I turned and called out to Hailey and Rylee, “The seat belt in the video! Look at the angle!”
Hailey and Rylee rose in unison. “What should we do? Who should we tell?”
The bailiff yanked on my arm, forcing me through a pair of swinging double doors before I could respond.
She pulled me across the narrow hallway, past the crowded benches filled with handcuffed criminals in orange jumpsuits and shoved me over the threshold of the holding room.
The door slammed in my face and locked the moment I turned to plead with her.
Alone in the tiny room, I paced around the small rectangular table. Its wooden surface was scarred with countless scratches and etched curse words, except in one corner.
Faintly, in thin, spidery handwriting, someone had scrawled the words “help me.”
My knees buckled.
Leaning my forehead against the edge of the table, I crouched low, trying to force air into my lungs. For the first time in my life, I prayed.
Oh God, please, please help me.
Just then, the latch clicked.
I rose, expecting to see the sourpuss face of the bailiff coming to fetch me back to the travesty otherwise known as my trial.
Instead, the arrogantly handsome face of Pierce Worthington appeared.
His presence filled the sparse room.
Gone were the musty odors of dust and neglect, replaced by the clean sandalwood scent of his cologne. He unbuttoned his expensive-looking suit jacket as he stepped into the room, gesturing for the court officer to once again close and lock it behind him.
I had prayed to God, but it was the Devil who answered.
His voice was laced with venom. “Hello, Madison.”
CHAPTER 10
PIERCE
Ihad to stifle the growl which rumbled low in my chest.
Two weeks behind bars and she hadn’t broken.
Her hair was limp, her skin pale under the fluorescent wash, and there were shadows beneath her eyes that hadn’t been there in the courtroom. None of it mattered. She stood with her chin up and her shoulders back, staring at me the way no one in my life had ever dared—like I was the one who should be in a cell.
My hand closed into a fist at my side. Opened. Closed again.
It was nonsensical. She was nothing to me, a sacrificial lamb to be slaughtered on the altar of my family’s vanity.
All I wanted was to back her against that piss-green wall and make her look away first.
She wouldn’t. I already knew that.
This whole mess started because of Jameson.
But now it was about her and me.
She backed up a step as I stepped further into the room. “Get out! Get out now before I scream for the guard.”
I shrugged out of my jacket. “Scream all you want. She won’t come until I call her.”
