Page 128 of Family Bonds- Garrett & Justine

“No, Garrett,” Hailey said gently as she shook her head. “Let her process things. I know it’s in your nature to stay, but she might need to gather herself. Right, Justine?”

Justine nodded.

“I don’t want to leave her,” he said. It went against everything he stood for.

“Nothing will happen to her here,” Hailey said. His cousin pushed him out the door and then closed it. “I’ll stay right here and can go in if she needs me. Go back to see Roark. Let Justine’s sister know what is going on.”

He reluctantly moved a few doors down to Roark’s office.

“Is she okay?” Karly asked. “Maybe I should have said more of what she was going to see, but I know she knew what happened and saw pictures of the scene.”

“She’ll be fine,” he said. Because he had to believe that. “I think just hearing her father’s voice and seeing it was a lot to take in, even though she knew the outcome.”

“That is what I said,” Jordan said. He could see Justine’s sister on the screen now. “Is she okay? I mean really, is she? I know she was white and I didn’t want her to pass out.”

“She’s lying down,” he said. “In another office and someone is outside the door if she needs anything. Do you want to talk to her? Do you want me to bring you down there?”

“No,” Jordan said. “She’ll come to me when she’s ready. I trust that. She does need a few minutes. She will hate that she just broke down and ran like that and is going to feel embarrassed over it too.”

“She shouldn’t feel that way,” he said. “I’m not sure how she sat through it. I don’t think I could have if it were my father.”

He was almost as ill as her watching it and didn’t even know the man.

But he knew the woman he loved and that she was struggling over it herself.

He turned his head when Justine came back in with Hailey next to her.

“I tried to tell her it was fine to lie there, but she said no. She needed to finish this,” Hailey said.

“I knew you’d come back,” Jordan said. “Faster than I thought though.”

“I need this over with,” she said. “Dad is going to get justice and I want to see Elise’s face when this comes out. I want to hear what the DA and the detective say too.”

“That’s my sister,” Jordan said proudly. “Then you and I can grieve together again.”

“We need to do a lot of things,” she said. “But right now, I want to fast forward this next hour and then go home and try to pretend it doesn’t exist for a bit.”

“We’ll do that,” Garrett said. “I promise.”

Justine had to work on Sunday night, but they were going to stay in Boston for the weekend. He’d try to take her mind off of this as much as he could, though he didn’t know that was possible.

They sat there and listened to some more things that were found on the tape, but nothing was as damning as that proof that this wasn’t self-defense at all.

After the call to the DA and detective, he and Justine left and drove back to his place.

“That was like out of a movie,” she said. “I hope I don’t continue to see it again and again when I close my eyes.”

He hoped that for her sake too, but something told him that might not be the case.

How many nightmares had he had over the past year with everything that he’d gone through? And he didn’t witness what she had to a loved one.

“We’ll get you through it,” he said.

“Thank you, Garrett. I’m not sure how I could have gotten through that without you today. I know you don’t need that added to your stress.”

“Stop,” he said. “Don’t go there. There was no way I was letting you watch that alone. You heard the DA. This is lock solid. There most likely won’t even be a trial. They are going to show Elise and her attorney the video and offer her a deal most likely.”

“I don’t want her to have a deal,” she said. “I want her to go to prison.”

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