to Leon's name. "There are a few matches between Leon and Mr. Kirkland but not as many as between him and Mr. Wang."
Another image popped up.
"Yao is his father!" Arthur shouted. "Of course there would be matches!"
"And I want to point out this funny statement." He indicated Emily's name, completely ignoring Arthur. "Emily shares nothing with Mr. Bonnefoy and very little with Mr. Kirkland but she did match up a lot with another person." The name 'Iain Kirkland' appeared on the screen. "Iain Kirkland, brother of Arthur Kirkland and actual father of Emily Kirkland." Emily gasped. "Mr. Kirkland was raising his niece, not his daughter."
"I already told you that my brother doesn't like kids so we took her instead! We both love and care for her more than he ever would have. He didn't even want her!"
Emily burst into tears and Peter tried to calm her down.
"And last, sharing absolutely nothing with either Mr. Kirkland or Mr. Bonnefoy is Ange, also known as Angelica. Angelica was yet another child taken in and raised by these two men but she was stolen away from her poor parents who have been looking for her since the day they lost her; the day she was born. Angelica has been traced back to Lauren Webb and Michael Norton."
Arthur jumped up.
"Lauren Webb is the name my wife took after she faked her death! I told you Ange was the child of my wife and her boyfriend already but they put her on our doorstep to die! They don't deserve to have her back! Not only that but we love her! We've raised her almost from birth! We're the only ones she knows and we're the only ones who have given her a family and a chance at life!"
The lawyer held up a piece of paper.
"This says something different. It's a police report filed on December about a missing child; January 4th, four years ago. This poor couple has been missing their baby daughter for four long years."
"January 4th? But that's a week after she was born! Why would they wait so long to say she was missing if they really cared?!
"They said they were too distraught to do anything straight away."
"Bullshit!"
"Language, Mr. Kirkland. There are children present after all."
Arthur sat down, scowling.
"I think that it's time for closing arguments then the jury will decide."
The lawyer sauntered up to the jury box.
"Ladies and gentlemen, over the last few weeks I have shown you evidence that these two men have taken children that are not related to them and treated them horribly. I want you to make the right decision. These children deserve better than this! They deserve happiness! They deserve to know a world without fear and pain. They deserve to go back to their real families. Please let them."
The lawyer turned and walked back to his seat, winking at Arthur and Francis on the way.
The lawyer representing them stood up, gave a short, halfhearted speech, and sat back down.
"We will take a recess while the jury decides."
The judge pounded his gavel on his desk before leaving.
AN: I finally got this up. I need a break from finals so I decided to finally finish this up. Sorry about the wait.
I realized that no one would believe that Arthur and Francis raised the kids with how young they are so I added that little part at the beginning. And I got to talk about the DNA tests that I've been waiting FOREVER for. Next chapter they will be sentenced. What will the jury decide?