“This means that our options are very limited.” Richins left the table and headed for a door that was behind him, he opened it and stepped aside to let someone into the conference room. The person who came into the room was a young man, maybe mid-twenties with bright blond curls and big blue eyes. He looked like one of those damn baby cherubs that were plastered on the ceilings in churches.
“This is Darian Bellis, the new prosecutor for the Hezekiah Jordan case.” The kid looked like he was going to faint right here and now, as he looked down the table at Marcus and me, “And we need you two to turn him into a court bulldog in six weeks.”
I was absolutely floored and, one glance at Marcus told, he was as well. I just barely managed to find my voice, “And how long have you been a lawyer for, Mr. Bellis?” I was almost afraid to ask.
In the shakiest voice I’d ever heard, he answered, “Uh...about six months?”
Son of a bitch.
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“You couldn’t find literallyany other prosecutor to take this case?” I asked Richins as we stood together, watching Marcus talk with Bellis. He was twenty-six years old and practically a newborn when it came to practicing law. I had to hang on to the fact that he’d at least graduated at the top of his class at Stanford law, or I’d be putting Tibby on the first plane out of what was quickly becoming an actual dumpster fire of a trial.
Richins shook his head, “The Governor wants us to keep as far away from any ‘old guard’ lawyers as possible. He sicked an independent panel on us to choose the lawyer, and this is who they chose. He’s not a bad lawyer, it’s just....”
“He’s greener than the Grinch’s ass?” I offered.
Richins nodded, grimacing at my coarse language. “To put it mildly, yes, I wish we had six months to get him prepped and ready but Hezekiah Jordan’s lawyers are pushing a timely trial. So we’ve got six weeks to get this poor kid ready to face a veritable shitshow.”
“Who’s Jordan’s defending counsel?” My mind went back to the fax that Whitlock & Simmons had received yesterday morning, there was no way someone had jumped onto it that quickly.
Unfortunately, I was very wrong and Richins was about to wreck things for me for the third time today, “Paulson & Reed. Reed is representing Jordan himself.”
“Shit.” The time for just cursing in my head was now over. The situation had gone from shitty to septic, in the blink of an eye. Jared Paulson & Henry Reed were, in my opinion, some of the biggest assholes that I’d ever had the displeasure of meeting. They definitely leaned into the ‘lawyers have no soul’ stereotype that a lot of people liked to joke about.
I’d only gone up against them a few times during my tenure as a public prosecutor. Each of those times I’d nearly thrown myself across the courtroom and bashed their faces in. They had a nasty habit of raking witnesses through the coals, sending them into crying fits on the stand, which never looked good for a jury.
My protective instincts were blasting full speed ahead, telling me to grab Tibby and make a run for it. I would rather do anything to avoid putting her in front of Henry Reed. I knew that I would 100% kick Henry Reed’s ass if he even dared to look sideways at my omega.
I didn’t know when I’d started thinking of Tibby as our omega, probably sometime between our early morning bath, and when I’d left the nest this afternoon. I was never the kind of person who fought against my feelings when I had them. Shoot, once I’d met Matteo, I’d known almost right away that I liked him. He’d been a student in one of the seminars that I TA’d for during university and he had been the only student bold enough to joke with the professor. The man had been old, and crotchety as hell, but had laughed at Matteo’s joke and had just shaken his head before getting back to whatever he was writing on the white board. I’d spent the rest of the semester watching him closely. He was interesting, and had a way of drawing the people around him in and making them smile.
I waited until after I was no longer his TA, and asked him out on a date. The chemistry had been instant and I had strong-armed Theo into going on our next date even though he always claimed to be busy with work. Matteo clicked with Theo almost as easily as I had and, well, the rest was history. Thirteen years later and we are still going strong...with only a couple of hiccups here and there. One of those hiccups being tall, stubborn, and currently staying in our guest room.
“I’m going to need the two of you to go with Bellis at the end of the week to USP Atwater to meet with Hezekiah Jordan and his counsel. Try and see if you can work out a deal so that this doesn’t have to go to trial.” Richins continued, not taking his eyes off of Marcus and Darian.
I didn’t have the heart to tell them that there was no way that Hezekiah Jordan was going to make a deal. Not when nearly all of the witnesses that had helped put him away in the first place, had been burned alive by an unknown serial killer.
So, instead, all I could say was: “Okay, I’ll try.”
