“Fuck,” I mutter. It feels like a rope just got wrapped around my neck.

“How did that happen?” Grier pushes.

“I don’t know. Maybe when I was driving? Or I reached for something?”

“And this injury was the one you sustained how?”

I don’t have to be a lawyer to know that my next admission is going to sound bad. “I got stabbed on the docks.”

“And you were down there why?”

“Fighting,” I mumble under my breath.

“What was that?”

“Fighting. I was fighting.”

“You were fighting?” he repeats.

“There’s no law against fighting.” One of the guys I fight at the docks is the son of an assistant AG. He claims that if we all agree to participate, we aren’t doing anything wrong. Wanting to get hit by someone else isn’t a prosecutable offense.

But I guess it can be evidence of someone who’s violent and possibly murderous.

“And no exchange of money? I have a Franklin Deutmeyer, otherwise known as Fat Deuce, who says that Easton Royal places bets with him for football games. You telling me he never bets on your fights?” Grier doesn’t wait for my lie. “We interviewed Justin Markowitz, who says that there is plenty of money exchanged.”

It doesn’t sound like he needs a response, and I’m right, because Grier barrels forward like he’s ready to give the closing argument to put me away.

“You fight for money. You fight because it makes you feel good. You put a kid in the hospital for no good reason—”

I do interrupt this time. “He insulted my mother.”

“Like this Richmond boy whose nose you broke today? He also insulted your mother?”

“Yes,” I say tightly.

“And what about Brooke? Did she insult your mother, too?”

“What are you saying?” my father growls.

“I’m saying your son has a temper,” Grier snaps. “You so much as breathe on his dead mother’s grave—”

Dad flinches.

“—and he loses control.” Grier tosses his pen on the desk and glares at me. “The DA has a real hard-on for this case. I don’t know why. They’ve got unsolved crimes up the wazoo, murders that happen regularly from the drug trade, bookies like Fat Deuce running around taking money from kids, but they like this case and they like you as the one who did it. Our investigators did a little digging and there are rumors that Dinah O’Halloran may have had a relationship with DA Pat Marolt.

This time it’s Dad who curses. “Goddammit.”

The rope gets tighter.

“They’re going to interview every single one of your classmates. If you’ve had problems with any of them, you’d better tell me about it now.”

“You’re supposed to be one of the best lawyers in the state,” Dad says testily.

“You’re asking me to perform a miracle,” Grier snaps back.

“No,” I interrupt. “We’re asking you to find out the truth. Because while I don’t mind taking a free shot to my jaw, I do care about going to prison for something I didn’t do. I’m an asshole, for sure. But I don’t hit women, and I sure as shit would never kill one.”

Dad steps close and lays a hand on my shoulder. “You win this case, Grier. I don’t care what else you have on your desk. Nothing else matters until Reed’s free of this.”

The or else is implied.

Grier’s mouth thins, but he doesn’t object. Instead, he rises, tucks all his papers away, and says, “I’ll get to work.”

“What should we be doing while the investigation continues?” Dad asks, seeing Grier to the door.

I’m stuck in the chair, wondering how in the hell my life has come to this. I look down at my hands. Did I kill her? Did I dream leaving the penthouse? Am I suffering some weird memory lapse?

“Put on a happy face, act normally, and pretend you’re not guilty.”

“I’m not guilty,” I growl.

Grier pauses in the hall. “The DA needs means, motive, and opportunity to prove the crime. Brooke struck her head on the fireplace with enough force to cause her brain to shear from the spinal cord. You’re big and strong and like to punch people around. They have you on tape within the golden period. And they have motive. Oh, and Ella Harper?”

I tense up. “What about her?”

“Stay away from her,” Grier says flatly. “She’s your biggest weakness.”

8

Ella

Reed is waiting for me on the front steps when I get to school. This time Easton is the one who’s missing, but I’m kind of grateful to be alone with Reed, especially after last night. His meeting with Callum and Grier left him sullen and close-mouthed, and it was the first night in a long time that he didn’t sleep in my bedroom. I didn’t beg him to stay, but I did push him to talk.

From the little he told me, I guess the lawyer is worried about Reed’s fighting and the fact that he was unaccounted for during the hour he left the penthouse to the time he got back to the Royal mansion.

That part, I don’t really get. So what if he didn’t go home right away? It doesn’t mean he was doing anything suspicious, especially since the cops know he left the penthouse twenty minutes after he got there.

Still, if it bugs Grier and Callum this much, then it must be important. So it’s the first thing I bring up once I kiss Reed hello.

“I still don’t get why that hour you were driving around means anything.”

His eyes darken, which, combined with his untucked dress shirt and unbuttoned blue blazer, gives him a bad-boy vibe. I was never drawn to the bad-boy type before I met Reed, but in him I find it kind of irresistible.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” he mutters.

“Then why is the lawyer so worried about it?”

Reed shrugs. “I don’t know. But I don’t want you to worry about it, okay?”

“I can’t not worry.” I hesitate, not wanting to bring up this idea again because I know it makes him mad, but I can’t help myself. “We still have time to run,” I plead, then look around to make sure nobody is lurking near us. I lower my voice to a whisper. “I don’t want to sit here and wait for you to be locked up.”