Chapter 3
Three
EASTON
Four Days Earlier
The cell is colder on Monday morning than it was Friday night. Guards shuffle down the halls like clockwork with shoes worn from hours of pacing, handcuffs clanking with every step. The sound echoes in the freezing chambers.
I hadn’t been able to sleep; Harley’s broken expression haunted my dreams. The fear of not making bail and ruining the life we were building together twisted my stomach.
My shirt smelled like sweat, and the scratchy county-issued pants clung in all the wrong places.
The metal bench is colder than I remember, and it left a ridge down my spine after three nights of trying to pretend it was a mattress.
I press my palms against my knees to keep them from shaking, but it doesn’t stop the gnawing inside me.
I swore to myself I wouldn’t end up back here.
I swore it to Harley. My Little Bird . To my parents who gave me a second chance when society didn’t think I deserved one.
I told Harley I’d be better. I told her she could trust me with her heart, with her future.
She looked at me like I was the only safe place she had left in this world, and I’ve ripped that out from under her.
I could see her face when I called my lawyer, hear her voice in my head when I said I wouldn’t screw this up again.
That promise feels like a noose now, tightening with every breath.
I’ve had nothing but burnt coffee, mystery eggs, and the smell of other men’s sweat for company. No Harley. No daylight, except the slice that cuts across the floor from the high barred window. I wasn’t sure if she wasn’t allowed to visit or chose not to.
All I know is that I fucked up.
I pull my knees up to my chest and let my head fall back against the wall.
The stone is cold and unforgiving, like it wants me to feel every ounce of the mistake I’d made.
Rick hadn’t been impressed with me either.
Calling him Friday night had been humiliating, after all the times I swore I’d never end up in this hellhole again. And yet—here I fucking was.
Leaning against the wall, I gripped the pay phone like it was the only thing keeping me tethered. The plastic receiver was icy against my ear, sticky with the sweat of a hundred other hands. It made my skin crawl.
“Hello?” Rick’s voice cracked through the line, rough and tired. He already knew it was me; caller ID had given me away. Still, he answered, because Rick always did. Defense lawyers don’t sleep. They don’t take sick days. They just carry the weight of men like me.
“Rick, it’s me.” My throat felt raw. “Easton ? —”
“What the fuck did you do?” His bark landed like a fist.
I dragged in a breath that rattled more than it steadied. “It’s a long story, and it doesn’t look good. But you have to believe me, I did it for the right reasons.”
“You always do,” he muttered, weariness threading through the words.
My head dropped forward, eyes burning as they searched for something—anything—that might make this sound less like another broken promise.
“I need your help,” I said quietly. “I have to get out. Harley needs me.”
A beat of silence. Then, sharper, “You’re still with her?”
“We’re supposed to be getting married in a few months.
” The confession scraped out of me, heavier than it should have been.
Guilt slammed into my chest. Rick hadn’t even been invited.
Harley and I wanted something small, just family and the closest of friends.
And yet here I was, telling him like it mattered.
Rick exhaled, a sound halfway between frustration and pity. “I’ll be there in the morning. I know you’re a good kid, Easton. I’ll do my best.”
The line went dead, and I sat there with the receiver still pressed against my ear, like maybe if I held on long enough, I’d find the words that could make me believe him.
A guard escorts me to a room that reeks of stale coffee and the kind of sweat that clung to concrete. It was warmer than the cell I’d been confined to, with a thick pane of scratched glass separating me from the rest of the world.
I sit across from Rick, my wrists itching from where the cuffs had been, trying not to look like a caged animal.
Even though I feel like one. Rick didn’t bother with small talk, but he never did.
He drops his briefcase on the table with a thud and gives me a long, assessing stare over the rim of his glasses.
The last four years had been kinder to him than I expected. The beer belly I remembered was gone, the double chin too.
“All right,” Rick says, flipping open a file. “Start from the beginning. Don’t leave anything out.”
I rub my palms against my knees and lean forward, the words spilling out before I can stop them.
“We were at a music festival. Harley and I met up with her best friend, Kennedy, and her new boyfriend. He was supposed to get us into the VIP section. Everything was fine. We were sitting around, dancing, just hanging out. Then I saw one of his friends slip something into Kennedy’s drink.
He thought no one noticed. But I did. And I wasn’t gonna let that slide, Rick.
I grabbed him, called him out. Next thing I know, he’s swinging at me.
I hit him back. Harder than I meant to.”
Rick’s pen freezes mid-scratch. He looks up over his glasses, tired eyes narrowing. “The kid you hit has a concussion. He’s pressing charges. The DA is going to make you look like a violent repeat offender who can’t control his temper.”
The air seemed too thin around me. My chest tightens. “He was going to hurt her. I couldn’t just stand there.”
“Easton.” His voice cracks like a whip. “Intent doesn’t matter in an arraignment.
