Chapter 38
Geneva
Isipped the bitter, slightly burnt lukewarm coffee. It did wake me up a bit, but it did nothing to assuage how I ached for Rick. The cold, hard wood bench we sat on against one wall of the busy courthouse corridor didn’t help much either.
He had been thrust into an impossible situation. I wanted to reach out to him, to say something, anything at all, that might make any of the shitty mess we’d found ourselves in better. But I didn’t know how.
Instead, I simply drew closer to him, laying my head on his shoulder. For long moments we sat that way, the silence of the morning broken only by the distant laughter that would drift down to us from a group of attorneys gathered together far down at the other end of the hallway, their mirth echoing hollowly off the marble floors.
Rick held up a copy of the Herald, the headline in bold, block lettering:
Real Estate Developer Arrested on Bribery Charges
The picture of Chester being perp-walked through the front entrance of the same courthouse we found ourselves sitting in at that moment was more than a little odd. It still twinged, seeing him, the knowledge that he’d never actually been a real, loving uncle to me something that would take me a long time to truly get over.
But I would—because I had Rick now.
“Most likely—depending upon how good my attorney is at kissing Stanton’s ass—I’ll be joining your prick uncle there in the clink. Maybe sooner rather than later. The Feds don’t fuck around.”
A chill ran down my spine at the image of having to visit him in prison, having to talk to him over a shitty, grainy connection as I sat in uncomfortable, gouged, and squeaky plastic chairs, a thick pane of greasy, scratched wire-embedded glass the closest I’d be able to get to touching the man I needed more than anyone else on Earth.
“How long? If it does come to that?” I hated even broaching the question, but it was impossible not to ask it.
Rick shrugged. “Two to three. Out in less than one, if I get good behavior.” He chuckled bitterly. “At least my stretch would be in Club Fed.”
“Club Fed?”
He patted my knee. “Minimum security. I’ll probably be teaching English, making license plates, taking college courses. You know, hard time,” he joked. His amusement was forced, though. I was certain the prospect of looming jail time was approximately as appealing to him as barbed wire underwear.
The door to our courtroom—Room 12—swung open, Lillian Shaw, Rick’s defense counsel walking out first, a laptop case in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other. The thick cardboard insulation sleeve of the cup seemed almost too big for her small fingers to grasp.
Lillian blew out a breath, fixing Rick with a solemn gaze. “It went well. I need to go draw up the agreement, and get it back to Ellison this afternoon, but yeah… we dodged a bullet today.”
Rick tensed, and I laced my fingers with his in support. “How long?”
Lillian seemed confused for a moment, her long, pretty lashes fluttering. Drinking from her coffee, the tiny pink tip of her tongue licked a drop of the liquid from carmine-painted lips. “No time. Like I said, we got lucky.”
Rick’s mouth fell open, and inside I cheered wildly. Amazingly, I was able to keep it all bottled up, knowing it was what Rick would want.
He’d never liked silly outbursts from me, no matter the reason. Regardless of how justified they might have been.
Rick prized obedience and stoicism perhaps above all else.
It was one of his most appealing qualities despite—or perhaps because of—how alien it was to a girl like me.
“I don’t… how the hell did you get that from him?”
Lillian shrugged. “Hell if I know. But I’m taking it—and running with it at light fucking speed.” She took another sip, shaking her head. “I have to get going.”
Stanton strode out into the hallway then, his phone pressed to an ear, his medium gray suitcoat draped over one forearm, his white dress shirt snug and well fitted, tailored perfectly for the man’s tall, rangy build.
She pointed to Rick with a finger from the hand holding her coffee. “Just… say yes. Okay? You’re not going to get a better deal.”
“Yes to what?” Stanton’s deep voice called out.
Lillian rolled her eyes, but glanced at Rick. “He wants a word. I’ll call you later this morning?”
Rick nodded slowly. “Yeah… okay.”
He still seemed in shock.
Lillian inclined her head toward Stanton. “Counselor…” Then she walked off briskly, her high heels clacking against the marble, her shapely hips rolling in the clutch of a black skirt probably a trifle tight for district court.
“What’s the catch, Ellison?” Rick looked down, grunting softly, a bitterness in his tone. “I mean you have me. Dead to fucking rights. You know it. I know it.”
Stanton dropped his phone into the breast pocket of his shirt. “Two reasons.” He held up a pair of long fingers, the light of the morning sun glinting on the silver of the man’s rich cufflinks.
Good money in government lawyering, apparently.
Stanton continued. “First—my brother.”
