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He’d leaned in and was whispering in her ear. The feel of his breath against her skin made her want to vomit. Her whole body was shaking.
They were in a room full of witnesses. He couldn’t do anything to her unless he got her somewhere private. Her brain understood this, but her body didn’t seem to believe it. Tepes wasn’t looking in her direction. For some reason he and the other lawyer were in some sort of private consultation with the judge.
“Let go of me or I will scream.”
“Do that and anyone you know, or love, will suffer dearly.”
Liv laughed, causing the surrounding people to turn and glare at the two of them. His grip on her neck tightened, but he didn’t do anything else. To everyone around them, it probably looked like a disagreement between a couple.
“When you murdered my sister, you took the only person I cared about in this world. I have no friends or family left.”
His smirk left her cold. “I thought you were here to pick up a friend.”
“Case Dismissed!”
The words snapped her attention back to what was happening at the front of the room. The man next to Tepes looked shocked, but happy. Had they presented the video already? No one else had presented evidence. No, she would have noticed that. What was going on?
“Fuck, he did it! He fuckin’ did it.” Someone at the front of the gallery said.
It looked like the man Tepes had been representing was about to throw himself at an older man wearing the same motorcycle cut he was but got pulled up short. The two of them, plus two others who had been sitting in the gallery, headed quickly out of the room.
He hadn’t even looked for her. Disappointment was sour in her stomach. Screw him and screw Luis. She jerked herself away and felt strands of her hair rip out at the roots as he tried to keep her in place.
“Get your hands off me.” This time, she didn’t bother to keep her voice down.
Everyone was staring at them now. Her heart pounded in her chest as she tried to stare him down. His eyes narrowed and without another word, he stalked out of the courtroom. She sat back down, her head bowed as she tried to catch her breath. Fuck.
What was she going to do? If Luis didn’t already know where she lived with his connections, he could find out pretty quickly. She hadn’t been lying when she told Luis that there was no one in her life he could target. Over the last two years, she’d ignored all of her friends and they’d long since given up on trying to talk to her. She had a crap job at a diner where she made barely enough in tips to make sure the rent was paid. Every moment of her time had been spent in the pursuit of one thing. Making Luis pay.
Her mom had taken off the day after she turned sixteen and she’d never known who her father was. She had no possessions worth anything and only two hundred dollars in the bank. She’d sold her car to get the equipment she’d used to film Luis. Hopefully Tepes would keep his word and try to use what she had given him, and not forget about Luis, since his client was a free man.
If he didn’t, she would have to get the files to someone who would actually do something with them, but in order to do that she needed to be alive. Where could she go so that Luis wouldn’t find her? The smartest thing to do was to leave everything behind and catch the first bus going anywhere not here.
That’s what she would do. Nothing she owned was worth the risk of Luis catching her, hell it wasn’t like she had anything of value except her cameras and microphones and they had done their job. 15th Street Station was only two blocks away. From there, she thought, she could catch a train or bus to just about anywhere.
The next time a group of people got up to leave she moved with them, hoping her smaller form wouldn’t be visible in the crowd. She was almost to the stairway when someone grabbed her arm and jerked her to the side and out of the shadows.
No way. No fucking way was she going down quietly! She swung around, ready to knee the motherfucker in the balls and run.
Chapter5
Sean
Something wasn’t right with this whole situation. There was absolutely no way the DA should have dropped all charges. Not without at least reviewing and authenticating the video. On the surface it was good news for Bank, but Sean didn’t trust it. He told Marcus to get the bikers out of town quickly, in case this was some sort of setup. He was going to get Liv somewhere safe so his team could dig into this mess and try to figure out what was really going on.
He’d been relieved when he’d seen her slumped in a back corner of the courtroom. It had been obvious that she would’ve rather been anywhere but there. As he prepared to leave, a quick glance inside the doors was enough to tell him she wasn’t there anymore. Where would she have gone? Sean scanned the basement area in front of the courtroom. Why would she have waited all that time, then taken off? Did she think he’d forgotten about her?
The area around the courtroom was packed with people. Was that her dark hair in the middle of the group of people heading away from him? Sean strode towards them, hoping it was. As he drew closer, he was sure he recognized her clothing.
“Liv.” He called out, trying to get her attention in the noisy room. The woman looked to the side, and he was sure it was her, but she didn’t even pause. Not wanting to shout, he got closer and took her arm, pulling her out of the press of people.
Only quick reflexes had him turning his hips and avoiding the strike of her knee. What the hell? Ignoring her struggles, Sean picked her up, putting them chest to chest and moving them out of the way of foot traffic and towards the wall. A few of the people surrounding them were giving them odd looks, but no one tried to interfere.
“Liv it’s me.”
A strange display of emotions crossed through Liv’s eyes: anger, relief, then fear, and finally settled back on anger. When she did stop struggling, he put her down but kept her caged between him and the wall. The last thing he needed was for her to try to run.
“Let me go. I need to get out of here.” She pushed at his chest, but he held firm, not letting her move him.
