Fighting Conviction by Greer Rivers

Chapter Forty

Soothing warm cinnamon filled Ellie’s nostrils. Her eyes fluttered up and she breathed in the scent as she slowly came to realize she was lying on Dev’s bare chest. Strong arms wrapped around her tighter in confirmation.

“How’re you feeling?” His chest rumbled under her cheek as he spoke. He began to rub slow circles on her back, making the T-shirt he’d given her to wear roll up under his hand.

“Fine, actually.” Ellie lifted her head from his chest and pulled at the T-shirt fabric. “This yours?” She smiled at her joke, knowing good and well it was, but she wasn’t prepared for Dev’s eyes to wrinkle with worry.

“Yeah, do you not remember?”

Guilt pricked her heart and Ellie tried to laugh it off, but the huffs turned into a cough. “Of course, I remember everything. I was teasing you, silly.”

And she did remember everything. Even the parts she wished she could forget.

“I wish we’d stayed and waited for Virginia to wake up.” She’d been rushed into surgery for her bullet wound and loss of blood. Ellie would’ve stayed there all night if Virginia’s parents hadn’t told her to go home and rest.

Dev slipped his hand up her shirt and continued the circles on her bare back. “The doctors said she needed sleep. Besides, her parents were there.”

“You’re right.” She sighed. “They needed their privacy.”

Dev nodded and continued his smooth circles, making Ellie shiver.

“You cold?” He sat up against the headboard and tugged her close before pulling the covers up to her neck.

“Around you?” She giggled. “Never.” His skin scorched hers every time they touched, burning underneath her skin in ways a fire never could.

“Just making sure. You’ve been through a lot. It’d be okay, you know, if you wanted to talk about your feelings or anything.”

His stilted—but sincere—offer to talk made her grin, until she remembered their fight at the hotel. She felt a frown form on her face as her muscles tensed. Rolling her shoulders back, she tried not to show how much her thoughts were affecting her, but as always, Dev saw right through her.

“Come on… what’s on your mind, angel?”

Ellie raised her head from his chest again and sat up. Dev’s arm fell loosely at her hip. “I was in a fire last night.”

“Yes you were.” He sighed, his eyes were downcast and full of… what, guilt? Worry?

“And I got myself outta there…”

“Yeah… what’re you getting at?” His head tilted as it laid against the headboard.

“I can take care of myself, ya know.”

Dev cocked his head and huffed out a laugh. “I know that.”

“You taught me how to, and I used everything you taught me to get outta there all on my own. And with Virginia. I saved us both. And…” She braced herself with a deep inhale and slow exhale. “I saved myself yesterday, and you didn’t even think I could handle even knowing about the party yesterday.”

Dev’s brow furrowed and he sat up until his back was flat against the headboard. “Angel, what’re you talking about?”

“I know you told everyone to be quiet about the party so I wouldn’t find out. Did you really think I couldn’t handle even knowing about it?”

He shook his head slowly, as if he was trying to catch up with her logic. “No…”

“I’ve been working hard on myself. In training. In therapy. You have to believe in me sometimes!” Ellie raised her voice, trying desperately not to sound too emotional and sticking with logic. The best way to get through to Dev.

“You’re right… and I do.”

“And—wait… you do?”

Dev laughed and shrugged while he shook his head. “Yeah of course I do. Why do you think I don’t?”

“I-I thought you told the Crew I wouldn’t be able to handle knowing about the party… isn’t that why you didn’t tell me about yesterday?”

Dev frowned again. “You keep saying that… I don’t know where the hell you got that idea, baby. But what it sounds like to me, is you didn’t hear the whole conversation and you were somewhere you weren’t supposed to be…” He raised his eyebrow in accusation and Ellie felt her cheeks redden.

“That’s beside the point.”

He nodded. “Fair. But, if you’d listened to the whole conversation, you would’ve heard me say I thought if we told you anything, you wouldn’t be able to handle knowing without insisting on coming to the women’s rescue at the hotel. Which is exactly where I didn’t want you to be.”

“Why not, Dev? I could’ve been there for the survivors to help them know they were finally safe and you’ve taught me how to fight.”

Again, Dev adopted a look of confusion before agreeing with her. “Of course you do.”

