11. Evgeny
Evgeny
Idrive away from Harper, even though it’s the last thing I want to be doing.
I’d wanted to haul her stubborn, inquisitive ass into my arms and kiss her like I’d done the other night.
When she’d jumped in front of me, calling me Mr. Nikitin and demanding I answer her question, the one that makes it clear she knows Sasha was already on retainer, I’d wanted to wrap my hand around her slender throat while I forced her to her knees.
It’s painfully obvious she will never stop asking questions, but she can’t talk if her mouth is stuffed full of cock.
Unfortunately, I’m unable to make that fantasy a reality.
I’m not sure which part excites me more, the idea of her mouth wrapped around me or the blessed silence of her no longer being able to speak.
Her mouth around me, I quickly decide. I imagine nothing on earth would feel as good as the wet heat of her mouth suctioned tightly around my length while she sucks and teases me with her tongue.
“Fucking hell,” I mutter, grabbing my family cell and calling Niki, forcing my mind back to where it needs to be.
“Tell me everything,” he says, picking up before the first ring has even finished.
I relay every detail of this morning’s arraignment, ending with Cindy making a mad dash for a hug and Uncle Lev having to step in before one of the officers could touch her and send Sasha into a murderous rage that would end our case before it’s even started.
“Tell me about Judge Mathis,” he says, and before I can answer I hear his fingers on the keyboard, knowing he’s already looking him up.
“He’s a good judge,” I say. “I’m just thrilled we weren’t assigned Matthews. That guy fucking hates me. This is already going to be an uphill battle without that extra challenge. Mathis is decent, though. He’ll stay unbiased. He’ll keep it fair.”
“He looks clean from what I’m seeing,” Niki says, and I can hear the disappointment in his voice. If he’d found any secrets, we could’ve used them as blackmail.
“I’m headed back to the office now. I’ve got my private investigator looking into Rosalie. I can’t believe you and Sasha have been running side operations.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Niki says. “I was on my own. Sasha butted in because he’s way too overprotective.”
Niki might be trying to make light of it, but I hear the pain in his voice, and I know the lightness is all an act. I doubt my cousin sleeps more than an hour or two a night over the next month. He’s going to work himself into the ground trying to prove Sasha’s innocence.
“He’ll be okay,” I tell him. “He misses Cindy and the girls, but he knows he just needs to hang in there until we can find evidence that exonerates him. Once we do that, the charges will be dropped and they’ll have to let him go.
This is not going to trial, Niki,” I tell him, hoping like hell I don’t have to go back on my word.
“You told him not to kill anyone, right?”
“I did,” I reassure him. “He’s going to behave. He’s not going to do anything that will keep him away longer than he has to be.”
When I get close to my office, I say, “Tell everyone I’ll be by Uncle Lev’s later. The only good thing about all this is that I won’t have to sneak over. Everyone expects me to talk to my client’s family. I’ll get to drive my own car and walk in like a normal person.”
“I’ll make sure security doesn’t let any reporters by in case someone follows you. All our names are off our leases, but you know how that goes.”
Harper immediately pops into my mind. “Yeah, I know how that goes.”
Niki immediately picks up on my tone. “She still bothering you?”
“She’s not a problem,” I say, probably a little too quickly, but Niki doesn’t push it.
“Fine. I’ll keep working on this, and I’ll see you tonight.”
“See you tonight,” I say, hoping like hell I have more news to give them later.
Seeing the look in my uncle’s eyes had been hard enough.
I don’t want to see it again after telling him I haven’t found a damn thing that can help us.
Cindy had insisted on being there today, but my Aunt Jolene stayed back to watch the girls after Riley had grabbed onto her and started crying.
The others had joined in, and she’d refused to leave them when they were so upset.
She said she knew Sasha would want her first priority to be the girls, so that’s what she’d done.
The girls know something is up, but so far they’ve just been told that there’s been a misunderstanding and that Uncle Ev is going to fix it.
I don’t think any of them are buying it, but it’s not like we could tell them the truth.
We wouldn’t even have told them that much, but the cops swarmed their house after Sasha was arrested.
They had a search warrant, and there was no hiding it from the kids.
