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Chapter 2
“Didhe make any movement towards you before you went for the weapon?”
It was the afternoon of the day I shot Reg and changed my world forever. The day I reclaimed myself and released the darkness inside, to become the new Everly, no longer afraid and no longer contained within the confines of that fear.
We were sitting in the formal front living room, some might call it the parlor. Valen and Archer had called their family lawyers, they used the same firm, and they sent over one of the senior partners. He was an expert with many decades experience to handle a scandal such as this, he’d buried so many scandals in our town that he probably knew something about everybody. Everybody with money, that was.
That’s what he’d called it. A scandal. Like I’d accidentally flashed some panties getting out of my limo, or been caught making out with my manager at some Hollywood nightclub. In reality, I’d gunned down my rapist stepfather, a much darker situation than something I’d deem a scandal. Then again, he did his job so well I didn’t know the kinds of issues he’d covered up so far. That was the point.
“No, he didn’t,” I replied calmly. I was sitting alone in an upright red velvet wingback chair, trying my best to not look like a depraved murderer. Still, I couldn’t be bothered to pretend to be upset about it. It still felt too good, knowing I’d saved my little sister from years of torment.
I’d already gone over exactly what happened once before, but he was grilling me now. Getting every little detail.
Kingston, Archer, and Valen were seated on a sofa close to me, shifting uncomfortably every time I mentioned Reg’s abuse or the way I’d been treated in my home. They hated that they hadn’t been there to protect me, and I loved them for that. At least I thought it was love, or something like it. I needed time to find out exactly how deep my love went for each of them. From the certain, in Kingston, to the yet to be discovered in the other two.
The lawyer scribbled in a notepad he had settled on his knees. He was sitting across from me in a matching red velvet wingback chair he’d dragged across the silk, hand woven carpet so we could sit face to face.
Lewis Lawson, was his name. The third. But he told me to call him Lewis, so I did.
“Okay, so he didn’t threaten you at all before you got it? Are you sure you took it out, or did he somehow get to it first?”
“No, he didn’t make a move for the gun. I went for it first and took it out of the cabinet, then pointed it at him and shot him point blank,” I replied.
Lewis made a scoffing sound and shook his head before he smiled at me with a sardonic look. “You’re not making this easy on me, sweetie. I need you to just care even a little that you shot him like that.”
“I’m sorry, I just don’t. You know now what he did to me. Would you care about killing somebody who did that to you?”
“I don’t think I would, no,” he said. “But from a legal standpoint, I would at least think of a plausible reason to justify my actions.”
“I reacted without planning my actions,” I said. “I wasn’t thinking about how this would look for me in a legal setting.”
“That could be good for your case,” Lewis said. “They might go easier on you knowing you acted in a moment of passion.”
“It wasn’t passion,” I said, not wanting to have that word associated with what I’d done to Reg. “It was a moment of clarity. Of knowing exactly what I needed to do in order to protect my little sister and save my soul.”
“Okay, I understand,” Lewis said. “But let’s not tell the police or a jury that. It might make you seem slightly less appealing on an emotional level.”
I was about to respond to him, but his phone buzzed and he glanced down at it. He read the text that had just come in, looked back up to me and said, “Oh, this changes things.”
“Why? What happened?” I asked.
“Your stepfather didn’t die. He just got out of surgery and is expected to make a full recovery,” Lewis said, a grim look on his face. “This will be harder to handle. We will have to convince a jury that your testimony is more important than his. His lawyers will appeal to their emotional sides. This is bad.”
It felt like a sonic boom went off inside my head. A massive explosion that left my ears ringing and then muffled, blocking the sound of my Kings reacting to the news. I could only hear distant exclamations of shock and horror, matching my own internal primal howl.
And then it all kicked in full power, I leaped up from the chair and every ounce of composure I was hanging onto dissolved into wracking sobs as I collapsed to the floor immediately after.
The three of them dropped to their knees beside me, Valen took me in his arms while Kingston and Archer held me. I was cocooned in their embraces, and felt like my rudder was set straight from their support.
I took a deep breath, wiped my tears off my cheeks and sat upright again. The Kings helped me to my feet and I sat back in the chair, crossed my legs and said, “I should have kept shooting.”
“I can’t advise you either way, but in this case it would be easier to go up against a corpse than a living man,” Lewis said as the Kings returned to their seats. “I will have to work out a different strategy and look into his background so I can come up with something to destroy him at trial.”
“We’ll do whatever we need to do. Anything you ask of us, we’ll do it,” Kingston said, his voice deep and thick with protective force. He really was having a hard time with this.
“This is really the worst kind of news I expected,” I said. “Not about the trial, but that he lived. I really thought I shot him dead.”
“He’s lucky, I guess,” Lewis said. “You aren’t.”