Ellie stopped again. “Okay… then what’s the problem? Why didn’t you want me to come help? I’m more than capable of holding my own.”

“Aside from the fact that defending others is an entirely different animal than defending yourself and that you’re well-trained by a professional, but not a well-trained professional, and that you have emotional ties to this situation, and that I was going to call you immediately after we saved those women to let you know that we needed you at Sasha Saves… I can’t lose you, Ellie.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t that you’re not capable. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to stand it if something happened to you. That kind of fear has no place in a mission.”

“Oh.” She didn’t know what else to say. Last night when he’d spoken to her soul and told her how he felt, she’d half convinced herself that was his adrenaline talking, or an amazing dream after a really god-awful nightmare. “I-I’m sorry. I never even thought of it that way.”

Dev stroked her cheek with his fingertips. “I meant what I said last night, baby. If things went south on a mission I was on, one where I’d felt like I was in charge of your safety? Shit, Ellie, if I lost you, that’d fucking end me. I love you, Ellie.”

Ellie’s heart literally skipped and she squeezed his hand. “I love you, too, Dev.” Dev gave her one of his small smiles and leaned in for a kiss and swept his tongue against hers. He wrapped his hand around the back of her thigh, pulling her to straddle him. Her sensitive skin tingled in anticipation, needing a repeat of last night. He threaded his fingers through her hair and pulled her in just as his bedside table vibrated.

“Shit… That’ll be the meeting.”

“Meeting?”

“Yeah.” He leaned over and grabbed his phone and typed in his password. “Yep. Meeting in the war room.”

“Oh.” Ellie tried not to show how disappointed she was that he was leaving already. “Will I see you after?”

He whipped his head up from the phone. “What, you’re not coming? Do you have class or something?” He looked at his watch. “Wait, no it’s Saturday.”

Ellie laughed and shrugged. “What am I supposed to do? Go with you to an official BlackStone meeting?”

He raised an eyebrow as he nodded, like she was supposed to know the answer already. “Yeah, baby. Don’t act like you haven’t listened in on one before.” At his wink and teasing smirk, she rolled her eyes. She could already tell he was never gonna let her eavesdropping stunt go. “It’s our after-action report. You were part of the action.”

His words meant literally nothing to her. “Uh… you’re looking at me like I’m supposed to know what that is.”

He huffed and started talking as he climbed out of the bed, butt naked—how had it not registered that he was naked this whole time?—before pulling on gray sweatpants. She could see the outline of his cock as he turned around and Ellie felt her cheeks redden.

“…make sense? Baby, you listening?” He laughed. “Like the sweatpants?”

She looked up and knew her cheeks were officially red when she saw the smirk on his face. “I-I’m sorry, what were you saying?”

Dev’s eyes narrowed as she bit her lip and she couldn’t help but notice the length in his pants began to tent.

He adjusted himself. “Fuck, yeah maybe sweatpants aren’t a good idea.”

“Um, disagree. Sweatpants are always a good idea.”

He laughed at her assessment and she joined in until both of them ended with short coughs. “Unfortunately, we’ll probably be able to behave if we keep hacking up lungs.” Dev reasoned with a grimace. “What I was saying is, an after-action report is a meeting where everyone on the team recaps the mission, or the action, so to speak.”

Ellie tilted her head and frowned. “But I wasn’t on the mission.”

“Might as well have been,” he joked. “Go, get changed. I’m sure they’ll want to hear how everything went down. Once you start telling your story I won’t have to worry about my sweatpants.”

“Why’s that?” Ellie asked as she got up, smoothing Dev’s T-shirt down over her bare butt.

He pulled a Henley over his head and scoffed. “I imagine hearing how you were abducted, again, will make me want to go on a killing spree. My name might be Devil, but I don’t get off murdering people. I’m fucked in the head, but not that fucked.” He opened the door and peered his head outside. “Go get changed. I’ll wait for you to go to the meeting, but be quick. Hawk’s a stickler for punctuality.”

“Is the coast clear?” Ellie asked.

Dev barked a laugh. “Yeah, but apparently we haven’t been as sneaky as we thought. Everyone knows about us. But as much as I’d love to see you only in my clothes, I think that’d be pushing it with your brother.”

