Fighting Conviction by Greer Rivers

Chapter Four

“Investigator Burgess, I’m not sure these meetings are as productive as we’d hoped,” Hawkins Black, the BlackStone Securities leader, growled across the Ashland County Sheriff’s Office conference room.

Devil raised an eyebrow at Hawk’s show of emotion. Their team lead was usually methodical, like Devil. It was the Jaybird between them, Jason Stone, who had the temper. He was barely keeping it in check, bouncing his leg so hard he shook the table.

But Devil couldn’t blame Hawk for the slip in character. They’d all been pushed to the limit, and this case was a sore spot for each of them for different reasons. It was high-time Burgess was called out on his bullshit.

Over the past several months, the BlackStone Securities Crew had hit a dead end in their search for answers about the county’s human trafficking. The Crew had been able to stop the operation, and even eradicate some of the assholes, before they could take off with Ellie and the other women.

But now the fuckers had gone radio silent and the Crew had no other choice but to work with the man none of them trusted. Investigator Burgess of the Ashland County Sheriff’s Office had tried to pin Ellie’s kidnapping and Sasha’s murder on Jaybird, for Christ’s sake. Not to mention the fact the only sources of scientific identification of the subject were missing in action. Sasha’s DNA samples “somehow” got lost and her body was “accidentally” cremated. Even after Sasha’s parents sued the county for emotional distress, the apologies from the sheriff’s office were weak at best. The whole situation was fucked and Burgess was the shitty ass dildo.

Devil’s hands tightened around the chair rests, teasing the skin on an exposed nail he’d found at the beginning of the meeting. He leaned back, schooling his face as he pressed harder into the sharp point. It was past the point of soothing pain, but not close enough to break skin. He didn’t have time for another tetanus shot.

Investigator Burgess squirmed in his leather seat. How the overweight man sat comfortably in his already bulky police-issued uniform was a mystery. “Now fellas, this has been a big case. Lots of movin’ parts—”

“It’s been months,” Hawk interrupted through gritted teeth. “I think it’s time to say the trail has gone stale, and all these so-called leads you’ve been sending us on have been nothing but one long wild-goose chase.” Hawk’s quiet accusation rang out despite the poor acoustics of the wood-paneled walls. Jaybird nodded silently, every muscle tensed, on the verge of exploding.

As their leader, Hawk took on more than his share of guilt when jobs went south. He’d been that way even before Devil served with him in MF7, their paramilitary group where Hawk had been second-in-command.

After Eagle.

Devil shook his head and focused back on the argument at hand.

Investigator Burgess crossed his arms and shook his head with an exaggerated exhale. His theatrics and idiosyncrasies always tripped a wire in Devil’s brain, putting him on alert for the older man’s reactions. Burgess had crazy-ass moods. At least he seemed more subdued this time. Still not a damn bit useful, though.

“I know, gentlemen. I’m as angry as you are. I want to get these bastards even more than you do.” Investigator Burgess raised his voice at the end and pounded his fist on the table for emphasis. Devil scoffed. Men like him always use volume to try to prove a point.

“I highly doubt that,” Jaybird muttered under his breath.

Burgess’s scowl made his graying eighties pornstache dip down at the corners of his frown. “Haven’t you figured anything else out? Anything we can go off of? You’re the professional security agents.” He paused and narrowed his eyes. “Maybe the question is whether y’all’ve been holdin’ up your end of the deal?”

Ah, there it is.

“Is that what you really believe, Investigator?” Hawk asked, positioning his body to face Burgess head-on.

The goal was to share information and swap what they knew, but it hadn’t panned out that way. According to Jules’s friend, an assistant district attorney, they’d kept the details of the case between two officers to make sure no one was compromised. Investigator Burgess and—after some of Jules’s wheeling and dealing with the sheriff—Officer Henry Brown. Thank God, too. Jules trusted him and it was good to have a man on the inside. Especially when the alternative was a trigger-happy, slimy fuck.

If Devil had his way, they would’ve kept the shithead out of it altogether. But Hawk, Snake, and Phoenix, their wheelman, had won out against Jay and Devil in a vote as to whether they should involve the authorities.

So there they were, Hawk, Jaybird, and Devil playing the luck of the draw with Burgess, wondering who would fold first. Hawk and Burgess stared at each other for moments longer, both probably trying to determine if the other was bluffing.

