With eyeglasses on, the judge looks down at some papers strewn out in front of him. I can’t believe I’m thinking this, but I’m hoping this fucking guy has a badass lawyer. I did my part, I busted the man, now he needs to do his and get himself out of this shit storm.
Maybe it’ll lessen Jace’s hate for me if Bryce gets out.
Yeah, I’m selfish.
Bryce looks a little nervous when the judge turns his attention on him. He drops the papers from his hand and leans back in his chair.
This judge is an asshole. I’ve heard that and witnessed his wrath more than a few times. If Bryce does get out of this, it won’t be because of the judge.
“Mr. Finley, how does your client plead to the charges of racketeering?”
Bryce’s lawyer stands. “Guilty, Your Honor.”
The judge lifts his brow slightly before rubbing his chin. His eyes go down to the papers again. “I see here you’ve given to some charities. The Boys Club?” he asks Bryce.
Bryce stands. “Yes, Your Honor.”
Hmm, he gives to charity? Didn’t see that. Bryce Grant isn’t very friendly. He’s a no bullshitter, while Jace is full of it most of the time.
Jace loves to joke.
I love that about him. He can lighten the mood and make you see that whatever you’re stressing over really isn’t that important.
Except what I was constantly stressing over was important.
And is the reason why we’re not together.
“Do you plan on skipping town, Mr. Grant?” the judge asks.
“No. Everything I care about is here. I have no reason to leave,” Bryce answers.
The judge nods and looks over to the DA. “You got anything to add, John?”
John looks over at his partner before returning the judge’s stare. “We’re good here, Your Honor.”
What?
What the fuck is going on here?
Someone is getting paid off. I’ve seen it so many times.
That’s the thing about the law. Inside of it are people who break it just as much as the bad guys.
The judge leans up in his chair. “Let’s move on then. Grant, eighty hours of community service and a ten thousand dollar fine.” He grabs his gavel and slams it down. “Case closed,” he says and dismisses us with a wave of his hand.
I shake my head as I look at Monroe. He chuckles. “Can’t win ’em all.”
I narrow my eyes. “Can you believe that shit?”
Monroe looks over at Bryce before switching back to me. “Yeah. Actually, I can. Let’s go have a beer.”
“Yeah, I could use a drink after that shit show with Kat,” I say.
He laughs. “I thought she was going to swing on you.”
I chuckle as we walk out, and I risk a glance at Jace whose eyes are on me. He looks curious as to who I’m walking beside. He looks relieved that his brother is getting out. And as his eyes scan over me, he looks mouthwatering.
His brother is free, and we’re free.
What does this mean for us?
Can it mean anything for us?
I say more with my eyes than I can say out loud, and I hope he hears me.
I’m still here.
Call me.
Come over.
I’m sorry.
Chapter Fifty
Jace
We all step into Bryce’s apartment after we get back from the courthouse. We decided Harrison would be the one to go get Bryce when it’s time. Which could be hours from now. Pops and I head to the couch I’m exhausted from the morning and coming down off my high.
Harrison walks over with two beers and hands them to us. “Thanks,” I say. I look back, seeing Mary grab the coffee pot, filling it with water.
It’s strange as shit for all of us to be together like this.
Harrison sits down on the other sofa. The TV plays Independence Day with Will Smith, and I take a sip of my beer, my mind thinking back on the courthouse.
Bryce is out. He’s going to be able to live a normal life with his girl. I can’t believe he gave up Red.
He’s shocked even me.
Like always, my mind goes back to Dalton. Seeing her like that in the courtroom with black dress pants and a white flowered blouse. She had a gun on her hip and a badge.
She looked fucking hot.
I mean, I’ve mostly only seen her in jeans and a T-shirt, and maybe a dress or two. That time she met me out at the Halloween festival she was dressed similar. She was coming from work, just not the work I was thinking.
A fucking librarian.
I knew that didn’t fit her.
