Page 3 of Bullet

“His club?” I shoot upright, the covers flying off both of us. “Are you fucking kidding me? This guy’s in a biker gang?” So much for remaining impassive.

“Yeah. I guess so,” Willa admits in a tiny voice. She sits up slowly and pulls her knees into her chest. Her tight little black sequined dress rides up, revealing red lace panties. Her blonde hair drapes over her face, she looks so painfully young.“Apparently, that guy who broke his face on Bullet? He’s not going to spin the story like that, and the club’s lawyer is his dad.”

I put my hand on her knee, softening. “If he’s part of a club, they’ll find someone else to represent them. They have lots of money from doing all their illegal activities, I’m sure.”

Willa shakes her head, and the plaintive puppy dog eyes start. “Bullet wasn’t like that. He tried to do something good for me and now he’s probably going to get arrested.”

“They won’t have enough evidence for an arrest warrant. Even if by some miracle they get one, his club would hire another lawyer, someone fancy and expensive, and he’d get out on bail. Even if it’s set stupidly high, I’m sure he has the resources to afford it.”

“But all of this is my fault.”

I shift so I can hug her. She smells like alcohol, sweat that isn’t hers, and the fruity body spray she’s been wearing since she was twelve. “I know that’s what I’ve been implying, but that was wrong. You went out. There are consequences. A guy getting his face beat in, or doing it to himself, isn’t one of them. Every person is responsible for their own actions.”

“He didn’t do anything other than try to help me and now he could go to jail,” she insists, pulling back and wiping her eyes. “What if his club doesn’t help him and he does have to go to prison, or he has to pay some huge fine and doesn’t have the money? What if they want to make an example of him because he’s a biker?”

I barely cut myself off from quoting something archaic about reaping what you damn well sow. “He’s a big boy. If he canhandle being in a biker gang, then he can handle this.” There. That was gentler. Willa hasn’t leapt up from the bed and started pacing the room, or taken this next level, to hysterics and theatrics, so I guess I said the right thing.

“I gave him your card. I told him you’re a lawyer and you might be able to help.”

“You didwhat?”

“Please, Linny. We owe him for this.”

For a change, I’m the one reeling back. As soon as my feet hit the floor, I’m pacing. During the day I make sure I’m so well put together that there’s not a hole in my armor, but right now, I’m in a rumpled pair of cotton pajamas, no makeup, hair a mess, all my emotions reflected on my face.

I try to channel my inner badass, the one who goes to court day in and day out, the woman who is making a name for herself because there’s no case too hard to win. “We don’t owe this guy fucking anything.”

“Oh my god, it’s bad.” Willa cups her face. “This is so bad. You only ever swear when you’re losing it.”

“I’m not losing it. I’m just not going to defend a known criminal. How do you think that would look for me?”

“You’re a criminal lawyer. There’s not a freaking day that passes without you defending scum of the earth and winning.”

I hold up my hand and start ticking points off like a prim teacher. “First of all, we don’t dabble in organized crime. No gangs, no mob. Secondly, no murderers. Third, no sexual assault charges. Fourth, nothing where someone has died.”

“That’s the same as murder. You’re getting redundant. And he didn’t kill anyone.”

“See my first and most important point, Willa!”

“Okay, well, a biker club isn’t a gang and it’s not the mob. I mean, I don’t think it is. Anyway, how much worse is defending a man I know for a fact is innocent, than going to bat for a bunch of wife beaters, drugs dealers, people who don’t pay their taxes or do other shitty fraud, and freaking drunk drivers?”

“My job isn’t to determine guilt. It’s to defend a client who comes to me and pays.”

“Bullet could pay.”

“Let him find someone else. I’m not doing it.”

“Please, Lynette!”

Fuck, she’s slipping off the bed, falling to the floor on her knees. Her hands knit into a tight little ball in front of her chest. She tilts her face up, crystal blue eyes huge in her pale face.

“No. It’s a hard no.”

I take her hands and wrench her to her feet. I want to shake her, but of course I don’t. I would never do that. What I’m also not ever going to do again is let this shit fly. I’ve been allowing it, promising myself it’ll stop, or that she’ll just grow out of it, but it hasn’t stopped.

“You’re banned from ever going to that club again, or any to any other. You’re going to let me get you into college right away and you’re going to go. I don’t give two shits what you take, but this stops. All of it stops. The partying, the random guys coming home with you, the drinking. You’re going to grow up and beresponsible for your own self, or I swear to you that you’re on your own. You’re getting cut off. You’re moving out.”

“That’s not fair!” Her lip juts out and the massive tears keep rolling. “You got all the inheritance money from Mom! You spent it all on your stupid law degree.”

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