“Well,” Burgess started, trying to find his defenses. “I mean—”

“Come on, sir,” Officer Henry Brown piped up from his corner behind Burgess. “If they knew somethin’, don’t you think they woulda told us?”

Burgess whipped his scowl back to Henry, his eyebrows pinching closely together to create a unibrow.

“I don’t like what you’re suggesting, Burgess,” Hawk growled. “We know the Ascot, Rusnak, and Strickland law firm is involved in some capacity, since Andy Ascot was wrapped up in it and was murdered helping us save those girls. Plus, Ellie and Sasha were kidnapped from a party thrown by a multitude of firms, one of which was A.R.S..”

“We already know all that,” Burgess grumbled.

Of course he did. Hawk wouldn’t give real information. Like the fact Ellie and Sasha were recruited by someone who’d given a fake name. Whoever had lured them into the trap had planned ahead, thinking of every possibility the naïve girls hadn’t.

They also didn’t know how deep the root had rotted in Ashland County’s elite, but they had a hunch Mitchell Strickland was involved based on a dying man’s final words.

The stalemate went on for minutes. Officer Henry finally cleared his throat to get his superior’s attention. “Um, sir?”

Wrenching his eyes away from the stare off with Hawk, Burgess shook his head and punctuated a heavy sigh with a coughing fit at the end. “Listen, boys, I know we got off on the wrong foot with all this shit…”

Jay scoffed at the understatement and Burgess sent him a cutting glance before powering through.

“But I came to see the error in my ways. If we could get our resources together, I’m sure y’all know more than what you’re tellin’ me. You have to. You were the best of the best, after all, weren’t you?” He smiled stiffly.

Unease slithered in Devil’s veins and he rolled his shoulders to lean forward, out of the relaxed pose he’d feigned for the past half hour. He glared at Burgess’s ruddy face, now growing pale, and spoke low. “And what do you mean by that… exactly?”

There was no way he should know about MF7, and any record that the BlackStone agents had been members was redacted, sealed, and burned. The government washed their hands of the clandestine military group and purged MF7 from history as quickly as fucking possible after their last mission.

All anyone knew was that each member of MF7 had been a soldier in one of the military branches and they’d all been medically discharged from their posts for psych reasons. With some government-led clerical magic, their records had been made to say they were discharged around the time they were each initially recruited, backdated after their disaster of a final mission in Yemen where the men had walked into a trap while trying to save a group of women from being trafficked.

Only Nora, a computer nerd as brilliant as Snake, had ever found out the group’s name. They still weren’t sure how she’d been able to finagle that information. The woman was a vault.

“Oh, um… you boys were military, right? The best of the best? Better’n a little ol’ Podunk local sheriff’s department, amiright?” He laughed harshly until he coughed himself into a fit. Amidst the hacking, he reached for his water bottle and patted his police-issued uniform until his coughing ebbed and his shoulders relaxed. He pulled out a lighter from another square in his vest and flicked it on and off in his fingers.

“Right.” Devil nodded and leaned back in his chair, taking note of the investigator’s hand beginning to tremor while he fidgeted.

“With that party… You know, the one where you’re-uh” —he pointed to Jason— “sister and her-uh-friend were kidnapped? What do y’all think about them throwin’ another shindig? Think they’ll be bold enough to try again?”

The three BlackStone men stilled. Devil forced himself to make at least some small movements to avoid drawing attention to the concern stiffening his muscles.

They’d never talked about the party with Burgess, afraid they’d give too much away. They did think the traffickers would be dumb enough to try the same crime in the same party. They had no concrete evidence yet, but it was their theory the traffickers hid their evil under the cloak of the party, helped by some of Ashland County’s finest. But no way in hell were they going to tell Investigator Burgess.

“We haven’t thought too much about it.” Hawk hedged.

“No way they’d be that stupid though, ya know?” Jaybird offered.

Burgess nodded and grunted. “Might be somethin’ worth lookin’ into.”

Hawk tilted his head at Burgess before nodding to himself. “We’ll do that.” He templed his fingers and tapped against his lips. “We might have some leads.”

Burgess grunted his assent and the BlackStone men waited for the inevitable question of who their leads were. But each passing tick of the dated clock above the door echoed in the silent room, reverberating inside Devil’s head and bringing on a painful tension headache.

If only he could see Ellie after the meeting. Her gentle spirit was always the warmth he needed to melt the icy stress accumulating in his veins.

