The room went quiet. “We aren’t done,” Reid said.
CHAPTER TWO
Jaxon sat up straighter. “Okay, what else you got?”
A noise on the stairs drew everyone’s attention, especially Jaxon’s. Every instinct he owned snapped to attention. Eight years of training would do that to a man, and it wasn’t going to go away in a day.
It didn’t take long for an inmate to learn that you didn’t ignore footsteps in the wrong place, at the wrong time. That sound could mean a guard looking for trouble… or worse. For him, it had meant a man with a shank who’d been paid to make sure Jaxon never made it out of prison alive.
Jaxon’s spine snapped straight before his brain could catch up. His eyes remained fixed on the top of the stairs. Eight years of training could do that to a man.
Gage’s younger brother, Dax, entered the room, huffing like he’d taken the stairs two at a time.
Jaxon relaxed a fraction, but not completely. Freedom might’ve put him outside the walls, but prison had rewired things inside him.
Dax ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry I’m late.” He glanced at Jaxon before turning to Reid. “Did you already tell him?”
Reid shook his head. “Thought it’d be better coming from you.”
With a firm nod, Dax focused on Jaxon. Jaxon gave the man credit.He got straight to the point. “There’s something you need to know.” The sharpness in the kid’s voice scratched at Jaxon’s nerves.
Dax glanced back at Reid, then Gage, and finally back at Jaxon. “Last night I went back to the DA’s office after hours to finish a closing argument. Thought I was the only one there.”
Jaxon’s gut tightened. Nothing good ever started with that sentence.
Dax kept talking. “But then I heard someone in one of the offices down the hall, the old DA’s office. It was Phillip Thorne. He’s the General—I mean, Alexander Boucher’s lawyer.”
Jaxon’s jaw hardened at the name.
The General’s lawyer, more like his loyal attack dog. Jaxon knew him alright, but eight year ago he’d had no idea that Thorne, who at one time was supposed to be representing Jaxon in court, was on the General’s payroll. This Thorne guy smiled in courtrooms while burying people alive with crooked legal maneuvers.
Dax continued, slower now, as if he was replaying every word in his mind. “He was on the phone. I didn’t hear everything. The door was half-closed, and I came in near the end of the conversation.”
Jaxon leaned forward, forearms on his thighs. “What did you hear?”
Dax hesitated. Then he said, “The last thing Thorne said before he hung up was… ‘I’m your lawyer. I work for you, Alexander. Not the other way around. If you want me to handle Taziana, I will. As long as we both understand the order came directly from you.’”
The words slammed into Jaxon like a steel bar across his ribs.
Taziana.
Not Jaxon. Not Ruick.
Hername. Taziana.
For a second, the office disappeared. Dark curls whipping in the Tennessee mountain wind filled his vision, and a soft laugh filled his ears. The laugh she used to give when she thought he was being ridiculous. He could still feel the warmth of her hand sliding into his like it belonged there.
And then all that disappeared behind the slamming of prison doors, shutting her away from him all over again.
Jaxon lifted his head slowly, his eyes turning hard. “Looks like,” he said, voice low and dangerous, “I’ve got more than one reason to see Tazzy today.” Then he asked the question that had kept him awake every night in prison. “She’s good, right? I mean, no one has messed with her. She’s okay, yeah?”
His brothers exchanged glances that weren’t even close to subtle.
Hutch spoke up first. “She’s still at Books-N-Brew. Georgia, too.”
Gage rubbed the back of his neck. “Brother, you need to brace before you see her. She… she’s changed since the last time you saw her. She’s different now.”
Jaxon blanked his face. What the hell did that mean? She’d changed? It didn’t seem like his brothers were talking about her changing for the better. “I’m pretty sure that is my doing. It’s up to me to make it right.”