32
Jess
Protection Detail
Riley – Alex and Oz’s junior deputy – steps forward and watches Laine and I huddle on hard plastic chairs lining the wall. We’re sitting where criminals sit. Both sniffling and shaking, but for two completely different reasons.
But at the same time, for the same reasons.
“Girls.” Riley’s somewhere in his twenties, close to thirty, I think. He’s buff and built, with strong shoulders and muscled thighs. He clearly works out, and his hands show he’s a working man that doesn’t mind working hard. But his face… he doesn’t look a day over infancy. “You need to go home. Go to the estate. Let them cover you until Bishop’s done.”
I shake my head and pull Laine closer when she tenses up. I never noticed before how tense she is. I never noticed how her shaking turns almost violent when a man is near. Somehow the quieter, shier, softer sister has become the protector, when since the day we could talk, Laine was always the louder one. She always jumped in head first.
Graham broke her, and for that, he deserves to die.
I’m a changed woman now, and knowing what he did to her, not even knowingallthe details, I know he deserves to die. I’d represent whoever did it.
“Not going anywhere. I’m staying until they bring Bishop back.”
“And if they don’t bring him back today?” Riley cocks his gun decorated hip. “You gonna risk a dead ass for however long it takes?”
“I’m not leaving. He needs representation when they bring him back. I’m just saving myself the trouble of driving across town.”
“You can’t rep him, Jess! Jesus. One, you didn’t even sit the bar yet. And two, the security feed I watched seems to imply a conflict of interest.”
I shrug. “I’m not moving. But I could do with a coffee. That’s what you do around here, isn’t it? You fetch coffee for the real cops.”
“No.” His thick brows pull low over light eyes. “This is bigger than you know. You need to leave. Go back to Britt’s place and stay put. That’s what the chief told you to do, so why haven’t you done it?”
“Because I’m not a fucking sheep!” I sit taller and square my shoulders. “I don’t jump just because the chief told me to.”
“You should! He’s trying to keep you safe, dumbass.”
“I don’t need his help. I don’t need yours, either. Jules is gone; she did as she was told. She’s home and safe. Now I’m waiting for Kane.”
“He doesn’t want you here! He wants you behind the fighters’ gates. He wants you safe.”
“How could you possibly know what he wants? You literally don’t know him. You’re spouting off orders Alex laid down like the good little junior you are, but you don’t get to speak for Kane. You’re here to arrest him. You’ll shoot him the first chance you get, so go away. There are three people on this planet I trust. Kane’s one. My sister is another. You aren’t the third.”
I always took the junior deputy as kind of innocent. Babyish, even. But his bulging muscles and the anger in his eyes dare me to reconsider.
Shaking his head, he turns away and freezes. “Oh, fuck!” His hand whips down to his hip, but too slow, his gun skitters to the floor when three loud pops echo in the room and blood sprays over my face.
The hole in Riley’s back smokes. His strong body collapses like wet cardboard. And with his broad back out of the way, I come eye-to-eye with the Special Agent Fuckface and his smoking gun. And just to his left, Abel Hayes.
The man I’ve dreamt of for months.
The man that’s shot me a million times in my dreams.
Each morning when I wake, I can stillfeelthe blood that dribbles along my forehead. The fiery hot hole his bullet leaves behind.
“Ladies.” Greasy black hair. A long-barreled gun resting by his leg. Expensive loafers that, if being objective, Kane would disapprove of how much he paid for them. He steps forward with eyes that remind me of the night Kane was sick. Death. Eyes of death. “Which one of you belongs to Bishop?”