When Jason had shown the Crew her picture for reference to save her last year, Ellie’s soft face and effortless smile lit a fire inside him. His hardened heart had been cracking ever since.

And he hated it.

Everything about Devil was logical, methodical, planned. And for good reason. He’d come face-to-face with what emotions could do to a man.

Six years ago, he was burned by a light that was snuffed out too soon. He learned then that when his control faltered, someone got hurt. Ever since, he’d honed the skill of cold detachment.

Until Ellie.

She was becoming a distraction, and the only way he could think to get Ellie out of his head was by getting inside someone else. It’d been months since he’d gone to Original Sin and gotten an easy lay from one of the dancers at the strip club. He and Phoenix would’ve left right after the meeting, but the lucky bastard got out of going to the sheriff’s office at the last second with another client meeting. Devil would have to keep both heads in check until he had the chance to blow off some steam.

“Welp boys…” Burgess slapped the table with a pasted smile on his face, bringing Devil back to the moment. “I appreciate your time. Whatever you’re lookin’ into, keep me in the loop.”

“Sir? Are you, uh, sure you want to end the meeting so soon? They just got here,” Officer Brown asked from behind the investigator, obviously as confused as they were that the meeting was being cut off half an hour early.

“I think we’ve covered everything, haven’t we gentlemen?”

Hawk narrowed his eyes at both officers and glanced back at Jaybird and Devil. “If you think so, sir. We’ll follow up with what we find out.”

Burgess nodded and they all shifted to get up.

“One more thing.” Jaybird lifted his chin at Burgess.

Burgess’s eyebrows raised and Devil resisted the impulse to do the same. Unable to hide his hatred for Burgess, Jaybird never piped in with his two cents. He’d already met his word quota for that meeting.

“Now, son, I’m on a tight schedule. I-uh, I think we can wait until next time, don’t you agree?”

Jaybird shook his head. “Unbelievable, man. This is important.” He gave Burgess a pointed look.

“If it’s so damn important, why’dya wait ‘til the end to talk about it?”

“Maybe because I don’t trust you farther than I can throw you assho—”

“Enough.” Hawk’s lips tightened in a thin line before nodding at Jaybird to continue.

Jaybird huffed and seemed to mentally collect himself as the investigator idly flicked his lighter, like he had nothing better to do.

“I’ve had one of our guys look into this, but we’ve come to a dead end. My sister told me yesterday she’s seeing the same car following her around town—”

“What the fuck?” Devil growled and his whole body swiveled to glare at his teammate. “How could you not tell me about this?” He thought back to the last time he’d seen her. It must’ve been around the same time she told Jaybird, but she’d still chosen not to tell him. She’d even turned down a ride home.

What the fuck is she thinking?

Jaybird’s eyebrow lifted and he frowned as he turned back to the investigator. He seemed to keep his eye on Devil in his periphery for a second longer before giving the description of a Corolla down to the dent on the driver’s side and some of the locations Ellie remembered seeing it, all near the clinic.

Spots appeared in Devil’s vision and he gripped his chair as he concentrated on deeper breaths. He swallowed back the nerves and sat up straighter to listen.

Why didn’t she tell me?

He had no right to be kept in the loop revolving around Ellie’s life. Although Devil’s world was revolving more and more around Ellie—no matter how hard he tried to fight it—the bottom line was he was nothing to her. Just her brother’s friend. A coworker. Her not confiding in him proved it.

“You coming, man?” Jaybird swatted Devil’s shoulder, bringing him out of his thoughts to realize his teammates were ready to leave. Burgess and Henry were already shaking hands with Hawk.

He stood to do the same and shook Burgess’s clammy grip. It took all of his control not to immediately dry his hand on his pants. Officer Henry tilted his head up as a goodbye before heading down the hallway back to the pit, where all the beat cops had their cubicles and desks. Burgess walked them out of the conference room while fishing in a side pocket on his vest with one hand and digging his phone out of his pants with the other. He dialed quickly and shoved the phone up against his ear, speaking rapidly before charging into his office.

Devil shook his head and followed behind Jaybird and Hawk down the hallway. He wasn’t sure if it was because of his distrust of the investigator, but his intuition was telling him the man’s idiosyncrasies were odd as fuck. Devil didn’t know what to do with that information except watch him closely.

“Hey, man.” Jaybird paused for Devil to catch up. “Mind doing me a favor?”