Ellie’s jaw dropped and she felt her skin flame. “Jason knows?”

Dev nodded. “Yup. Even gave his blessing.”

She rolled her eyes. “Not that we needed it.” Her brother’s take on protectiveness was so outdated.

His small smile made her belly flip. “That’s exactly what I said. It’s better this way though.”

Unable to argue with his logic, Ellie stood on her tiptoes and gave him a quick kiss and a smile before she went to her apartment next door. She changed into her staple black leggings, with a normal long-sleeved T-shirt covering her butt. She put on socks with skid pads and opened the door to see Dev leaning against the wall, already chewing gum.

“Ready?”

“Yep, let’s do this.”

They made it to the “War Room,” as Dev called it, with a minute to spare.

“Glad you could join us,” Jason muttered and her cheeks heated as she realized everyone was already there.

Like, everyone. The rest of the Crew, including her brother, Jules, Nora, ADA Aguilar, Officer Brown, and heck, even Naomi was there. It was a tight squeeze with all the people, but Dev led her in and pulled out a chair beside Jason for her before standing behind it.

“You two beautiful gems live in this complex and you were still the last ones here… how is that exactly?” Nora smiled and Ellie couldn’t hide her grin, ready to turn Nora’s teasing right back at her.

“I don’t know, Nora. How was your lunch date with Matt?” Nora scowled as Ellie giggled. It was going to be so fun teasing Nora about her new boy friend.

“Let’s get started men… I mean… everyone.” Hawk cleared his throat. “I’ll start with the mission…”

He recounted the events at the party, much of which Ellie had heard in the war room the day before. According to Hawk, they’d saved eight women, caught two Russians red-handed, and Mitchell Strickland. The new information lifted a weight from her shoulders she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying all that time.

“Mitchell Strickland must be the man from last year,” Ellie offered.

Hawk nodded. “Devil told us.”

“That’s why he’s in the hospital right now.” Phoenix laughed and nodded toward Dev as he leaned back on two chair legs. “Good ol’ angel of death.”

“What?” Ellie whipped her head at Dev who at least had the decency to look contrite.

“I may or may not have let fate decide what would happen to Strickland.”

“What’s that mean?” Ellie asked, annoyed Dev was choosing then of all times to be cryptic.

“It means he knew exactly where to put a bullet to keep him alive and also make him wish he was dead,” Phoenix answered and Ellie narrowed her eyes at his attempt at dark humor.

“You shot him?” She turned her glare on Dev. “But you promised you wouldn’t shoot him.”

“I said I’d do my best not to kill him.” Ellie shook her head at his reasoning, but Dev just shrugged and smirked at her. “What do you want from me? I did my best, El.”

A laugh huffed from her at her words from their training session two days ago getting thrown back at her. She was tempted to make a sassy retort but ADA Aguilar spoke up.

“He’s in the hospital for at least the next few weeks, but he’ll live,” ADA Aguilar offered. “He’ll be using a colostomy bag in prison, but he’ll live.”

“Well, at least we’ll see justice for Sasha,” Ellie said.

“And justice for the other survivors.” Nora’s voice lowered and she looked at Ellie with soft eyes and a small smile. “Like you, babe. You deserve that, too.”

Ellie felt her eyes prick. It’d been a year. A whole year and nothing had been done at all. She knew BlackStone had been working on finding the true culprits of the trafficking, understood that a bigger picture was at stake, that justice takes time, but the silence had been deafening. She was glad they were finally on track.

“The other two were also served warrants and are currently in jail without bail. I’ll be doing my damnedest to make sure that’s the case for all these cabrónes.” ADA Aguilar’s voice hardened at the end.

“Ellie, what we want to know is how you got mixed up with Burgess.” Hawk propped his elbow on his crossed arm and tapped his lip

“Yeah, what the actual fuck happened?” Jason looked as if he was going to ask more but Dev’s chest rumbled.

“Show her some respect. Ellie didn’t just save her own life, she also saved Virginia’s. She deserves to be treated like a hero, not a child.”

