“Thanks for the rescue,” I called toward the open door.Fuck this week. I couldn’t even do getting my ass pulled out of the fire with grace. I screwed up my eyes and tears heated in them, but I refused. I wouldn’t do it. I blinked until the little salty bastards were gone. And then I heaved again, and sort of wished that Xander had slipped, maybe given me a bit too much. I was so fucking done.
5
Jayce
Isighed and stared at the scrambled eggs I was cooking. The morning sun filtered through the pale blue curtains, lighting up the kitchen until there was a dull warmth. I had the heater on as well, warming the house with a comfortable amount of heat. I’d grown up in England; I hated the bone-deep Northeastern US cold and had always enjoyed the Miami weather a lot more. New Gothenburg wasn’t bad in the summer, but come fall, no thanks.
I didn’t have any personal experience with heroin because I’d never thought to try it, and being in the marines meant we had to be clean at all times. From job training, I knew enough about the drug to understand the effects that came with it. People reacted differently depending on how long they’d been taking it, to how their body handled it. River didn’t seem to be the kind of bloke who ingested heroin regularly, though, so I believed him about being set up. It wasn’t hard to tell when a man was lying or not, although lawyers were some of the best at avoiding the full truth.
Letting him sleep it off had been the best option, even though I was worried that more had happened to him when he’d been taken. Maybe we’d come at the right moment and whoever had captured him didn’t have the time to do anything else.
I wasn’t sure what River would like to eat, so other than cooking eggs, I grabbed some Greek yogurt and added some berries. I heard him moving about upstairs, so I knew it wouldn’t be long before he appeared, stumbling like a man with a hangover. Sure enough, the bumping on the stairs told me he was heading my way. A particularly loud thump made me cringe. It sounded as if he’d missed a step or fallen over when he reached the bottom.
A groan made me raise my head and glance toward the doorway, where he stood wearing a pair of the sweats that had somehow survived my basic training and a white T-shirt. River had his forehead in his palm, the heel of his hand digging into his eye socket. “Fuck, that’s bad.”
“I was going to ask how you were feeling, but it’s probably not the wisest question.” I grinned at him before I took the pan off the working burner and set it on a cool one. Digging the eggs out with a spatula, I put a pile on both the plates I had set out. “Sit down. I made breakfast.”
“Is it a classic English breakfast?” River grumbled, making his way through the archway of my kitchen that led into the dining room.
“Why? Because I’m British I’m meant to make you somethingEnglish?” I chuckled and grabbed the bowl of yogurt and took him in his breakfast. I set the food in front of him and patted him on the head, earning a nasty glare. “You’ll eat whatever you get.”
He mumbled something I couldn’t hear and snatched the utensils out of my hand when I passed them to him. He did say thank you, but it was low and quiet, and he immediately turned away as though he was too embarrassed to look me in the eye.
I grabbed my own meal before I fell into the seat across from him. I started on my yogurt, ignoring the way he peered at me with raw uncertainty I’d never expected to see on his face. But I knew he’d be even more ashamed if I reacted to his discomfort, so I paid close attention to my breakfast, my stomach letting out a grumble of hunger.
I’d helped River to the bathroom twice last night. The second time I’d used a small screwdriver to tinker with the cuffs those bastards had used on him until I got them open, all while letting him vomit before I took him back to the guest bedroom. After his hard night, I hadn’t been sure if he would be up to eating. I was wrong. He ate like a man starved.
We sat in silence, and I finished my food. He wasn’t far behind me and set down his fork on his now empty plate, where he’d just consumed his scrambled eggs like it was the last time he’d get some. His gaze weighed heavy on me when I took his plate and bowl and then walked back into the kitchen. He followed me, his bare feet padding against the wooden floorboards. Hesitation flicked over his face, and he touched his chest.
“Thank you.”
