“One of the guys in the club?” I asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Does he know about your sister?”

  “He’s one of the five, yes. Grave pulled me away from Blaze and that’s when I heard the sirens. We took off, but not before Blaze shouted after me.”

  “He… yelled at you,” I said.

  “Yep. Clear as fucking day. He was sputtering blood and shit, but he had enough strength to yell. Loud. Heard his dumbass voice echoing through the woods as we ran.”

  “So, he was alive after you left him.”

  “Very much so. But all of it was self-defense. That little fucker bruised my ribs, cracked my nose, and peppered my body with bruises before I even thought to lunge at him. Diesel told us to stay peaceful, so that’s what we did. ‘Til he opened his damn mouth about my sister.”

  “That he’s not supposed to know about,” I said.

  “Nope.”

  I sat back in my chair and finished taking notes. It was a hell of a story, but I still wasn’t sure I believed him. A ten-year old sister? Something about that didn’t match up. The man in front of me was easily in his latter twenties, which meant there was a good decade and a half between him and his sister. I mean, it happened. Kids were born that many years apart sometimes. But something about the way he reacted didn’t sit well with me.

  “I’m going to need the name and address of where your mother lives if I’m going to have someone check in on them,” I said.

  “Don’t worry. I’m sure my club has got it handled,” Knox said.

  “Mr. Knox, I need to make sure they’re safe. You said so yourself, you pulled away to keep them safe. So, if they’re in danger, they won’t take kindly to a biker gang trying to take them away from their home. But if they are in danger or have already been put in danger, they’re going to be more willing to accept help from someone like me.”

  “I’m not giving you information on them,” he said.

  “I know you’re trying to protect-”

  “Then you know why I won’t do it. My club knows where they are. Diesel gave me his word he’d check up on them. I’m sure he’ll have an update for me when he calls.”

  “Then give me some information about them,” I said. “Your mother’s name or age. Anything I can use to track them down on my own.”

  “You wanna see how they are, or you wanna question them about me?” he asked.

  “There’s a man you’re charged with killing that made a comment about your ten-year old sister giving blowjobs. I have to take that seriously. You want my help? Give me the information I need to at least make sure they’re okay. I can call the police department in the area, have them run by their place, and I can use my confidentiality with you to tell them there’s a threat without indulging who it’s from or why it exists.”

  “No more police,” he said.

  “You don’t have a choice. Police will be riddled in your future until we can get you cleared.”

  “So, you do believe me. That I didn’t kill that boy.”

  “Honestly? No. I don’t.”

  “How can I make you believe me?” he asked.

  “You can start by giving me the information I’m looking for. Then, you can give me evidence that all of this was self-defense or give me answers to the questions I have so I can go find it.”

  “What happened ‘til innocent until proven guilty?” he asked.

  “In a courtroom, yes. With me? Nope.”

  I watched him clench his jaw again as he thought about my proposal. As far as I was concerned, Blaze’s words were grounds for a sexual threat. And with Canyon being only ten years of age, that worried me. It didn’t have much to do with Knox’s case, but I didn’t want any stone to be unturned. I knew I was working against my own biases with this case, which meant I’d have to work not only to prove to Mrs. Lowen that I could do this, but I would have to work to prove his own innocence to myself if I was gonna help this man.

  But if he wasn’t innocent… if he did, in fact, kill that boy… I would recuse myself, quit, and leave.

  Because I sure as hell wasn’t defending a murderer in court.

  “Nancy Schroeder,” Knox said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “My mom’s name. It’s Nancy Schroeder. She lives on the south side of Anderson, and she’s sixty four years old.”

  I scribbled the information down before I looked back up at Knox. I opened his file and scanned for his age as I placed the notes I took at the back of it. Knox was twenty-six. My age. But if his mother was sixty-four and he was twenty-six, that meant he wasn’t born until she was thirty eight. Which meant Canyon, if she was his sister, wouldn’t have been born until his mother was fifty-four years old.

  And there was no way in hell a postmenopausal woman would’ve gotten pregnant at fifty-four years of age.

  “Thank you for your time, Mr. Knox. The moment I have something for you, I’ll be in touch,” I said.

  “What do you want me to do until then?” Knox asked. “I got men in here wanting to kill me.”

  “Then I suggest you watch your back.”

  7

  Knox

  I watched Monroe get up to leave and I turned my head to watch her. The swell of her ass was sinful as her hips swayed with the click of her heels. The guard opened the door for her and she left and I grinned as her heels clicked down the hallway. I felt the guard wrench me up by my arm, and my reflex was to throw my elbow into his nose and break it.

  But if I wanted to get out of here, I needed to play nice.

  I needed to sit tight and let that sexy fucking woman do her damn job.

  There were so many things I could do to a body like hers. The marks I could leave on the dip of her waist and the holes I could fill with my raging cock. My body would blanket hers nicely, and I bet she was a submissive little fuck, too. The strongest women always were. Willing to give their control to any man who ran his tongue against her pussy. I bet she had juicy lips I could suck on while she begged for more. And I would give her more.

  A woman with a body like that deserved more.

