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“Thank you for this. I don’t really work with a lot of violent clients. Especially since I specialize in child and teenage trauma survivors, but once in a while I do get one. I don’t really worry about those though,” she said with a shrug. “More often though, I end up worrying about the offenders. The ones who hurt these kids. I haven’t had anyone come after me, though, so I guess I’m probably not as careful as I should be.”

“I’m glad to know it’s not your clients you have to worry about, but how many of them are in the custody of the offender? How often is the reason they need therapy in the next room, or even the same one?”

She looked at him a moment, surprised by his insight. “I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but it’s not common. Most of the time, if a parent or guardian is the trauma, they’re not willing to let them get help, much less facilitate it.”

He bobbed his head from side to side without looking up from her phone.

“Still. The teacher who gave Lacey over to the ring is in jail, for now. I’m not sure who else is involved. And they can’t be eager for this to go to court. The easiest way to do that is to scare Lacey out of testifying. If there’s no victim to tell, there’s not enough evidence tying that asshole to what happened.” He looked up and met her gaze. “I would hate for it to be something having to do with the Warriors that got you hurt. Or worse. But with this, it will give you something.” He slid off the bar stool and brought her watch back to her. “Here. Look.” He hit the button on the side three times. Nothing happened. Or at least nothing she could tell.

Cypher pulled his phone from his pocket, unlocked the screen with his thumb print, and tapped a couple of things before turning the screen to show her. To her surprise, it wasn’t a text message, but an alert that he would have a hard time missing.

Emergency alert. Lauren keyed the emergency sequence at 17:23.

There was a series of numbers she didn’t recognize attached to the message and they were blue indicating they were a link.

“What’s that?” She tilted her head toward the screen. “The numbers.”

“GPS coordinates. I can tap them and it will open a map.”

“Damn. That’s handy.”

“Why not make it as easy as I can?”

“How fast does it need to be?”

“What do you mean?”

“Does it need to be three fast presses, or can they be a little spread out?”

Cypher frowned. As if he didn’t understand what she was asking.

“I’m trying to figure out how fast I have to be or if I can make it look natural.”

“There are a couple of speed settings. I can set it on the slowest one, but it will affect everything, not just this feature.”

She finished mixing the cheeses and went to the sink to wash her hands.

“Do it. I may not notice, but even if I do, I’ll get used to it. I’d rather be able to trigger the alarm if I need to than anything else.”

“That’s me, babe. I live to serve.”

Lauren shook her head. She didn’t know how, but Cypher could make her laugh. Even over stupid shit.

Chapter Nine

“Ihear that shithead ex-teacher has a hearing tomorrow,” Hex said, stepping through the open doorway to Cypher’s command center. “We need to have a presence in the courtroom.”

“Not a bad idea, but it can’t be anyone involved in the case, and I’m not sure they’ll be allowed in the courthouse wearing colors.” Cypher glanced away from where he was checking all the camera footage around the club’s compound. The ones around the edges were set to send him an alert if anything bigger than a coyote came into view, but he still liked to check the footage himself. It was time consuming, but he put four feeds on at a time and sped it up so it didn’t take as long as it might have, but he had to keep his attention on the screen or he missed things.

“Any word on who the judge is?”

“I saw it, but I don’t recall the name. I’m almost done with this, then I’ll look into him. I want to see if I can find any hint he might be tied to the group Coleman gave Squirt to. We need to know sooner rather than later if he is.”

“Call Cutthroat. He’s appeared in front of most of the judges in the county, if not all of them. He’ll be able to at least give you an opinion of how he thinks things will go tomorrow. He keeps what cases he’s working on to himself, unless we ask. Let me know what you find out. I’m going to figure out who to send and call them into my office.” The president turned on his heel and left. From the corner of his eye, Cypher saw him cross the hall into his own office and close the door.

In the half hour it took him to finish scanning the video, Cypher found his thoughts turning back to Lauren. He’d seen her several times since the wedding a couple of weeks before, and found himself thinking of her frequently, even when he should be focusing on something else. Now, he found himself wondering if she would be in court tomorrow and if that would put her in more danger.

When he finished, he checked the time and found it was almost noon. He sent her a quick text, hoping she would see it while she was at lunch and get back to him.