The words startled me into glancing at him from my spot in front of the sink. He’d taken to leaning on the counter, arms crossed while he peered out the wide window into my backyard. The garden was bare of any flora, save for weeds, and had been since a month after Alex’s death. I’d never been a gardener like Alex, and although I tried to keep the flowers alive, they’d wilted until I dumped them in a disposal can. I accepted that, like Alex, they didn’t survive me.
The thought made me wince. In the months since I’d seen his body, I’d fallen into a routine of endless work. It was easier to stick my head in the mud and pretend everything was okay than admit that the numbness was still there, a hole in my heart that I couldn’t feel. I’d sent Alex’s body back to Phoenix, where he grew up, and his family had arranged his funeral. I was nothing more than another guest to his people. They didn’t hate me, but they weren’t fans, either. Everyone but his mother liked to pretend I didn’t exist.
I shook my head to push away the thoughts and stared at River. “Do you want to tell me what happened? The whole truth. Slater called me earlier this morning to see how you were. I heard Madden in the background. Trust me, you’ll be having a visitor soon, and he doesn’t sound like his jovial self.”
“Great,” River mumbled with a glare out the window. “Just what I need. Madden Polunin.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “He seems to care about you.”
River sighed and gave me a guilty look. “He does. He’s a good person, but don’t tell him I said that.” Then he smiled, and the sight made my insides turn warm. Even though he was as handsome as always, there was something more behind his eyes, a loneliness I knew well.
“So… who did you piss off enough to make someone try to set you up?” I asked, not really sure if I wanted to know the answer. “Last night you were all over the place when you tried to talk to me.” I knew lawyers’ jobs weren’t easy. It’s why they got paid the big bucks. I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to ruin someone’s career, though. Or, maybe I could.
River took a long breath and ran a hand over his dark hair. His glasses had worked their way down his nose and rested haphazardly just above the tip. He kept his gaze outside, and I almost asked if he wanted to go out there for fresh air, but I thought it might have been more because he didn’t want to look at me. “Just this asshole lawyer.”
“Another lawyer?” I leaned my hip against the counter and crossed my arms. “Did you win a case against him?”
“I always win cases against that piece of shit.” He quirked a half grin in my direction. “I’m the best for a reason.” Then he shrugged. “I stole a lawyer from his firm. West, you’ve heard of him, right? He used to work for Brickton. Apparently by luring away one of his best underpaid employees, I insulted him somehow. If he paid his underlings right, that wouldn’t be an issue. Hell, I don’t take that much of a blow to my bottom line to pay appropriately.”
“Brickton. I’ve heard of him.” I’d also had a run-in with him. Once. His client had been arrested on public indecency after exposing himself to a seventeen-year-old girl whohadn’tasked to see it. The guy was rich, though, some kind of local politician on his way up, and Brickton was his lawyer. He’d fought hard against our charges and ended up getting a lesser penalty for the sick bastard he called his client. Brickton himself was no better. The man had gotten in our faces and damn near spat when he demanded we release his client. Another lawyer for the cops to hate. At least with him I could see why.
“I’m sure you have.” River sighed and rubbed two fingers against his forehead with a groan. “What a mess. They took pics, too. Or at least I think they did. Of course they did. Fuck.”
“Do you know who the perps were?” A surge of strong emotion hit me, and the urge to protect River, to find these men, felt like a sledgehammer to the chest. My hands curled into fists where they rested under my armpits and I gritted my teeth. We’d been chasing these men for a while now, searching for Sebastian like his parents paid us to do. We knew it was more than that now. Their sex trafficking ring was bigger than we could have imagined. The people we had talked to in order to get to Sebastian in that warehouse had told us things we weren’t sure how to process.
There was one girl in particular, who had gotten away from it all, but had still ended up in sex work. She was at the Courtesan. From what we understood, they—whoever they were—had men and women from all over the world, from Russia to England to Mexico, and someone was selling people right here in New Gothenburg. Of course, that money name never filtered down to us, so we were left guessing at who it might be, and we weren’t coming up with any solid leads. My fellow cops weren’t even trying to crack this ring, pretending they didn’t see the evidence right in front of their noses, and it made me wonder, some days, about the department.