Ellie’s heart fluttered that Dev came to her defense and she was sure the moisture stinging her eyes was going to escape at any moment. But she rolled her shoulders back and cleared her throat, intent on telling them the whole story. How the investigator, or Burgess as they called him, had kidnapped her by shooting and using Virginia as leverage. How he’d seemed sick and was talking to his dead wife.

“Sheriff Motts thinks Burgess had early onset dementia. He wasn’t even supposed to be at the party yesterday, apparently,” ADA Aguilar offered.

Ellie noticed Snake’s brow raise, but she wasn’t sure of the reason, only that she disagreed with the prosecutor. “I don’t think it was dementia,” Ellie explained. “Investigator Burgess was gonna let me and V go, but he got a visitor.”

“A visitor? Who?” Hawk straightened and crossed both arms.

“A Russian guy named Vlad. H-He’s the same one who kidnapped me. Probably you too, Nora.”

Everyone looked to Nora and she paled before she swallowed and spoke in hushed tones. “Then he’s the same one who shot Drake… Wh—What happened?”

“He gave Investigator Burgess drugs, I’m very sure they were drugs. I watched him shoot them up in his arm.” Everyone in the room swore. “Then Vlad took pictures of Burgess’s board he had in his living room and set everything on fire.”

“What the fuck, that’s messed up,” Officer Brown said. “I-I thought he’d overdosed and accidentally set his house on fire with that damn lighter he’s always flickin’.”

“Was he alive?” Jules asked.

“He’s not now,” ADA Aguilar muttered and Ellie’s heart cracked at the heavy blunt finality in the statement. Investigator Burgess was sick, not evil. Or at least she hoped.

She swallowed before speaking again. “I don’t think he was alive when the fire happened. It seemed like whatever he shot himself up with either put him out, or was… bad. I’m pretty sure he was gone before the fire was started.”

“How did you get out?” Jason asked in a quiet voice, as if he wasn’t ready to hear what she had to say.

Ellie recounted how she got out of handcuffs, duct tape, and got Virginia out of the pantry and into the root cellar, and how Dev found her after she’d fought her way to the surface. When she finished, everyone in the room but Dev had varying expressions of shock. His hand rested on her shoulder and he drew small circles on the back of her neck with his thumb.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Phoenix said. “Hawk, we got any openin’s? Might could use a pretty face around here other than just mine and Devil’s. Oh, and sweet baby Nora’s, of course.” He shot a teasing grin at Nora.

Jason smacked him in the chest and the jokester shot his arm out and grabbed the table to catch himself from falling from his two chair legs.

“Nope, no siree, absolutely not,” Nora laughed and crossed her arms. “I’ve retired from the game, boys. You’ll have to drag me back in, kickin’ and screamin’.”

“I am curious, Devil,” Hawk began. “How did you know she was in there? I didn’t even notice the root cellar door, but you were right there seconds before she escaped. It was flat to the ground and covered with dirt. Did you hear her?”

“Yeah, how did you know?” Ellie looked back at him to see confusion written on his face.

He scrubbed his beard and tilted his head at his teammates. “I heard you screaming, ‘in here, in here.’ I’m surprised you guys didn’t hear her, she was loud as hell.”

Hawk and Phoenix both shrugged but Ellie shivered and turned around to look up at Dev.

“You heard me screaming ‘in here’?”

Dev nodded and laughed. “Yeah, it was hard to hear over the fire but when I saw the cellar door, I realized I wasn’t just hearing what I wanted to hear. Then I saw you pushing your way through the doors to get out.”

Ellie pursed her lips in thought and turned back around. She didn’t recall screaming anything, except when she was exerting all her strength on pushing up the door. But maybe she wasn’t remembering it right. It all seemed to be a blur.

“Can we circle back to something?” ADA Aguilar asked.

“Sure, take the floor,” Hawk offered.

ADA Aguilar turned to Ellie. “You said he had a board in his living room?” Ellie nodded. “What was on it?”

Ellie wracked her brain to remember. “I didn’t get to see it much. The Russian said their boss wouldn’t like it… and he said a few things in Russian I think I remember, hold on.” Ellie scrunched her eyes closed and tried to remember back to hearing Vlad talk on the phone. “He said something on the phone like… ‘he knows too much’ and ‘it is done.’ From where I was it sounded like he was talking about the investigator, and… maybe Vlad did something about that.”