Optics do. Today isn’t about guilt or innocence.
It’s about bail. About whether the judge believes you’re capable of staying out of trouble until trial.
So, when we go in there, you keep your mouth shut.
Let me do the talking. No outbursts. No excuses. Understood?”
I shake my head, shame burning hot in my chest. “I promised Harley I’d be better than this. I promised her I wouldn’t end up here again.”
“Does she know what happened? That you were protecting Kennedy?”
I shake my head again. “I haven’t been able to speak with her.”
Rick sets his pen down and finally looks at me, not like a lawyer, but like a man who has been down this road too many times with too many broken kids. “Then you better give me something I can work with. Because if this goes south, Easton, promises won’t mean shit.”
The guard bangs on the door. “Time’s up.”
Rick snaps his file shut and stands, smoothing his tie. “Arraignments in ten. Get your game face on.”
And just like that, he was gone, leaving me with the hollow sound of my own pulse and the taste of fear thick on my tongue. I don’t want to disappoint my Little Bird … but I wasn’t sure we’d survive a second round.
The clank of my shackles echo off the paneled walls, louder than it has any right to be.
Every step I take across the courtroom floor feels like a spotlight is on me.
I keep my eyes down, but I can feel the stares of strangers, lawyers, and even the bailiff, sizing me up like they already knew who I am.
A repeat offender, a man who can’t stay clean, a lost cause.
The cuffs bite into my wrists as I sit beside Rick, the chain at my ankles rattling when I shift.
He doesn’t look at me at first, just flips through the file in front of him with sharp, practiced movements.
Only when I lean forward does he murmur, “Quiet. Steady. Don’t make my job harder.
” His voice is low, but the warning in it hit harder than the steel digging into my skin.
I try to swallow, but my throat is dry. I take one quick glance around the room, and that’s when I saw them .
Harley.
Kennedy.
My parents.
She’s in the second row, small and fragile against the wooden bench, her hands knotting so tightly in her lap that I can see the whites of her knuckles from here.
Her eyes are red, swollen, but unflinching when they meet mine, and for half a second, the world around me dulled.
She is here. She still believes in me enough to sit here, to look at me, even like this.
Beside her, Kennedy is a fortress. Back straight, lips pressed into a line, her arm angled protectively toward Harley. Her gaze cuts through me, too, sharp and unyielding. Maybe anger, maybe fear. Probably both.
My parents were on Harley’s other side, both of them wearing matching expressions of worry and fear. I wonder what they think of the situation. Did they think I was guilty because of my past? Did they regret finding me and giving me a chance at their company and in their lives?
Relief washes through me when my gaze lands back on Harley, but it’s poisoned.
Because Harley doesn’t belong here. She belongs anywhere else—at the newspaper, planning our wedding, laughing in the sunshine.
Not in a courtroom, watching as I’m chained like an animal.
Every promise I’ve made to her, the vows I haven’t even had the chance to speak yet, felt like ash on my tongue.
“All rise,” the bailiff barks, and the sound of benches scraping fills the room as the judge enters. My stomach twists so tight I think I might throw up.
The judge’s robe sweeps across the floor as he sits, gavel tapping once. His face is unreadable, carved from years of men like me trying to beg for mercy. I know that look. I hate that look.
The DA speaks first, her voice clipped and cold as she lays out the charges: assault, battery, a repeat offense.
She painted me as a monster in only a few sentences.
Violent, dangerous, and incapable of restraint.
Words like concussion, prior record, and public safety drum in my ears.
I’m not that person, I was protecting a victim.
Rick rose, calm but sharp-edged, cutting into her narrative with practiced precision.
“My client was protecting a young woman from a dangerous situation. He reacted to prevent harm, not to cause it. He has strong ties to this community, a fiancée, family, a steady and rising career. He is not a flight risk.”
But the judge’s eyes weren’t softening. If anything, they hardened with every word. My pulse hammered.
Then came the words I dreaded.
“Mr. Diggs,” the judge says, voice like iron. “Given your prior history and the seriousness of this new charge, I am not inclined to grant release at this time.”
The floor drops out beneath me. My chest seizes. Jail. Again. Locked away while Harley waits, while life moves on without me.
Rick’s voice breaks through, louder now, pushing back, demanding the court consider my intent, my circumstances. The DA shoots back, her tone sharp enough to draw blood. Their voices blur into background noise, a storm I can’t weather.
Because my eyes have gone back to Harley.
She was trying to hold herself together.
Her chin is trembling, her dark lashes are wet with tears, and her hands shake so badly that Kennedy covers them with her own.
And then, like a dam breaking, Harley folds.
Her shoulders hunch, her face buries into her palms. The sound of her muffled sob reaches me even across the room.
It guts me. Worse than the gavel. Worse than the cuffs. Worse than any cell waiting down the hall.
Because prison can’t touch what I’ve just destroyed in her.