Rick’s eyes squinted. “Will? How the hell is he involved in this?”
“He isn’t. Or, he wasn’t—until he called me.”
“Who the ever-loving fuck does he think?—?”
“Listen, Trafford.” Stanton took a seat on the polished wood bench on the other side of Rick.
I gripped him even tighter, hoping to reassure him. Just when things seemed darkest, I dared hope—if only a little—that we might get out of the horrible shitstorm of the past week relatively intact.
Maybe.
“Before you start planning your half-baked revenge plot against my brother, you need to hear this. Are you listening?”
“Yeah… yeah. Fine.” Rick’s tone was seething, but he managed to keep his cool. Barely.
Don’t blow your top on this. Please, Rick.
“The only reason you aren’t sitting in county right now waiting for your initial court date is Will Ellison. My brother and I may not always see eye to eye. Hell, we almost never do, actually. But he’s the best judge of a man I’ve ever known. And I’ve never, ever heard him speak of anyone as highly as he does you, Mr. Trafford.”
Rick sagged back against the wall. “I… I didn’t realize.”
“No, you didn’t, did you?” Stanton set his coat down on his lap, letting it drape over his right thigh. “Because otherwise, I’d have thrown the book at you. I’d have thrown the whole fucking library at you. Because I don’t like you. But I like Mr. Nantes even less.”
“So why then?” Rick almost growled it.
“That brings us to reason number two, the most important one, actually. Inclination.” Stanton paused a moment. “This isn’t even my usual focus. Mostly, I work interdiction now. Trafficking. Smuggling. That kind of thing. This shit?” Stanton waved his hand. “Small fucking ball. Waste of my time, really.”
Stanton turned his head toward Rick, his dark eyes blazing with a fury that had me swallowing hard in sudden fear that all of this was some sort of sadistic game, that at the last moment, the lawyer was going to rip everything away, dooming Rick to disappearing into the nightmarish, Kafka-esque U.S. penal system.
Please, God. Please save him!
“Small-time scumbags like Nantes? Can’t hold a fucking candle to what I deal with. The very worst a cynical, malignant asshole like Chester could do? That’s nothing. An undisciplined, lazy third-rate cartel’s best behavior is far, far worse.” Stanton sighed. “The shit I’ve seen? The thugs I’ve had put away? They aren’t even human. I don’t believe in fairytales, or the supernatural, Mr. Trafford. But I can tell you with absolute certitude that monsters are real. And they’re walking amongst us every day.”
“You don’t understand Chester Nantes then. He’s capable of a lot worse than?—”
“Save it. Just… fucking save it.” Stanton rubbed a big hand over his close-cropped hair. “Inclination, Mr. Trafford. I just don’t care enough to pursue this. Chester is doing serious time. Sure, it’s minimum security, but it’s still time. His rivals will fill the void he’s left. One piece of shit thrown behind bars for a few trips around the sun. It’s good enough. But the rest? It doesn’t matter to me. Not one little bit.”
“That’s the Department of Justice I’m familiar with,” Rick muttered bitterly. “Pick and choose. Equality under the law? It’s a sick joke. Fancy words on a fucking page that don’t mean shit in the real world.”
“I don’t deny it,” Stanton said, shrugging. “You have to pick your battles. You can’t stomp out all the roaches after all.” He stood then. “But it’s your lucky day, Mr. Trafford. The wheels of justice aren’t going to grind you to dust beneath them. At least not today they aren’t.”
“How so?”
“You’re free to go.”
Rick tilted his head. “I don’t think I heard that right.”
Stanton extended an arm down the hallway. “I mean it. No charges.”
“Oh, my God! Rick!” I hugged him so hard, he grunted softly.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he whispered into my hair. “It’s all right. Let me go now. Need to finish this.”
I nodded sharply, hot tears already wetting my cheeks. I tried to wipe them away with the back of my hand, but it was a losing battle, many more taking their place.
The unbearable tension, my fear that I was going to lose the man I’d come to admire, love, and desire. It was too much. My pent-up emotions came flooding out when I realized it was finally all over.
That I would get to keep my sir.
Thank you, God! Thank you!
“There are conditions though,” Stanton intoned.
His knowing half smile as he said the words made me hate him in that moment, if only a little.
It was the other shoe dropping.
“Conditions?” Rick rose to his full height, eye to eye with the DOJ lawyer. “Free to go doesn’t mean ‘with conditions.’”
Stanton’s voice lowered subtly, his gaze flashing. “I don’t think you’re in a position to tell me what ‘with conditions’ means, Mr. Trafford. Do you?”
