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“And if I didn’t have any at all except my word and a body buried in the ground…”
He ground his teeth, considering the best way to reply, and I knew already what his answer would be. If the court was going to be able to do anything with the evidence, my testimony would be paramount. And a trial could take weeks. Months, even. And no amount of police protection would be able to stop Diesel St. Crow from slitting my throat before it ever went as far as a conviction.
My stomach soured. Would the guys be implicated in that or just Diesel? Could I keep them out of it?
Did I want to?
“Like I said,” I continued before Officer Vick could say a word, wanting to cut this conversation short before I said something I couldn’t fucking take back. “I don’t have enough yet.”
“When?”
“I don’t fucking know.
He nodded. “The trials can be quite…”
“I know.”
“If you help us, there’s a possibility we’d be able to offer immunity for any crimes committed in the process of obtaining the information we need.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Vick ran a hand through his short hair, glancing between me and the end of the trail a good twenty feet behind him. My chest grew cold at the idea of someone seeing us here, like this. Officer Vick and I out in the open.
“We really need—”
I held up a hand to stop him from pleading his case any more than he already had. “I’mworkingon it,” I gritted out. “But you can’t approach me again.Ever. If someone saw...”
I shuddered.
“But—”
“I can’t give you anything if I’m dead.”
I fixed him with a hard stare before starting back at a slow jog. “Move,” I growled and he stepped to the side as I pounded past him.
“We need you, Ava Jade,” he called as I emerged from the path. “Don’t disappoint me.”
There werea few things I was good at that didn’t involve violence. Cooking being one of them.
I spooned the honey Dijon white-wine sauce over the roasted chicken and potatoes, laying small sprigs of thyme on each. I wrung my hands in the tea towel, sighing as I hesitated to bring Ava Jade’s plate in to her.
The television in the living room remained quiet as she flicked through the options on one of the streaming services Grey had hooked up to the TV. She’d been trying to decide for nearly twenty minutes already. At this rate, I wasn’t sure if she would find anything at all.
I set down the tea towel on the counter and scooped up the plates, bringing them to the living room. Breaking my own rules. We never ate in the living room. Dinners, at least when I made them, were eaten together at the kitchen island.
It wasn’t the only rule I was going to have to bend if I wanted Ava Jade to hold me in the same regard as she did my brothers. If I wanted her to stop hating me.DidI want her to stop hating me?
I shook my head, upper lip twitching at the idiocy of the internal question.Of fucking courseI didn’t want her to hate me. It was just easier that way...in the beginning.
“Hey,” I said gruffly as I walked into the living room, the hot plates burning into my palms. “You hungry?”
She didn’t turn from where she sat cross legged on the long couch to the right of the room, her side profile facing the television. Showing off the regal shape of her face. “I already ate dinner,” she muttered, shifting on the cushion as she finally settled on something to watch. Cueing up a Marvel movie.
My grip on the plates tightened. “I didn’t ask you that. I asked if you were hungry.”
I couldn’t help the tinge of acid in my voice and I cleared my throat to get rid of it, clamping down to get a hold on myself, purging myself of the angry thoughts vying for dominion in my mind.
She set the remote down on the table and peeked up at me, catching sight of the plates in my hands. Piled high with perfectly roasted chicken and potatoes and buttered carrots.