  I could pin her hands above her head and nail her to the wall. She had the perfect height for me to bend her over that fuckin’ metal table and take her from behind. I bet her ass would jiggle nicely for me.

  Hell, I bet her ass was still virginal.

  The guard clenching on my arm hauled me back to my cell. We were walking down the hallway to whatever assigned hell they were gonna put me in. There were men smiling and snarling at me with their crazy eyes and their bullshit stares. Men who thought they were hard but were really pissing themselves at night because of this place.

  But then, I saw a man reach out for me.

  “Keep your hands in your cell, prisoner,” the guard said.

  I saw him whip out his baton and crash it down onto the man’s arm.

  “You’re a dead man walking, Dead Soul. You hear me?”

  I turned my head and saw one of the members of The Black Saddles cradling his busted arm.

  “I think the name you want is ‘Knox’,” I said with a grin.

  The man lunged at his cell bars and the guard started beating on the bars with his baton. I stood back and grinned as the guard yelled at the man, but it did bring up a good point. I still had no idea if the Latin Cobras were gonna be helping me out in this place. And the bloodlust in the Saddles eyes were starting to wear on me a bit. I knew I could take them if they got me alone, but at what cost? Killing them in a place like this would ensure my stay here, but if I didn’t retaliate there was a good chance they wouldn’t stop until I was dead.

  I needed to figure out where the Cobras stood.

  I needed to talk to Diesel.

  “You get one phone call, so make it a good one,” the guard said.

  I looked at him as he shoved me in line and I waited for the next available payphone.

  “Knox? That you?” Diesel asked.

  “The hell is taking you so long to call me?” I asked.

  “I can’t get anything through. The police aren’t exactly being cooperative. But I’m working on it.”

  “You got anything for me? Anything on my family or this meeting I just had with this lawyer that wasn’t Rose?” I asked.

  “Not Rose? What do you mean?”

  “The woman who came to see me today is named ‘Miss Williams’. She had a signed and notarized letter from both Rose and Bradley saying she was working my damn case. But it wasn’t Rose.”

  “I’ll check on it to make sure that checks out. What did you tell her?”

  “Everything she asked for. Didn’t have a choice,” I said.

  “Shit. Okay. I’ll make sure it checks out. In the meantime, I drove by your family’s place. Everything looks okay. People are all smiles and Canyon was outside playing with a friend.”

  “And nothing looked outta place?” I asked.

  “Nope. I asked around a bit in town, seeing if maybe the locals knew of a gang riding in every now and then, and they said nothing like that happened around their neck of the woods.”

  “Good. I’ll take it for now. In terms of protection, I gotta lead. One of the heads of the Latin Cobras is in here. Jesús. I know him from our high school days. Ran the same hallways and shit. I talked to him about protection and everything, but he said he’d have to reach out to a man by the name of Diego.”

  “I know Diego well. He’s helped me with a few things in the past. Actually owes me a very big favor right now after helping him out of a sticky situation,” Diesel said.

  “I don’t know and I don’t care. Talk to him. Jesús and his men won’t make a move in my direction until they get that call from Diego,” I said.

  “I’ll make it happen. It’s about time I started calling in my favors anyway. I’m too nice of a guy sometimes.”

  “Yeah, nice isn't quite the word I’d use,” I said.

  “Call me tomorrow. I’m still working on the police not being assholes, but if all else fails I’ll send someone to see you in a couple days. But every time you get a phone call, call me, Knox.”

  “Who the fuck else am I gonna call?” I asked. “Talk to you soon. Hopefully.”

  I didn’t even get the phone on the damn hook before the guard tugged me away from the phone. I glared and him and he grinned, trying to taunt me into a bad situation. I knew what he was doing. He was trying to rile me up and get me going so I’d take a swing or some shit. All of these guards wanted men like me behind bars. They look pride in it for some shithead reason. But I wasn’t gonna give him the satisfaction of breaking his jaw today.

  The guard threw me into my cell and I stayed there for the rest of the day. Dinner was taken in our cells because of some bullshit lockdown requirement, but I wasn’t hungry for the slop they were giving us. That food wasn’t even fit to feed to the fucking sewer rats, much less human beings.

  So, I slid the tray underneath my cell and waited for some asshole to step in it.

  I leaned back onto my cot and closed my eyes. I’d been in this shithole for two days, but it felt like two fucking years. There was nothing to do except stay alive, and everywhere I went it felt like someone wanted to kill me. I wasn’t scared, but I was wary of my surroundings. I couldn’t take care of my momma and Canyon if I was beaten to death in a dark corner where there were no fucking cameras.

  I allowed my thoughts to drift, and they found their way back to Monroe. I reached out for her strawberry blonde hair and pulled it from its twist at the back of her head. I bet it would tumble down her back and make a nice handle for when I fucked that tight little ass of hers. I bet she’d cringe at the sight of my cock, wondering how something so big could fit in a hole so tiny. I saw her green eyes staring at me as she rode my cock, her massive tits bouncing in my face as she moaned my name.

  Fuck. I bet my name would sound wonderful in those sultry low tones of her voice.