Don’t get me wrong. She’s smart, but she has this toughness about her, and now I know why.
Dressed like she was earlier fits her personality. This is what she was meant to be.
Who was that man she was walking beside? She was laughing with him.
I won’t even lie and say it didn’t make me jealous. I lean my head back on the couch as we three watch TV in silence before the door opens and Lou and Monnie walk in.
“Hey,” she says. “I brought food.”
I jump up. “Fuck, I’m starving.”
Mary fetches plates from the cabinets, and Lou opens the pizza boxes. I’m the first one to walk back into the living room with a fresh beer and my plate stacked full of pizza and breadsticks, and I don’t even care.
I haven’t eaten shit in days. My brother is free, Harrison doesn’t seem that mad at me anymore, and I saw Dalton. That look in her eye earlier. She wants me still, even after I treated her like shit.
“Damn, did you save any for the rest of us?” Harrison jokes.
“I haven’t eaten much,” I say.
She smirks. “Yeah, I’m with you.”
“Go eat,” I say, taking a huge bite.
She gets up and walks over to the counter. “You okay, kid?” I hear Monnie ask her.
“I am now,” Harrison replies.
“Yeah. Bryson gave us a scare. I always knew that place was going to get him in trouble, but I never said anything,” Lou says, tsking.
I chuckle. She did say something a time or two about it, but it was overlooked. Went in one ear and out the other.
“Well, it’s done now,” Pops says. “Let’s just be glad he got off so easy.”
“How did he get off so easy?” Mary asks, pouring herself a cup of coffee.
I look back at Harrison, chewing my food, wondering what her response is going to be. And like it’s a total fucking mystery to her, too, she says, “Luck. I guess,” with a shrug of her shoulder and two pieces of pizza on her plate.
Mary eyeballs her as she takes of sip of hot black coffee.
“Here’s to luck,” Mary says, lifting her cup. Harrison smiles and I look back at the TV. This could have turned out so bad. We’re all sitting here eating pizza and having a beer. Bryce is coming home. This is good.
But there’s one thing wrong.
I’m still hurting.
But for right now, I’ve got to be grateful. Harrison groans after she takes a bite.
“Good, huh?” I say, grinning.
“For sure,” she replies.
____________
Harrison has fallen asleep on the couch, and I’m sitting out on the balcony enjoying a smoke when Pops and Monnie walk out.
They take a seat, neither saying much of anything as we all look out over the city. My brother’s castle in the sky is nice. Too much for me, but it’s good to sit out here and think.
“What’s on your mind?” Pops asks me as he lights a cigar.
I shake my head and shrug. “Nothing.”
“Have you talked to the girl?” Monnie asks. I look over at him for a moment before looking away, and then I nod.
“You love her?” Pops asks me, puffing on his smoke.
I nod again and hit my cigarette, sitting up and resting my forearms on my knees as my smoke hangs between my fingertips. I thump the end and ashes fall, getting swooped up by the breeze.
I look over at him, wondering why the fuck he’s telling me what I already know.
“And you’re blaming yourself for all of it, aren’t you?” he asks me.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because none of it is. You can’t control what other people do, son. Bryce knew the risks he was taking every day he ran that place. Your girl had a job to do and you fell in love.
“None of that could have been helped. So stop it.”
“Okay, so I stop blaming myself, it doesn’t change the fact that I can’t be with her.”
“Why can’t you be with her?” Monnie asks.
“She screwed over my family. My blood. How can I forgive that? How can Bryce forgive that?” I ask. It’ll always be the elephant in the room. The issue.
Monnie sits back in his chair. “I say do what makes you happy, kid. Life’s too short.”
“What do you say, Pops?” I ask.
“I’m with my brother. Life’s too short. Bryce will come around. I’m not saying shove it in his face, but if she’s what you want, then don’t let this mess it up.
“Bryce is coming home. Everything worked out okay for everyone else. Why can’t it for you, too?”