Her belly twisted up and she felt queasy, thinking the investigator might’ve been poisoned after all, but tried to remember the other thing she’d heard. “The investigator was obviously working with them though. The Russian guy said the boss was pleased with him for working so hard for… someone.” Ellie frowned, trying to understand the word but caught back up when she realized it couldn’t have been English.

ADA Aguilar’s brows raised. “For who?”

She shook her head hoping it would rattle the words free from her memory bank. “Vlad said Investigator Burgess had done good work for…” She searched her mind for the Russian word he’d said but she couldn’t remember it more than sounding it out. “I wish I’d studied better, but it sounded like uhlayuh… yactuh… est, or something—”

“Alea iacta est?” Snake asked, animated as he turned in a circle to the computer, not even waiting for Ellie’s agreement and nearly bumping Naomi beside him in the motion.

“Um, yeah. Sounds like it, I guess. Then Vlad looked at the board, I think. Investigator Burgess said he was ‘keeping tabs on people for Rusnak’ but then Vlad said the boss wouldn’t like it. Investigator Burgess begged him not to tell. Guess that doesn’t really matter now.”

“Sorry, Ellie, but did you say ‘keeping tabs on people for Rusnak’?” ADA Aguilar asked, and Ellie nodded slowly.

“Excuse me.” ADA Aguilar pulled his phone from his pocket as he walked out. “Agent Kuo, yes ma’am, it’s Aguilar. I need your guys to search the station…”

The door closed behind him and the room was silent for a moment before Hawk spoke. “Well, if that’s everything—”

“Hold on.” Snake typed three keys hard and the screens all filled up with various articles. “Alea iacta est, it means something close to, ‘The die has been cast.’”

He turned to them proudly, but the room was silent. “Well, it’s a Latin phrase, originally from the Greek, attributed to Julius Caesar when he crossed the River Rubicon—”

“Ugh, no one cares, Snake. Get to the juicy meat.” Phoenix pulled his ball cap around and used the bill to cover his face before acting like he was asleep. “What does it mean in connection with all this?”

Snake narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know yet…”

“It’s somethin’ though, isn’t it?” Naomi asked. She leaned closer to Snake but seemed careful not to touch him. “I mean, it’s somethin’ you can look into, right Wes?”

Ellie’s brows raised.

‘Wes?’ Interesting.

“You’re right,” Hawk muttered before tapping his lips. “It’s something to look into. We’ll add it to the list. Is there anything else to cover?”

Everyone grumbled in the negative. “Alright. As you were men—I mean, ladies and uh, gentlemen.”

“Smooth,” Nora laughed before everyone stood up and milled around.

Jason came up to Ellie and pulled her into a hug. “You okay, El? Promise?”

Ellie smiled and let him hold her for as long as he needed. He’d done good giving her space, even though Ellie knew it had to have been killing him inside. “I’m okay. Dev’s been taking care of me.” She gave Dev a sideways glance and grinned at his blush.

Jules bumped Ellie’s shoulder and gave her a knowing smile. “He’s been doin’ that from the beginning, I think.” She turned to Ellie’s brother and rubbed her large pregnant belly before leaning against Jason. “Come on, Jay. Your daughter is kickin’ your fiancée’s bladder and if they both don’t get a cheeseburger ASAP there will be hell to pay.”

Jason laughed and gently wrapped his arm around Jules, as if he was afraid she might literally pop if he handled her too roughly.

“See ya, El. Devil, take care of her.” Jason tilted his chin up at Dev before lifting an eyebrow at Ellie. “I don’t want to have to hear about you getting kidnapped again.” Jules gave Jason a playful slap and turned him to exit the room.

Dev glanced at Ellie and her skin tingled as his fingertips trailed down her arm and squeezed her hand before yelling at Jason’s back. “I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that. Haven’t you learned by now?” He grinned wider than Ellie had ever seen him as he looked back down to her. “She can take care of herself.” He squeezed her hand and brushed his lips over her forehead. “Isn’t that right, angel?”

Ellie smiled and squeezed back. “Yep. But it helps to have the devil on my side.”