His continued insistence that I would force myself on someone who didn’t want me was insulting, but rather than let my annoyance show, I put on my best professional smile. “I don’t need you to trust me personally. So long as you trust me as your lawyer, then we’ll be fine.”
Checking my watch again, I sighed. There was now only an hour and forty-five minutes until the witnesses arrived. We were behind schedule.
“If we’re done here, then let’s hurry up and get things ready. The witnesses have traveled a long way to get here and will probably want to get settled in right away. Our case depends on them, so we can’t leave them waiting.”
It took us nearly the entire time to get everything ready. There was enough space in the underground bunker for each witness to have their own house, complete with a fully stocked kitchen and enough fresh linens to make a luxury hotel weep with envy.
Right on time, I got a notification that someone was at the house’s front gate. On the house’s security cameras, I could see a single nondescript white van waiting to be let in.
There were several layers of security that had to be passed before anyone could enter the house. A large wall surrounded the entire perimeter, with only a single access point. After that, there was another gated fence, not to mention the many security cameras covering the area. Not a single inch of the property went unmonitored.
I had to rely on Sebastian and Newt to verify the identity of the driver. I’d spoken to Logan Hollingsworth before, but never actually seen the man, so I couldn’t be sure it was him. After getting the okay, I let the van in, then left the security cameras behind to go meet everyone at the front door.
Logan Hollingsworth, Gabe Long, Damien Roth, and a couple other agents from the FPA office had all left to retrieve witnesses from different areas around the county. Since we wanted to keep the location of our safe house a secret and couldn’t afford to have a bunch of people coming and going, they had all first brought their witnesses to a secondary location. From there, everyone had piled into one van with Logan, Gabe, and Damien so that they could arrive all at once.
Standing in the doorway to the garage of the aboveground portion of the house, I watched the van roll to a stop and chuckled under my breath. The van wasn’t as big as I expected. Based on the number of people I knew were inside, they must have been crammed together like a clown car.
The first to step out of the van was Logan, since he was in the driver’s seat. He was shortly followed by Clay Dahler, who’d been riding shotgun. I recognized Clay from my research into the bell ringer case, though I’d never met him before. The man matched his description to a T, and based on what I knew of the bell ringers, I wasn’t surprised that they’d targeted him.
Together, Clay and Logan opened the sliding side door of the van, revealing the chaos within.
Damien and Gabe came spilling out first, both looking decidedly rumpled. They were both on the larger side, over six feet tall with strong shoulders, and they’d clearly had the hardest time with the cramped transportation. Damien nearly face planted on the concrete floor and was saved from injury only by his own quick reflexes.
Behind me, I could hear Sebastian laughing over his brother’s misfortune as I went to help the rest of our guests out of the van.
The next to emerge was a young man with dark, curly hair. He was one of the witnesses, only twenty-five years old, but the heavy bags under his eyes made him look older. I offered my hand to help him from the van, but he shied from my touch and jumped down on his own.
The next two people emerged as a pair. I didn’t know much about these young women other than the fact that they were siblings. They were also witnesses; though they weren’t direct victims of the bell ringers, they had apparently seen something that would help our case.
Having learned my lesson with the first witness, I didn’t extend my hand toward the pair, and instead, just kept an eye on them as they jumped down from the van.
That was a mistake. I should have offered my assistance anyway, even if it was rejected. The last person out of the van had to climb all the way out of the farthest back seat and ended up getting tangled in one of the seat belts. He tripped and tumbled right out the door.
All I saw was a flash of pink hair as I caught him against my chest.
A pair of big blue eyes looked up at me and a crimson blush spread across the young man’s face.
“Um... Hi.”
CHAPTER 6
Jordy
The flightbetween San Francisco and Baton Rouge was only five and a half hours. So, one would think the trip wouldn’t take too long. Unfortunately, between the lack of last-minute direct flights, and the fact that they had to meet up with a few other people coming in from different locations, it took over a day of travel before we finally pulled into the safe house. I was so eager to get out of the cramped van, that I didn’t watch my footing as carefully as I should have and ended up tumbling like a rag doll out the door.
Only to be caught by a pair of strong arms.
A small gasp left my lips as I looked up to find I’d faceplanted against someone’s chest.
A very firm chest that hadn’t moved an inch, despite taking the brunt of my entire weight.
My cheeks burned and I quickly averted my gaze from the body in front of me, only to be caught by deep black eyes.
Holy hell.
I didn’t know anyone in real life had that kind of perfect bone structure. The man’s jawline could have been used to cut diamonds, and his cheekbones were nothing to joke about, either.
“Um... Hi.”
