Page 4 of Proof

“It’s not important?—”

“How?” I demanded, unable to keep the anger out of my voice. Problem was, I didn’t know where to direct my anger.

Sully was still standing by the open door. He came toward me but instead of going behind his desk to sit down, he grabbed the other guest chair and turned it so he could talk directly to me. I’d angled my chair so I could still see the door, but it didn’t get me out of Sully’s pointed gaze. “I took out a mortgage on the house.”

It took me too much time to understand. God, had I always been this slow or was it a result of being stuck with only my own thoughts to keep me entertained for two years?

“That house,” I said with a shake of my head. “It was paid off. Your dad worked so fucking hard to pay it off?—”

“And he would have been the first one to tell me to mortgage it to do what needed to be done. He loved you like you were his own, Cass. I know it may have seemed like he was one of the ones who… who turned on you, but he didn’t. He just… he didn’t know how to be on both sides at once.”

I sighed because I understood what Sully was saying. Sean Ferguson hadn’t been at my original trial, so I’d just assumed he would have been sitting on the other side of the courtroom rather than behind my sad excuse for a defendant’s table.

“I’ll get the money to repay you,” I said firmly. “My grandmother?—”

“No fucking way are you going crawling back to that place. I may as well have left you in prison, you asshole.”

Sully returned to his chair. “Cass, I know you love your grandmother, and she always treated you well, but you’d be stepping into a den of vipers, and you know it. Your grandmother’s what… in her seventies now?”

“Seventy-seven,” I responded.

“If she could have helped you two years ago, she would have, but your father pulls the strings now. He never would’ve let those bullshit charges stick if he’d given even the tiniest bit of shit about you. Even if he had believed any of it was possible, a real father with plenty of money to throw around wouldhave hired as many Asa Hutches as could squeeze around the defendant’s table to protect his kid. I’m sorry to say it?—”

I dismissed him with a wave. I’d known from the moment the cops had put the shackles on my wrists that I’d lost the protection of the Ashby name. Hell, I’d lost it much sooner than that. I’d been left with a public defense attorney who’d sat on his ass more than he’d gotten off it from the moment he’d been assigned my case. At the same time, my father had managed to get access to the sizable trust fund my grandmother had established for me in case of her death or until I turned twenty-one. I’d long ago passed the twenty-one mark, but I’d never touched a penny of the money. When I’d finally needed it, the cash had conveniently disappeared, so I’d had no choice but to rely on the public defender.

“Tell me what you need,” I said simply.

“Cass, that’s not why I?—”

“I know, buddy,” I told him as I stood and rested my hand on his shoulder. “Could be fun training some of your new recruits in exchange for paying off my debt,” I added with a forced laugh.

“I don’t need you to train my guys,” Sully said as I began to leave the office. His voice sounded grim.

I turned around. “You aren’t seriously thinking about putting me out in the field,” I said in disbelief. “Sully, you might as well set this place on fire now because the second anyone associates my name with your business, you’re done. Not to mention I don’t have a license to?—”

“I need you to shadow someone,” Sully interjected.

I shook my head. “Sully, there’s got to be something else you need. If your client or the cops found out I’m working for you?—”

“It’s JJ.”

CHAPTER 2

Jj

“What the fuck?!” I screamed as blackness turned to light and warmth turned to cold.

Cold as inicecold.

Literally.

I scrambled to a sitting position, but it didn’t help. The bucket of ice water had done its job. Frigid water and ice cubes turned myalreadyuncomfortable bed to downright unbearable, and my clothes were so soaked through that I could feel my tight black jeans starting to shrink.

Which had been my asshole of a brother’s intent.

“Get up,” Sully said simply and then he was gone.

“Fucker!” I shouted as he shut the door behind him. I immediately regretted it because the little man with the really big hammer in my head began wielding it against every part of my brain. I searched out my blanket which, thankfully, was only damp since it hadn’t been covering my body when I’d passed out on my bed.

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