I look down, taking a drag of my cigarette.
____________
I glance down at my new phone. Dalton’s name mocks me. If I do this, if I choose to go after her, then I will have to hide it from Bryce.
He won’t understand. He’ll only see it from his point of view. She’s the reason he doesn’t have his business anymore. Like Pops says, I’ll have to ease him into the idea, and that’s going to take time. I hate lying to him, especially since I flipped out so much when he lied to me about Mary, but that’s just the way it’s got to be.
It’s been hours since Harrison left to go get Bryce. I’m not sure what’s taking so long. I rub my face and stand up from the couch. “Going somewhere?” Aunt Lou asks. Pops, Mary, and Monnie look at me.
I lift my hat and turn it around backwards. “Yeah, I’ll catch Bryce later.”
I dart my eyes over to Pops who gives me a small smirk.
Having his approval means a lot to me. He gets it, but I won’t tell him what I’m doing. I don’t want him to feel like he has to lie to Bryce if he asks him why I’ve been MIA.
“I’ll see y’all.” I grab my keys from the table and head to the door.
“Jace.” I look over when Mary walks up to me. I have to admit, she looks good. Better than I’ve ever seen her. Maybe this time she is going to walk a straight line. “How are you doing?” she asks.
I narrow my eyes. “Good,” I say skeptically.
She nods and gives me a small smile. “Look, I know you and I have never… Well, we’ve never had a chance to get to know each other. That’s my fault.”
“What are you doing?” I ask, wanting her to get to the point.
She clears her throat and slides her hand into her back pocket. “I’d like to spend some time together. I know you went through something in the Army. If you ever want to talk about it, I’m a good listener. I’m helping out with meetings down at St. Andrews. Anyway, I just thought I’d ask.”
She looks nervous and unsure of herself. She’s wrong about us not getting to know each other. I know her well enough.
I lift a brow and twist the knob. “Good talking to you, Mary,” I say, expressionless. I don’t wait for her to respond. I hit the elevator button and step inside when the doors slide open.
She thinks I’m just going to sit down and have a conversation about all the shit I’ve been through? She thinks she’d be the one I’d want to talk to about all of that?
The woman who gave up her rights to raise me? The woman who didn’t have time to talk to me when I was a child, because she was too busy sticking needles into her arm?
Now she’s helping out at the church and talking with other junkies. That’s supposed to make me feel some type of way?
I chuckle as the doors open. Fuck that.
I walk out of the lobby and head to my bike.
I spot Bryce and Harrison walking from the garages. Her cheeks are flushed, and he has a cocky grin on his face. “There you two are.” My eyes jump from my brother to Harrison, and I smile, not making a big deal of it. I’ve got some shit to figure out. “I’ve got to run. Glad you’re home, brother,” I say, pulling him in for a side hug. “Harrison, you got a little smudge right there.” I point to my cheek. She doesn’t have lipstick on, but I couldn’t resist fucking with them.
She hits my shoulder as her cheeks turn a cute shade of pink. Bryce smiles, looking at her with adoration.
God, he’s got it bad. I’m glad it’s for Harrison. I kind of love the girl myself, in a brotherly way.
Bryce looks to me. “We gotta talk.”
“Yeah. We will,” I reply, looking down at my phone. I head toward my motorcycle, reaching for my helmet before sliding it over my head. It’s been a while since I’ve ridden this, but it’s nice out.
“Be safe, punk,” he says to me as I grab my soft pack of smokes from my front pocket. I cuff it and strike my Bic, smoke drifting into the evening air.
“You bet.” I wink at the lovebirds and hop onto the bike, kick-starting it and revving up the motor as I walk it backward. I nod at them, stopping briefly before raring the motor up and flying out of there.
Chapter Fifty-One
Harlow
All the boys are here, even creepy Miller. He slides up to Monroe and me as we sit at the bar. “Heard about the payoff,” he says, sucking his teeth. “Bummer.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Did you hear about the other thing, though?” I ask quietly.