“Mind telling me what the favor is before I agree to it?”

Jaybird cocked a smile. “That’s probably wise.” He chuckled and swiped his hand through his hair. “I’ve gotten to the point in Jules’s pregnancy where I can’t stand to have her out of my sight. Nora fucking figured out how to hide Jules’s location on her phone and it drove me crazy. I get she doesn’t like to drive alone anymore, but I sure as fuck wish Nora would stop taking off the damn GPS I keep putting on her car. I searched all around town for Nora’s damn Chevy Spark until Jules finally called to tell me she was on her way home.”

“She probably wants you to leave her the fuck alone.”

He barked out a laugh. “Well, joke’s on her, that ain’t happening. I love her and she’s carrying around my baby, Jules is gonna have to suck it up that I’m gonna keep being a psycho until she gives birth. Probably after that too, if I’m honest.”

Devil grunted in response. “And? What’s this gotta do with me?”

Jaybird shook his head. “Damn, man, lighten up a little. I can’t ever read you. It’s unnerving as fuck.” Despite the words, Jaybird chuckled. “Anyway, I’ve been giving Ellie self-defense lessons the past few months—”

“Shit, really?” Devil interrupted. He’d had no idea.

Fuck, I need to stop losing my mind over this girl and start paying attention.

A creaking sound played in his memory and he clenched his fists until all he could focus on was the pain in his fingertips. Never again.

“Yeah… but Hawk agreed to let me be Jules’s bodyguard until the baby comes. I can’t be in two places at once. Do you think you could take over lessons?”

Devil blanched as he fished through his brain for any excuse to keep his distance from the woman who already lived rent-free in his head.

“Well, damn, there’s a reaction.” Jaybird laughed as he opened the door out of the precinct.

Hawk waited outside, rubbing his nape as he talked on the phone. When he saw them, he jutted his chin up in acknowledgement as they stepped outside and the three of them made the trek to his sedan. They usually parked as close as possible and backed into a spot so they could haul ass if necessary. But with it being a police precinct, the first several rows were taken up by cop cars.

Devil shoved his hands into his pockets against the brisk fall wind, and sucked air between his teeth. “Can’t someone else do it?”

“You’re the best hand-to-hand after Draco… And well, Draco’s in a fucking coma. Hawk has a business to run. Snake is great with a keyboard and a weapon, not so great with his hands—”

“Phoenix?”

“Fuck, dude,” Jaybird scoffed. “Do you really wanna sic that hound dog on her?”

A surprising flash of anger flooded his body and he clenched his jaw. Nope. Definitely do not want that.

Jaybird rubbed his hand through his hair again. “Anyways, I didn’t ask him. Hawk’s got him on client intake meetings lately. Besides, Ellie likes you. And don’t you think she deserves the best?”

Devil scowled. “Of course I fucking do.”

Jaybird smirked. “Alright then. It’s settled. We were supposed to have a lesson next week bright and early before her classes, but Jules’s doctor scheduled an appointment last minute. That work for you? We can switch off with you as her trainer after that.”

Devil’s lips tightened into a thin line and he bit his tongue. He was out of options and couldn’t help feeling cornered into what felt very much like a trap.

But Jaybird had a point. He was the best at hand-to-hand, even better than Jaybird. Besides, the girl needed someone to make sure she took care of herself, what with skipping class, forgetting to eat, letting some creep follow her around for God knows how long. She was dragging ass the last time he’d seen her at Sasha Saves.

“Fine,” he grumbled.

“Excellent. I’ll tell her to be ready at BlackStone’s gym then—” A faint buzzing sound interrupted them. “Hold on.” Jay pulled his phone from his pocket and held his finger up. “Sorry man, it’s Jules.” Jay patted Devil on the back and jogged to the passenger side of Hawk’s sedan. “Hey, baby girl. Everything okay?”

Devil shook his head. People talked about “pregnancy brain” making soon-to-be mothers scatterbrained, but Jules was still sharp as a blade. Now, her fiancé on the other hand…

It was probably why Hawk was letting Jaybird devote most of his time to her instead of BlackStone. Distractions were unacceptable, especially in their line of work and Jaybird was a liability at this point.

Hopefully Jaybird wouldn’t have to learn the hard way how dangerous emotional ties could become. Devil had let his feelings cloud his judgment too many times. He wasn’t going to let anything—or anyone—distract him again.