“Just hear him out,” I said, standing and taking Rick’s right hand in both of mine. “Please…”
“Let’s have it then, Ellison.”
The man’s sharp eyes scanned me a moment before he looked intently at Rick. “You’ll still be selling your company.”
“Like hell I?—”
“If you refuse, the deal is off the table. Full prosecution. Do you want to actually hear the conditions?”
Rick’s jaw clenched. “All right. What else.”
“You won’t be selling it off to just anybody. The DOD has expressed… interest in retaining your staff as, uh… contractors. Especially the ex-special operators you’ve got on your payroll.”
“I don’t have any?—”
Stanton held up a hand. “Save it. We know whom you employ.”
“How?”
“Ask her yourself.” Ellison looked down the hall beyond Rick, beckoning a woman in a long pencil skirt and stylish blue knit blouse toward them.
“And who is that?”
“The person who’s going to be running your company once it’s sold off.”
“Holy shit…” Rick muttered as he turned to see who it was. “Vi?”
The woman, normally as cool as ice, looked tormented, her eyes big and reddened, splotches of color high at her cheeks as if she might have been crying recently. Her normally perfectly coiffed fair hair was piled atop her head in a messy bun. “Rick… I’m so sorry I couldn’t tell you. He made me swear to it. It was the only way he’d help.”
“Tell me what? And who’s helping?” Rick’s voice rose. “What the fuck did you do, Vi? You sell me out to the goddamned Feds?”
“No! Never.” She wiped a fresh tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. “Will.”
“What the fuck…”
“Like I said.” Stanton pointed at Rick. “Without my brother, you and I would be having a much different conversation right about now.”
Viola sniffled, then straightened her shoulders. “It made me sick to do it, but when you told me what Chester was forcing you to do… I had to make the call.”
“Chester told me you wanted to take over once he bought me out.”
“He’s a lying prick. I never said a word to him. I never would have said a word to him. You know that.”
“Except you did with Will…”
“It wasn’t like that.” Viola took a breath. “I asked him for help. If there was anything we could do to stop Chester from… he was going to fucking ruin your life, Rick.”
Stanton broke in. “Will called me. And we came up with something halfway workable. It wasn’t a sure thing, and there was no telling how you might fuck it up anyway in the meantime, but it was something.”
I was utterly speechless.
“None of that matters now,” Ellison continued. “What does matter is that, later this morning, if the DOD procurement guy is doing his stupid job, I’ll have the sales paperwork in hand. Once you sign it, you’ll have your money within forty-eight hours.”
“And if I don’t sell?”
“Rick,” I whispered. “Please…”
Stanton shrugged. “Well…”
He didn’t need to say it.
Rick sat down on the bench, head in his hands. Then he looked up at the ceiling, the veins at his neck standing out, pure torment on his face. “Fuck, this is…”
“…a whole lot better than prison,” Stanton said laconically. “There’s one more condition.”
“Great,” Rick snarled. “What else do you want? My left nut? Firstborn son?”
Ellison chuckled, then suddenly grew as serious as a heart attack. “I want you gone. Find somewhere, and disappear into it. I don’t care where. But I don’t want to see your name anywhere near my radar for, oh, let’s see, just about fucking forever.”
Rick’s gaze locked with mine. “I… think I can live with that.”
I couldn’t help but ask it, trying to ignore the sudden tingling at my nipples, the wet heat sinking deep between my thighs. “Any, uh, ideas?”
“A few,” he said softly, gaze flashing.
Damn…
Without another word, Rick rose, taking me by the hand, leading me behind him as he strode down the hallway toward a future neither one of us could ever have hoped to have.
A future of possibilities, even—if we were very lucky—happiness.
I brought his hand to my lips, kissing it long and hard.
He stopped then, spinning me roughly into his embrace, holding my head in his hard, strong hands. He kissed me then, savagely, his tongue diving deep, exploring all he surveyed, his low growls vibrating through my insides as he tasted me.
It was the most proprietary, possessive kiss I’d ever experienced, and I gasped into his mouth.
I’d do just about anything for a lifetime more of them.
“Trafford!” Stanton called out. “Aren’t you going to ask how much?”
Rick looked back at the lawyer. “It’s not gonna be a dollar?”
A sly smile curved Ellison’s lips. “Uncle Sam pays a bit more than that rate. It’ll be black budget, of course. You know how it is.”
But Rick didn’t answer, turning away, drawing me behind him.
Then we walked out of the courthouse, striding down its sun-splashed steps.