Cindy managed to keep them from watching the actual arrest, but she’d filmed it so I’d have proof that he went willingly.
Unfortunately, everyone had pulled in tight when Alvarez kicked Sasha, so there’s no clear shot of that, but she captured Sasha’s surrender so they’ll never be able to claim he fought them.
It had been quick thinking on Cindy’s part, and it’ll help protect her husband.
Niki also has the security camera footage so he can see exactly what the police took from the house.
He’ll give me a heads-up if they do happen to find anything that I’ll need to deal with.
It’s not even lunchtime, and my head is already starting to pound.
The stress of knowing my cousin is behind bars and it’s all on me to fix it is overwhelming, and it’s combined with whatever the fuck is going on between Harper and me.
It’s making me feel pulled in two different directions.
I thought I could shut down what I feel for her, forget how it had felt to have her in my arms and focus on my job, but seeing her today had quickly shot that idea straight to hell.
This can’t go on. Something has to give, and that something has to be her. I can’t risk my cousin’s life because I have a fucking crush on a journalist. I can’t face my family tonight knowing my head is only half in the game.
I tell myself once more to get the fuck over it, and then I walk into my office suite. The first thing Gertie does is hand me a stack of messages while saying, “That Harper Reed is one insistent lady. She’s as stubborn as you are.”
It takes a lot of willpower to bite back the sigh I want to give.
Can I not go five minutes without thinking about this woman?
Even when I try, she’s somehow thrown into my face whether I like it or not.
It pisses me off even more to know that I do like it.
I may hate the circumstances, but I can’t bring myself to hate any interaction that I get with Harper.
“Anything else?” I ask, taking the stack with Harper’s name written right on top.
“I’ve canceled all your appointments like you asked me to. Your schedule is clear right now. You sure you want to do that?” she asks, arching a brow at me. “Unless there’s something you’re not telling me, Caleb and I will still need to get paid.”
“You will always get paid, Gertie, and in case you haven’t noticed, I just took on the biggest case this year.”
“You think it’ll go to trial?” she asks. She’s been the secretary to a defense attorney long enough to know the goal is always to get it dismissed before trial.
I grin at her. “I sure as hell hope not. Has Charlie called in today?”
“No, but I’ll put him through as soon as he does.”
“You’re the glue that holds all this together,” I tell her as I start to walk down the hall.
“Don’t think I don’t know that,” she hollers back at me.
I find Caleb in the conference room, papers sprawled out over the large desk while he works on organizing the information we’ve gotten so far.
Lang’s team will start sending things over as part of discovery.
She’s legally obligated to do it in a timely manner, and she may be a tough-as-nails prosecutor, but she’s also a rule follower.
She’ll send over the information as she gets it, and then Caleb and I will spend countless hours going over everything, looking for any inconsistencies, any errors, anything that we can use to prove Sasha’s innocence.
Caleb lifts his head to give me a tired half-smile. “As discovery comes in, I’ll sort it all out, but so far we don’t have anything that will help us.”
“I expected nothing less,” I tell him, walking in and setting my briefcase in the chair beside him. “You know how this goes. No way in hell were we going to get lucky on day two. This is a slow-burn romance, Caleb, not a love-at-first-sight one.”
He lets out a soft huff of a laugh and shakes his head. “Interesting comparison. I never pegged you for a romantic.”
“I’m married to the job, you know that. Me and Lady Justice, we’ve had a pretty hot on-and-off thing going on for quite a while.”
This time his laugh is louder, and I’m glad I could pull him away from everything for at least a couple of seconds.
This case is going to be brutal, and I’m going to push him harder than I ever have before.
I’ll compensate him for it, but I’m not going to go easy on him.
I can’t afford to, not with Sasha’s life on the line.
“Come on, I’ll ask Gertie to get us coffee and then we can start in on all this.
Gertie’s going to put Charlie through as soon as he calls.
I want this case dismissed before trial,” I say, ignoring the surprised look he gives me.
It’s always the goal, but we both know it rarely happens.
That’s why I usually focus on getting a case ready for trial instead of focusing solely on a dismissal.
“You really think he’s innocent, don’t you?” he asks, and then quickly backtracks with a pretty sarcastic, “I mean, all your clients are innocent, of course.”