Page 37 of Fatal Attraction

“Like I said, take it and shove it up your ass. I’ll take my chances at trial.”

“Very well, then.” Harley let out a sigh before she stood tall and smoothed her hands down her dress suit, offering her hand to Ben. “Talk to Delilah and Amber and convince them to testify on his behalf. Rhodes and Hutch will speak with Charlotte and see if she’ll be willing to—”

“I’m sorry,what?” Spike interrupted. “Who says you get to volunteer us? That isn’t our job Harley, it’s yours and Ben’s.”

“Well, given you two are in a relationship with her, I thought maybe you could—”

“Fucking excuse me?” Karl growled, his dark eyes flashing.

Harley froze, her body steeling as stiff as a cutting board. Her lips parted, and then her eyes grew fretfully wide as her pupils bounced between us, the apology written all over her fallen features.

God damnit.

“You’re fucking my wife?” Karl growled again, his chest heaving as he made to stand up but couldn’t thanks to being cuffed to the table.

“Ex-wife,” Spike said with a shit-eating grin, which had me reactively stalking over and slapping him upside the back of his head, eyes tight.

It wasn’t enough though.

Spike just kept grinning and continued to escalate it, bucking his chest against the hard pressure of my shaky hand and saying, “She’s yourex-wife, Karl. You had no problem cheating on her with a teenager, so why do you care who she fucks?”

Karl lost it then, roaring like some untamed predator, and it was all Harley and I both could fucking do to shove Spike back as Karl began yanking at the chains clamped around his cuffs, desperate to break them and start an all-out brawl.

“That’s ENOUGH,” Ben shouted as he shot to his feet, his arms spread and chest heaving. He then pointed a stiff finger at Karl and demanded he sit the fuck down.

Unhappily, Karl obliged

Harley and I released Spike but remained skin-tight close, ready to pounce again if we had to.

“You made your fucking bed doing what you did with Kate,” Ben snapped. “Like it or not, it’s time for you to lay in it.”

Karl’s face bloomed a deeper shade of red, but he didn’t dare speak.

“Thank you, Harley, but our meeting is done. I need some time to speak privately with my client.”

“You do that,” Spike said with a tense chuckle that did nothing but rile Karl up more.

This time Harley popped him upside the head, earning a bare teethed growl in response. Harley only scoffed and then shoved him closer to the exit. I was the last to leave.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“Are you?” he shot right back at her. My head fucking spun the more the revelation of what she’d done washed over me. “You should’ve known Karl didn’t know about our relationship with Charlotte!”

Harley opened her mouth, then tightly shut it, her lips pursed. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” I asked skeptically. “Or was this your plan all along?”

She shrugged, a ghost of a smile flashing in her eyes. “I don’t know whatyou’re talking about, Detective Rhodes.”

I angrily shook my head and called her out on her bullshit. “Oh, I think you do.”

Now it was Spike who was confused. “Would someone care to explain what the fuck is going on?”

“Harley just gave Ben everything he needed to make this a mistrial.”

“Come again?” Spike said like he’d misunderstood me, his brows pinched. “How?”

“Ben didn’t know we were in a relationship with Charlotte, did he?” I asked Harley. “And now that he does, he can file an appeal to have all charges against Karl dismissed.”

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