The two of them exchanged a look. Ben pulled out his phone and quickly found King County’s website. “Stavish.”
Adam cursed. “Find me a suit.” He stripped off his tee shirt and threw it on the nearby chair. Ben ran to the walk-in closet, his giraffe legs making it a quick trip.
Mrs. Poole ducked into the bathroom and came out with a spray bottle and brush. “If we comb it before you put on the mask, it should stay in place.”
Adam cringed. “I’ll not be wearing the mask.” His face was bad enough on its own, but the mask intensified the gruesomeness.
“But—” Ben pressed his lips together. He tossed Adam a light blue button-up shirt. “As you wish.”
In no time at all, Adam was dressed and in the back seat of the small limo. The driver broke a few laws to get him to the courthouse in record time. Ben gave him the location, and they took off at a trot.
Adam hesitated at the doors, his hands shaking. There would be reporters inside; this wasn’t exactly a low-profile situation with all the marketing the protesters had done. He could be walking into a media trap. But on the other side of that door was also Bella, sweet Bella, who, though she stood up to him at every turn, didn’t have the experience to face a pack of wolves. Yes, she’d run out on him today, but he’d been ugly. He’d deserved to be abandoned. She did not.
He pushed the door open, his head held high. The whoosh of air brushed his sensitive cheek and sent chills over his body. He could feel the places where the scars were thicker than the skin around them and could mentally map out the lines that would never go away.
The room was a flurry with Zeke Wolfe himself orating before Judge Stavish. Every eye was on him, mesmerized by the web he created with his words. There wasn’t supposed to be an argument. This should have been a “show up, get the previously made decision, and get out” thing. The wolves were circling, and it raised Adam’s hackles.
His eyes darted to Bella at the defendant’s table. She sat tall, her back straight, her chin lifted—too intense, too vulnerable.Run,he wanted to tell her. She wouldn’t. She was too foolish to know the dangers or to heed them. She had a warrior’s spirit, and that stirred a pot of desire in his belly that had lain cold for too long.
At the prosecutor’s table sat the other Wolfe brothers, Leopold and Orion. All of them had the same gray at the temples, though Leopold had a goatee in the same color while the other two were clean shaven. Each time Zeke made a point, they would hum and nod in agreement. So far, no one had noticed him.
“But Your Honor, the biggest insult of all is that Mr. Moreau sent thisclerkinto your court today.” He threw his finger in Bella’s face.
She flinched away, and a protective instinct rose up in Adam. It was so strong that it propelled him down the center aisle and compelled him to do something he rarely did—he interrupted the court. “I sent aclerkbecause this case is so preposterous that I knew a judge with any intelligence would throw it out of court.” Adam’s lawyer voice filled the room and rang with confidence and finality he didn’t feel at the moment. He’d once been told by a professor that he had the type of voice that could command armies.
The shock of his arrival lasted long enough for him to sweep through the small gate separating the court officials from the spectators and take his place next to Bella. Relief flooded her eyes and then was gone, replaced by her steel determination and a fighting instinct. She shuffled several papers his direction. He did a double take when he saw his father’s will. The document followed him around like a ghost. He supposed it was evidence for his ownership of the land he wanted to subdivide.
He didn’t take his eyes off Zeke.
“You’re late, counsel,” scolded Judge Stavish. Adam rarely had to be in Stavish’s courtroom, and when he did, he had to be at the top of his game to win. Stavish would look for any chance to land that gavel on Adam’s weakness.
“My apologies, Your Honor.” He didn’t offer an excuse and barely managed to sound humble enough to apologize. He narrowed his eyes at the judge, assessing how much the man truly hated him.
Judge Stavish’s tongue flicked out to lick his lips. “If you interrupt again, I’ll have you tossed out.”
Adam inclined his head. The guy was out for blood.
Stavish motioned for Zeke to continue. He bared his teeth in a satisfied smile. “Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan does not include public transportation to and from The Cove. Neither does it have small businesses nearby to accommodate the increase in families a development like this would stimulate.”
Bella nudged the papers closer to Adam’s elbow. He glanced down, noting the numbers of single men and women who lived in The Cove, and nodded.
“In short, we’re not set up to sustain nor support the type of growth proposed, and we move for an injunction on the project until the city has a chance to review the infrastructure of the area.”
“Noted. Final arguments.” Stavish didn’t look up from his papers.
Bella stood. Her fingers shook, but she pressed them onto the table to hide it. Adam fought the desire to take her hand in his. “The only draw The Cove will make on the city is for power, recycling, and garbage. We have our own water and sewer facilities. As for public transportation needs, our residents have multi-car garages, helicopter pads, and their own planes, which land on our private airstrip and are stored in private hangars.”
“Snobs,” Orion Wolfe coughed.
Bella smiled indulgently at him. “We prefer the term self-sufficient.”
“What about local businesses?” prodded Leopold.
Adam lowered his chin, waiting for Judge Stavish to call them out for interrupting. Stavish let it go.
“We’ve found that most of our residents have groceries and other items delivered.”
“So they don’t stimulate our economy.” Zeke leaned back in his chair like the punk teen in the back row in English.
