Mena stared at him, the face of the man she’d once loved, and couldn’t quite reconcile the sincerity she heard in his words. Was he being honest with her? Or just setting her up? Was it worth finding out if it gave her a real chance to get out of this marriage?
“Would you consider it? If things go my way, then I’d protect you from all the scrutiny of Julian’s situation and help you break the news to him. If they don’t, I will go with you to the courthouse and have our divorce finalized,” Michael offered, then laughed under his breath. “I’m the one taking all the risks here. It’s really win-win for you. What do you say?”
Mena swallowed the lump of goat and glanced down at her trembling hands. Taking a deep breath, she rested her elbows on the table and stared at Michael as she gave him her answer.
Chapter Eighteen
Julian scratched at the scabs forming on his knuckles as he peered through the small window of the conference room door. The guards were doing their obligatory search and pat down of his attorney. He watched as Octavia Constant glared at the guard, daring him to make one move that could be considered even remotely inappropriate. He had no doubts she’d have him locked up in Tiverton in the cell next to his before the guard uttered the words, “I’m sorry.”
The door swung open and Octavia walked in, slammed her attaché case in the chair and pointed a finger in his face.
“I told you to be a model prisoner,” Octavia vented and sat down in the seat across from him. “What’s this I hear about you attacking another prisoner, unprovoked, on your first day? You’re lucky they didn’t put you in solitary.”
“Unprovoked is a stretch,” Julian said, but didn’t elaborate. The complex history he shared with Zak Webber wasn’t worth bringing up to his attorney.
“Typically, new inmates have a seven-day waiting period before they can have phone calls and visitors. Guess what? Yours just got extended to fourteen days. That means two weeks before you can see Mena or your parents,”
“My parents?” Julian balked.
“I talked to your mom yesterday and gave her an update on your case—”
“Why the fuck would you do that?”
“She called and demanded information about your case. I divulged nothing that would breech our attorney-client privilege,” Octavia said. “She said she would come to the island to see you as soon as you could have visitors …”
Julian couldn’t help but notice that she hadn’t mentioned his old man. He was probably telling everyone that Julian would screw up eventually, and he’d been right about his son all along. Fucking asshole. He didn’t want to see him, anyway. Dealing with his mom was going to be hard enough.
“How did Mena take the news?”
“She was disappointed but took it well. You don’t have to worry about her. She’s seems incredibly strong,” Octavia said.
On the surface at least, Julian thought. Mena never showed much emotion, even as she battled internal turmoil.
“The main thing I need you focused on is staying out of trouble. I get it, skirmishes happen all the time in Tiverton, especially when some gang gets it in their head to torment a new arrival. The key is to only defend, never attack. Got it?” Octavia asked.
“Yeah, I got it,” Julian mumbled. As much as he wanted to rip Zak Webber’s jugular from his neck, Julian would have to play nice, or risk losing his freedom for good.
“Let me rundown some updates on your case. The police obtained a search warrant this morning for your yacht and the penthouse you share with Mena. Mena’s going to stay with her friend, Regina, until the cops have completed the search.”
“They won’t find a damn thing.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear. Also, I asked my cousin Icarus—he’s a P.I.—to see if he could find proof that Dumay framed you. He provided me with some interesting info last night.”
“What did he find out?” Julian asked.
“We believe Priscilla bribed the two guards assigned to her at the trial.”
“What makes you think that?”
“One of them is a young man named Whalum O’Keefe. Graduated from high school three years ago and completed the correctional officer training last year. He got hired by Tiverton Prison shortly after completing his training.”
“Strange someone that inexperienced got assigned to a high-profile prisoner like Dumay.”
“And it gets stranger. O’Keefe had been living with his parents until a week before the trial when he bought a house in Cashew Groves with cash. Icarus has a contact at the realty company who told him O’Keefe walked in with fifty thousand dollars in a backpack for the closing on the property.”
“Cash?” Julian contemplated that angle. If Dumay was going to pay off the correctional officers, giving them cash reduced the likelihood of some investigator tracing a money trail back to her. “Bribing one officer doesn’t help. What about the other guard? She needed both of them to pull off her little stunt.”
“That brings me to the other officer, Farouk Essa.” Octavia spread a series of photographs in front of Julian.
