Pure panic seized me and held on tight as the television screen went dark. I was a fucking lawyer. I didn't deal in crime waves, mob bosses, and FBI agents. Put me in a courtroom and I was a dynamo. Here, I was totally lost. I didn't have the first clue how to keep Dalton safe, but I knew who did.
"Knox, what do we do?" I asked. "How do I keep Dalton safe from Brasov and Stanton?"
Knox smirked. "How far are you willing to go?"
"However far it needs to go." I couldn't think of much I wouldn't do to keep Dalton alive and unharmed.
"Call Judge Schumer and ask him to come here as quickly as he can."
I frowned as I tried to figure out where Knox was going with this. "Judge Schumer?"
"And then call Pierre and book us the patio for lunch. He can decide the menu, except no asparagus. Jefferson hates it. We'll also need plenty of champagne to celebrate."
"What are we celebrating?"
I couldn't think of a single thing to be celebrating.
Knox slapped me on the shoulder. "Your wedding, my friend."
I choked on my breath. "My wedding?"
"Well." Knox grinned. "Yours and Dalton's."
"Aren't we supposed to be hiding Dalton from these morons?"
Knox chuckled. "Hiding never seems to work for us, but going in the opposite direction does. Brasov and Sabrina Stanton are telling the news media that her fiancé has been kidnapped. If you marry Dalton, she doesn't have a leg to stand on. It also makes Brasov and the Stantons look suspicious, especially after the police already think he filed a false police report against you for kidnapping."
"Aren't we supposed to be down at the police station by noon so I can give my statement?" Dalton asked.
"Even better," Knox said. "You can report the harassment you've been receiving from Brasov and Stanton."
"But we told the detective that we were just engaged. Won't it look weird if I show up married?"
"You can tell him that you hadn't had a chance to tell your families yet," Newt interjected. "Which is why you said engaged, not married, but when you saw Sabrina Stanton giving the news conference, you decided the police needed to know the truth."
"Yeah," Dalton said, "but anyone looking at the marriage license would know we were married after the fact."
I smiled, because this was the area I knew about. "I have a friend down at the county clerk's office. Getting our marriage license backdated a few days won't be a problem."
Dalton blinked at me. "You really want to go through with this?"
"Knox is right," I said. "Being flashy about things like this has always worked out for us. Knox announced at a gala event that he was marrying Newt when someone was after him. Burke had his grandmother throw him and Benji an engagement party when someone was trying to steal his nephew. Crosby and Jefferson were drugged and woke up married, but they stayed married so no one would kill Crosby. Each time, going public worked for them."
"It's like this, Dalton," Knox said. "Going public with things puts the power in our hands and takes it away from whoever we're up against. If you two get married and we celebrate at Esquires, which is the biggest social fishbowl in the city, how can they argue that you are engaged to Sabrina?"
"Can't we just pretend?"
"No, because people check, especially the media, and if word got out that we were lying, it would look bad for us, not them."
"Getting married also gives you some legal protection," Newt said. "The authorities are a lot more willing to listen to a panicked husband than they are just some guy you met through a text message."
"But what happens when this is all over? We'll still be married."
"Just like the others, we stay married until you are no longer in danger, and then we go from there. Where that is, we'll decide when the time is right."
"You actually want to get married?" Dalton asked. "Just like that?"
I chuckled as I drew Dalton back into my arms. "We do a lot of thingsjust like that."
