Maverick answered the phone immediately, his: ‘What’s happening?’ pulling a tired chuckle from Markus.
‘Alexander’s been arrested and his bail hearing’s tomorrow morning. Nina’s going because Linda asked her to give a public statement.’
Frustrated, Mav ran one hand roughly through his hair as he paced the barn’s breezeway. ‘Fuck.’I should be there, he thought. And instead of saying it, he said, ‘Fuck!’ again, this time loud enough that Zeph popped her head over her stall door to check what all the fuss was about.
‘So, here’s the thing,’ Markus continued. ‘I think you should be there,’ he said, as if he’d read Mav’s thoughts.
Mav stopped pacing. ‘She specifically asked me to give her space,’ he explained. ‘Christ, Markus, you think I don’t want to be with her while she goes through this?’ he demanded. ‘I’m going crazy knowing I’m not there for her. But my hands are tied.’
‘Mav, do you trust that I know what Nina wants? What’s best for her?’
‘Of course.’
‘She doesn’t have any experience relying on other people. The way she was raised …’
‘Yeah,’ Mav sighed. ‘I know.’
‘Why do you think she visited Hunt Ranch instead of staying with me? Why do you think I couldn’t stay but only visited on weekends?’ Markus demanded. ‘Why do you think I had to stage a freaking photoshoot just to spend more than those weekends with her?’ He sighed deeply. ‘I’ve been Nina’s best friend for years, and she still can’t lean on me. And not because she doesn’t want to or need to, but because she very literally doesn’t know how.
‘She needs you to be there tomorrow, Mav. As the one person who knows her better than you, I’m telling you that she won’t get through it without both of us there …’
‘Markus, I don’t know what to do.’ Because how could he show up when she’d asked for space? He already felt uncomfortable about creating the Instagram account, but the way he figured it, she could have just ignored him there if she’d really wanted to. But she hadn’t, he reminded himself. She’d followed him back, and even though they hadn’t messaged each other online, he’d felt connected to her the moment she had.
‘I know that,’ Markus insisted. ‘But I won’t let myself feel guilty for it because I know her. And because it’s been my job for the last decade to teach her how to accept love. Please, Maverick. Please come.’
He’d have had a hard time staying away without the push from Markus. But with Nina’s request still on the forefront of his mind, he said, ‘I’ll be there. But I won’t approach her in public unless she makes the first move. She set boundaries, Markus. I have to respect them – even if I hate them.’
‘I think that’s fair,’ Markus ceded. ‘I’ll ask Linda to get you a pass. If you coordinate picking it up with her in the morning …’
‘Yeah, thanks.’
‘Okay. Bye.’
‘Bye.’
The next morning, Maverick left the ranch at five a.m. so that he could be on time, and because he’d gotten there early, he’d driven around for close to forty minutes before parking and making his way to the courthouse.
Due to the celebrity nature of the case, the judge had restricted public access; however, that didn’t stop the media from crowding the courthouse steps.
The moment they spotted Mav, they descended like vultures on a carcass.
‘Mr Hunt, could you verify your relationship with Nina Keller?’
Mav didn’t say a word.
‘Mr Hunt, is it true that you assaulted Alexander Cane?’
Mav desperately wanted to say, ‘Fuck yes,’ to that – but heroically refrained.
Even though he could see Nina, Linda, and Markus sitting at the front, their backs to him, he took a seat towards the back of the courtroom as he waited for the bail hearing to begin.
He felt so out of place among the suits, dressed in his blue jeans, boots, and baseball cap, but he swallowed down the skin-crawling claustrophobia and waited patiently until the case was called.
The moment it was his heart started racing. He didn’t look at Alexander Cane as he was brought out. He looked at Nina’s back, and he saw the way her shoulders rounded and her gaze dropped. It was like she was carrying an immense burden that visibly weighed her down.
He didn’t move through the bond discussion, didn’t flinch when the state pressed the judge to deny bail and argued that Cane, with his vast resources, was a flight risk.
He listened intently to Linda’s statement, which provided a brief but powerful depiction of the events of that night and called the judge to see through Alex’s polished façade to the predator beneath. Linda recalled snippets of Alexander’s statement, and then pointedly undermined them by comparing the physical size difference between Nina and Alexander Cane. She closed with a poignant reminder that the days of forgiving men in power for crimes against women were over.