He gets closer, seeming very interested. “What?”
“You’ve got rib sauce all in your mustache.”
Monroe laughs and I roll my eyes. Miller straightens his back and snatches a napkin from the bar top. “You think you’re so funny, Dalton,” he says, wiping his face.
I take a sip of my beer, trying to contain my grin.
“One day,” he says. “One day I’m going to get you to change your mind about us. You’ll have the time of your life.”
“You quoting Dirty Dancing songs now?” I ask him.
“I’ll show you dirty dancing,” he replies with a cheeky grin.
“Oh God,” I groan. He throws his fist into the air.
“It’s the truth,” he yells in a singsong voice. I snort, looking over at Monroe.
“He’s losing it.”
“Yeah, I think that ship sailed a long time ago,” he says to me.
I laugh.
“You doing okay?” Monroe asks.
I exhale. “Truthfully? No. But I’ve been through worse, right? I just need to get back to my routine. Focus on the cases I like to work on and continue looking for Chloe.”
Monroe nods. “But you know you need to live, too, right?”
“I live,” I say, defending myself.
“I don’t think going home every night to Slim and staring at Chloe’s file, trying to find something you think you might have missed is living, Dalton.”
“I don’t do that every night. Come on.”
He looks at me disbelievingly.
I dart my eyes to the TV as Chris, the bartender, walks up to us. “Case over?” he asks.
Usually when we finish a case, the whole crew comes here and has a drink or two, hence why he’s asking.
“This the one I helped out with?”
“Yep.” I nod.
He reaches down and pulls out three shot glasses. “We should toast,” he says, filling them.
We three pick up our glasses as Chris says, “To my awesome performance in Harlow’s case.”
I grin and Monroe shakes his head. We clink our glasses and toss back the shots. It’s like fire going down and makes me cough. “Jesus, what the hell was that?”
“151,” he s
ays.
“You trying to catch our mouths on fire?” Monroe asks.
Chris laughs. “Come on, pussies. You take down the worst of the worst and you can’t handle a little rum?”
“Get the hell out of here,” Monroe says to him with an eye roll.
I take a sip of my beer, trying to ease the burn.
“So what were we saying?” Monroe asks.
“You were telling me that my life is boring.”
He chuckles. “I didn’t say that.”
“Basically,” I reply.
“I’m just saying you need to remember to get out more. Go on a few dates with some shitty men until you find the right one.”
Talking about the right one has my chest throbbing. I thought he might call me. I don’t know why, though.
“I have no desire to go through this crap again,” I tell him.
“You can’t be scared to get your heart broken. That shit is going to happen sometimes.”
“Not if I don’t let it.”
His eyes skip past me, and he narrows them. “The case is over,” he says.
“Yeah, so?”
“So who’s to say you and Jace can’t be together now?”
“I’m pretty sure Jace says that. I screwed over his brother. I lied to him for months. I tricked him, remember?”
“If he came in here right now, what would you do?”
My eyes tighten. “I’d tell him I was sorry. I’d tell him that I never meant to hurt him, and I wish things could have been different.”
“How about you do that then?” he says, sliding off of his stool.
“Where are you going?” I twist and my heart jumps into my throat. Monroe pats me on the shoulder and walks away. Jace nods at him before taking his seat.
I don’t know what to do, so I bite my lip and try to breathe correctly.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” I reply.
His eyes dance over my face, and then he says, “I’m Jace.”
My heart smiles with happy tears in her eyes. There’s a lump in my throat, and my hands begin to shake as I look down for a moment.
“Harlow,” I reply. “But most people call me Dalton.”
He nods, signaling for Chris. “I’ll take what she’s having,” he says. Chris looks confused, and I want to laugh, but decide now isn’t the time to inform Jace on all the people who helped me lie to him.
Give Me Redemption (Give Me Series Book 4) Page 23
