Page 3 of Proof

I’d caught enough of my own breath to turn around just in time to see the kid kneeling to collect the papers that had fallen.Sully knelt too. I could hear the pair speaking but couldn’t make out the words. One of the pieces of paper was closer to me than them, so I picked it up. Once Mikey had collected the papers, he steadily walked up to Sully’s desk and carefully laid out the papers into three perfect stacks. He began reorganizing the pages.

“Sorry,” I began, but the kid waved me off.

“It’s fine,” he murmured. His back was stiff as a board and his jaw twitched now and again, but he didn’t try to steer clear of me or ask any questions. He was pretty damn calm for someone who’d just had a gun pointed at him.

“I know better than to enter a room without making myself known.” The young man’s refined way of speaking took me by surprise. His voice was even, and there were no tears, no shaking hands. Other than the moment when he’d dropped the papers, he behaved as if nothing had happened.

“You sure you’re okay, Mikey?” Sully asked from the doorway. He actually sounded… concerned?

To my surprise, I heard Mikey whisper under his breath, “Michael,” before he covered whatever he’d really been feeling with the widest, fakest smile I’d ever seen.

“Fine, Mr. Ferguson. I apologize for interrupting your meeting. May I get your guest any coffee?” he asked as he turned around and dropped his arms to his side.

For a few brief seconds, my presence seemed to have been forgotten because both men stared at each other. Sully with that determined “I’m going to figure out all your secrets” look and Mikey—nay, Michael—defiantly daring the man to try. Electricity crackled between them.

Interesting.

Since it felt like I was eavesdropping onsomething, I glanced at the paper I’d picked up off the floor. The bottom of mystomach dropped out when I saw the name at the top of what looked to be an invoice.

What the fuck?

“What is this?” I asked in disbelief as I held the paper up. I hadn’t noticed Mikey leave, but it probably wouldn’t have mattered if he’d still been in the room.

“Cass,” Sully began.

“What the fuck did you do?” I shouted. “What the fuck did you do?”

I had to turn the paper around again so I could confirm that it was what I really thought it was. The name “Hutch” was in bold print across the top of the page along with a slew of other last names.

“It’s not something you need to concern yourself with,” Sully bit out. He tried to snatch the invoice from my hand. I didn’t let him, though it didn’t matter if I had. My slow-to-catch-up mind was caught up.

The invoice was from the law offices of Asa Hutch, my appeals attorney. The total amount paid to the criminal defense attorney had been in the low six figures and the balance on the account was zero.

I slowly dropped my ass down in the chair. I ran my fingers through my hair as I processed what the invoice meant. “Why?” I asked angrily.

The disbelief and shame of how I’d behaved toward Sully was quickly followed by the stunning and undeniably painful realization that ithadn’tbeen my own family who’d paid through the nose to hire the best attorney money could buy to get me out of prison.

Sully didn’t answer. Instead, he reached for the bottle of scotch again. I managed to get to it before he did and threw it against the wall, not caring about the resulting mess the broken glass and amber liquid made.

Not surprisingly, he didn’t react to my show of anger. The only time Sully Ferguson did react to anything real was when it involved someone he cared about.

Like—

I cut the thought off because there was no fucking way I could go there right now.

“Youpaid Asa Hutch to get me out,” I said. “Itwasn’tmy family.”

I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t connected the dots sooner.

Sully had been the one to pick me up from the police station early that morning after I’d been processed out. It’d still been dark out, so there’d been no press to deal with. Seeing Sully waiting for me on the steps that led up to the police station had been the last thing I’d been expecting.

It hadn’t taken too much effort on his part to get me to agree to talk to him for five minutes in exchange for a shitty breakfast and access to some of my personal belongings he’d held on to for the two years I’d been gone.

I’d figured the return on investment was pretty good. Giving my former best friend a few minutes to provide one or two pathetic explanations for why he’d done what he’d done and maybe an apology was worth getting to tell him to his face what a piece of shit he was and then getting my hands on whatever remained of my personal possessions that weren’t already in my pocket.

I hadn’t been prepared forthis.

“Fuck,” I snapped. “Where did you get the money? Unless you won the fucking lottery, I know you don’t have that kind of cash just lying around.”

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