AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The feel of the metal cuffs the police officer slapped on me stayed with me, a deep scar on my psyche I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to purge. Nor could I shake the charge for the arrest ringing in my ears.
Shame and anguish swirled in my gut, threatening to crawl up my throat at the most inopportune time, like during fingerprinting and having my mug shot taken.
I managed to swallow it down, but the guilt remained, something I didn’t think would ever go away. My fingers, so tightly clenched, were devoid of color, of blood flow. The anxiety of being in the police station, cuffed then processed again, was a fucking nightmare. I didn’t want to have a criminal record in common with my estranged dad, even if he’d been acquitted when it’d happened to him at a much younger age than my nineteen years.
The single call I was granted went to my uncle Lucas’s law office. I requested the receptionist inform him of my predicament despite him being out of town with his wife and my being assigned a criminal defense lawyer by the state. My cousins, Cole and Damon, Uncle Lucas’s sons, had found out by then. Mom had probably called Grandad, too, as if my life weren’t already a clusterfuck.
The cop who took my information led me to a holding cell, removed the handcuffs, and slammed the bars shut, effectively locking me in. I had nothing but time and the horror of my thoughts.
Would this have happened if I hadn’t taken the part-time bodyguard job Erica Williams’s family had hired me to do for the last six months?I wanted to say no, there was no way it would have. Probably not how Luke’s death had played out at least, but possibly another way. I’d been informed he’d wanted to fight.
I sat on the cell’s hard metal bench and worried for an entirely new reason. Luke knew of the underground fights I participated in and had set one up to go against me. I’d even told Snake, the guy who ran the fights, that Luke had no business fighting based on our conflicting interests outside the Ring. It was a massive risk that Luke had caught wind of them, and ultimately, the payout that could tie me to the fights.Does that mean his parents know too? Will they find any documentation from Luke that could lead to me?
Snake had assured me that all transactions were handwritten, not electronically recorded, and got destroyed at the end of the night. No record of any payouts or the names of the fighters remained. That wasn’t the problem. Fighting wasn’t illegal. The gambling was, and the payouts.
That was my next biggest fear, after being locked in a holding cell. If the police found evidence of illegal gambling, I could kiss my future—one I’d hoped would be in the NFL—and potentially my freedom, goodbye.
The NFL wasn’t a sure thing, a fact my brother had capitalized on in a conversation to my at-the-time high school girlfriend of two years. And thanks to my brother’s lie that my shoulder injury would be career ending, Tracey had promptly broken things off with me—in a text, the summer before our first year of college. The injury had happened during a pickup game at a barbecue thrown by the football house where we would soon live—and where Cole already lived at the time.
I’d been in a downward spiral ever since. College was a new playing field, and I’d taken advantage of sleeping my way through sorority girls, TAs, and even a professor to fill the loneliness and feelings of never being enough. Mistakes were made, but eventually, I regained some semblance of control.
The fights helped. They were like therapy for the turmoil and mass destruction my life became after my shoulder injury sidelined me. And after I healed, and even before I was back on Thane’s football team, I’d been a regular fighter in the underground events to help pay the bills and take the edge off the restlessness that had me itching for a fight or sex.
Of the four of us—my two cousins and my twin—I was the only one still fighting in them. We’d fought in the Ring since our first year of high school, and that had transferred to college. Cole, a year older than the rest of us, had stopped when he started at Thane University. He considered it too big a risk to his chance at getting drafted into the NFL, and he worried it would taint his girlfriend’s image during Riley’s Olympic trial. Damon wasn’t far behind. And my brother had quit this year, after a traumatic brain injury that had come on the heels of our grandad getting too involved in his life in the worst way.
The rest, recovery, and PT had been grueling. He’d had to live at home during the process, with all of us, including Aspen, checking up on him. But my brother was strong, his drive ingrained in every fiber of his being, and he’d exceeded the doctors’ expected timelines, enabling him to move back to college after winter break.
I dropped my head into my hands.When will the lawyer arrive and spring me from this place?The timing was absolute shit. I didn’t know if Uncle Lucas would get the message anytime soon. Being in there, with only my thoughts and the too-real sounds of the police station as company, was slowly driving me crazy.
I was fucking up my life, and I didn’t know how to stop. I leaned back against the cold cinder block wall, my leg bouncing nervously as a temporary outlet for my out-of-control emotions. I alternated between sitting with restless energy and pacing my cell like a strung-out junkie jonesing for my next fix. Time elongated, and while I might only have been locked up a couple of hours, it felt like days.
It was so messed up. Saliva flooded my mouth, and I frantically swallowed against the nausea. I’d killed someone. Ended his life. I couldn’t get that thought out of my head. Even if Luke had been asking for the hit, it never should’ve cost him his life.What if that had been my brother or one of my cousins?Tears flooded my eyes, and I blinked them back, counting out each breath in a desperate attempt for something else to focus on and slow the panic attack that clawed at my throat.I’m so screwed.
An officer rounded the corner of the back holding cell hallway, his square face void of emotion.
I stood, my hands automatically curling around the cold steel bars. My skin crawled expectantly.Is my lawyer here?
“You have a visitor.” His flat, almost monotone voice scratched over my eardrums.
I glanced at his name tag—not that knowing his name would do me any good—then I backed up so he could unlock my cell and lead me to a conference room at the end of the hall. A small window sat high on the tan metal door Officer Biaggio opened and held until I entered.
The deep growl was one I recognized instantly.Not my lawyer.My shoulders tensed more, if that was even possible.
Grandad stood with his back to the door. Salt-and-pepper hair, broad shoulders, and a height the same as mine at a couple of inches over six feet, he took up more space with his big personality than the room provided as he yelled into the phone pressed to his ear.
The cop grunted, but once I stepped inside, he shut the door behind me, trapping me with my irate grandad.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass if he called you first.” Grandad was talking to Uncle Lucas. “Shane and Phoenix fall under my jurisdiction. Nothing has changed since my daughter took her life while underyourcare. We made an agreement while she was alive, and youwillhonor it.”
Grandad was referring to Mom’s sister, our aunt and Uncle Lucas’s first wife—another tragedy that had happened a few years ago.How much will I have to endure today?
Silence followed, and I closed my eyes, tilted my face to the ceiling, and took a steadying breath. Grandad was ripping my uncle a new one because of me. I knew Uncle Lucas would want to help. He would move heaven and earth to do so, but Grandad was the primary force in our lives after Mom. He made it very clear that our uncle had no say or control regarding finances or if we needed help. Legalities fell under that category. I should have called Grandad, but Uncle Lucas would have swept in with a team of lawyers and made things go much smoother. I pulled out one of the metal chairs and took a seat.
“My lawyer is five minutes out. If we need anything, we will let you know.” He hung up then turned to face me. “What the hell have you done?”
So, it would be like that. Accusations. Lectures. I wished Uncle Lucas had been in town and had arrived before Grandad. I loved Grandad, but he could be a lot to manage.
“Mom called you?”
