“It’s possible.”
Branson pulled the bottle away and angled his head to look up at him. “You don’t believe that, though.”
“Not really. Jeuel is seventeen. He’s been through more trauma than anyone his age ever should, and he usually wearshis emotions on his skin. I’m worried he’s bottling up his grief, and it’s going to pop off at the worst possible time.”
“Like a private train car at two a.m.?”
“Maybe. Or months from now, when one of us isn’t there, something could trigger his grief, and he could do something destructive.” Like how Layne had bottled up his trauma and fear for years, until they finally imploded in the most self-destructive way possible, and Layne had nearly died. “Uty never should have been allowed to leave Sansbury all those years ago, much less start a new life with new kids. He deserved to be punished for what he did to your omegin.”
“Yes, he did.” Branson sat back up and put his soda on the bedside table. His expression was pensive, almost confused. “But that was almost a quarter-century ago, Tar. It can’t be changed, and the man is dead. As much as I hate knowing Uty got away with what he did to my family, Jeuel is alive and in my life, because Uty avoided custody. I can’t be mad about that.”
Tarius couldn’t hold back an angry snort that made his nose hurt and the throbbing behind his eyes sharper. “Another alpha who didn’t get the punishment he deserved.” He hadn’t meant to blurt that out, but he’d always had a hard time biting his tongue around Branson. Branson was a safe space, someone he could vent to—but now was not the time or place.
Branson tilted his head to one side “Who are you talking about? One of your cases?”
He could have named more than one alpha who’d never fully paid for his crimes, including the young alpha who’d tried assaulting Tarius when he was eighteen. But this wasn’t about him; it was about Branson and Jeuel. “Never mind. We need to focus on our next steps.”
“Well, my next step is talking about this. I need the distraction.”
“Maybe you do, but I don’t want to pick a fight.”
“A fight?” Branson blanched, and Tarius hated seeing confusion on top of his husband’s lingering grief. “What are we fighting about?”
“Nothing.”
“No, youarethinking about something specific. Can you not talk about it because it’s an active case?”
“It’s not work, okay? It’s you.” Goddess-dammit, Tarius needed to get his mouth under control. He could blame it on lack of good sleep, lack of food and coffee, the weird headache and scratchy throat, or any number of trip-related things. But his brain was stuck on an earlier conversation, and he couldn’t let it freaking go!
Branson blinked at him. “What the hell did I do?” he asked, more baffled than angry.
Tarius had stuck his hand in the hornet’s nest. Branson was laser-focused on the problem, and now there was no chance of pulling out without a few brutal stings. “It’s not you, it’s something you said earlier that caught me off guard. But it’s not something we’ve ever talked about, which is actually a little surprising.”
“Which was what?”
“When you were talking to Constable Quillen, you said you supported abolishing the death penalty.”
“I do. So?” Branson’s eyebrows arched. “Don’t you?”
“No, not for all crimes, of course not.”
“But…” He stared at Tarius, confusion pinching his brow and flattening his lips. “But you’re a defense attorney.”
“I work for defense attorneys, and I love my job, but there are still certain crimes that are so intolerable to me, certain criminals so completely unrepentant of their crimes, that we’d be a safer society if they were humanely killed, leaving no chance of them ever escaping or committing further harm against another human being.”
Branson’s face hardened. “My omegin was tried for capital murder. He faced the gallows if found guilty.”
Tarius expected this argument, and Branson didn’t disappoint. “But he wasn’t found guilty of any felonies. He pled guilty to a misdemeanor. By the end of that trial, no one believed Kell deserved prison time for what he’d done, much less death.” No one except Kell’s father-in-law, Haus Iverson, who’d deserved far worse than life in prison for his varied and disgusting crimes. Even though the man had died behind bars years ago, he should have died much sooner.
“What about Liam?” Branson jerked to his feet and glared down at Tarius. “He purposely stabbed a man in the gut and then made their car hit a tree. Mancini died because of Liam’s actions. Did Liam deserve to die for taking a life?”
“Of course not!” Tarius stood, too, hating that he’d accidentally created this fight, and wishing he could say what Branson needed to hear so he’d calm down. But Tarius didn’t want to lie, not about this. Not ever to Branson. “You cannot compare Liam and Kell to true monsters like Hank Mancini and Haus Iverson, or like Esom Dent.”
“Dent? He died a long time ago.”
“Yes, because other people had the guts to end his miserable life after he heaped even more pain and suffering onto my family.” His chest got hot, his insides wormy, as a torrent of old, painful memories tried to resurface: frantic phone calls looking for Demir, Layne and Linus, who were late getting home from shopping; waiting by the phone, hoping the constabulary could appease Dent’s demands before he hurt the people Tarius loved; fury at Demir’s battered condition after rescue; despair hearing Dent had fled into the wilds; not knowing for certain, until the next day, that Dent had not raped his little brother.
And finally, a keen sense of justice when their family got the call that Dent’s dead, mutilated corpse had been discovered, discarded by the side of the freeway like the trash he was.