  My hands were shaking at the idea of touching her velvety soft skin. Even with sitting across a table from her, she looked soft. A pillowy place for my rock-hard body to land after a long day at work. And holy fuck, how she would look in my shower. My walk-in shower was the best fucking thing about my damn house. I could lay her down on the ground and watch water pour over her as I fucked her until she screamed. I could take that showerhead and put it between her legs and watch the show as she unraveled.

  How the fuck was I gonna build a case with a woman I wanted to fuck?

  How the hell was that gonna work?

  8

  Monroe

  “So, how’d it go?”

  I whipped my head up and saw Rose sitting in the chair in front of my desk.

  “About as good as could be expected,” I said.

  “Did you need the notarized letter?” she asked.

  “I did, and even then, he was still unwilling to talk.”

  “So, you didn’t get anything?” she asked.

  “Oh, no. I got him to talk. Told me a lot of interesting things.”

  “I knew I’d sent the right girl for the job. Okay, let me see your notes and we can get started on this thing.”

  I set my briefcase down on my desk as she scooted towards it. I pulled out the pad of notes I’d taken, her eyes scanning the lines quickly as she frowned. I pulled out Knox’s case file and started pulling things out we could use in order to give Rose some time to digest the information in front of me.

  “I need to make sure his family’s okay,” Rose said.

  “I already called the Anderson P.D. on my way back. I gave them Knox’s mother’s name and told them where in town she lived. One of the officers on duty actually knows her, so they’ve got a deputy heading out there right now to check on them.”

  “What excuse did you give them for checking in on her?” she asked.

  “I told them I had a client who was worried about his family and that I was following up on my word to make sure they were safe. No other questions were asked.”

  “Good, because we don’t need any more questions asked. It says here Knox said it was self-defense.”

  “He was insistent on it, and contrary to everything that’s screaming in my head, I do believe him on that.”

  “What do you not believe?” she asked.

  “That Blaze wasn’t dead when Knox ran.”

  “You mean Andrew Shepard?”

  “He was insistent on calling the boy ‘Blaze’, so that’s how I’ve been addressing him. Knox said he was a prospect. Not even a full member of the gang yet.”

  “Probably trying to show his strength to his crew to get initiated. We can use that in court,” she said.

  “Is it possible to prove this was self-defense? I’ve requested the pictures the doctor took of Knox as protocol before putting him in jail to hold him, but is that going to be enough?”

  “Not in a courtroom. It’s still circumstantial evidence. It proves there was a fight on both sides, but it doesn’t prove who threw the first punch. And if we put both The Dead Souls and The Black Saddles on the stand, all they’ll do is stand behind their own. Their testimonies won’t do us a bit of good.”

  “And there weren’t any cameras out in the woods, so we have no footage. How in the world are we supposed to prove this was self-defense?” I asked.

  “That’s a good question, and it’s one we’ll have to really dig in to find out. In the meantime, I do have some evidence that was sent my way while you were gone.”

  “I’ll take anything I can get.”

  “Assuming the doctor will cooperate on those pictures, samples of the dirt as well as Knox’s boots were processed.”

  “Knox did say he was kicking the boy pretty badly when he did let loose. The guy made some-”

  “I read the comment in your notes. We don’t have to repeat it,” Rose said.

  “Sorry. Okay. Um… what’s going on with the evidence?” I asked.

  “Multiple samples of dirt have DNA on them. All sorts. Knox’s. Shepard’s. Some guy named ‘Rex’.”

  “Knox mentioned him, too. So that corroborates his story, for the most part,” I said.

  “Having Knox’s blood on the ground so close to Shepard’s insinuates a fight between the two of them.”

  “Have you already gotten crime scene photos?” I asked.

  “I have. My husband’s printing them out as we speak.”

  “We don’t get formal copies from the police department?” I asked.

  “They’ll be embossed in the corner with an official seal. But emailing them is more convenient.”

  “Doesn’t seem very secure,” I said.

  But all Rose did was pan her gaze up to mine.

  “I think I have a way to prove this was self-defense, but it’s a stretch,” she said.

  “I’m all ears.”

  “Knox’s boots were taken and processed, and samples of the blood on his boots were shipped off to labs. I put a very serious rush on them, and I got the results back a few minutes before you walked in. There is blood layered on Knox’s boot.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “In the photos of the evidence, you’ll see what I’m talking about. There are two very distinct layers of blood on his boot. One is clearly underneath the other. And you’ll never guess how it’s layered.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “Knox’s blood is on the bottom, and Shepard’s blood is on the top.”

  “Which insinuates the fact that Knox was the first to bleed, which you can spin to mean that Shepard threw the first punch.”

  “It’s a longshot, but it’s all we’ve got going for us right now. It proves self-defense, but it doesn’t prove that Shepard wasn’t dead.”

  “I know there was a body carried off the scene. Do we know for sure it was Blaze?” I asked.

  “I’m working on it, but the prosecutor is keeping things very close in that regard. Which is fishy in and of itself, so I’m holding out hope that the person in that body bag wasn’t Shepard.”

  “But if this was self-defense, doesn’t that negate the killing? In a court of law, even killing in self-defense is seen as nothing other than self-defense.”

 

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