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Nutsbe nodded. “Cool, and precise, and in your rearview. Justice happens in court, with a prosecutor managing the battle. Okay?” He glanced up at the clock. “All right then. That’s my time. I’m going to leave it to your instructors—also my instructors, so I’m sure I’ll see you on the mats.” He sent them a grin to show them that this was fun and he hadn’t been hurt.
Chuck went to the side of the room to retrieve Nutsbe’s prosthetic legs.
“How many fights have you been in, Nutsbe?” a student asked.
“Real-world?” Nutsbe reached for his legs, then focused on clasping them into place. “Zero.”
“But you were in the military. Iniquus Security, right?” He pointed toward the logo on Nutsbe’s compression shirt. “They only hire ex-deployed military. So before you lost your legs, how many fights?”
“I was in the Air Force. I dropped cruise missiles on the enemy. Personally, I hope and pray I never have to fight. Property? Take it.” He stood up and moved back to his wheelchair, setting it upright and sitting down. Nutsbe found it was easier to roll out to his car rather than push his chair along. “The only reason I would fight is to protect my own body or that of someone who needed my help. I’ve never found myself in either circumstance.”
Chuck brought Nutsbe’s gym bag over.
“What does this tell me?" Nutsbe balanced it on his lap, pushing the silicon covers into a pocket, then pulling out his gloves to keep his hands clean from wheel filth as he headed back to Headquarters and his meeting with the FBI Joint Task Force. “Two things. One, chances are good you’ll never need these skills. Attacks aren’t inevitable.”
“But you train,” the man insisted. “You do expect it.”
“Point two, I have found that when I carry a first aid kit in my car, I never need it. It’s at the times when I leave the damned kit on the kitchen table to re-stock the bandages that melted from the heat in my trunk that I come across an accident or what have you. Put another way,” Nutsbe moved a hand to his chest, “in my life, I’ve found that being prepared is its own kind of insurance policy against the event ever taking place.”
The guy tipped his chin up a little higher.
“Personal observation,” Nutsbe said. “My philosophy both at work and in my personal life is prepare and hope like hell you’re never put to the test.”
Chapter Two
Olivia
Bursting through the side door of the courthouse, the glare of the midday sun momentarily disoriented Olivia. She lifted her hand to shield her eyes, scanning the parking lot for a gaggle of reporters who might be staking out this exit. Finding it clear, Olivia mapped a beeline to her car.
Dressed in her professional uniform of a straight skirt and high-heeled shoes, Olivia didn’t want to take a single step more than absolutely necessary.
The nose of her car peeked out enough for identification, and Olivia started toward the adjacent public parking lot. She would leave home extra early on court days to ensure having one of the few coveted spaces here. She loved how the summer-thick trees cast a shadow of privacy over her vehicle. After being the focus of the jury’s eyes for hours as she methodically walked the coroner through the prosecutorial line of questioning, Olivia was looking forward to a moment of respite, a picnic in the back seat, and the counterweight wholesomeness of a chat with her best friend, Jaylen.
Today, Olivia had the rare chance to simply fish her phone from her purse instead of waiting to get to her car’s glove compartment.
The defendant’s brothers had made threats. Not specific enough threats to bring charges, but they’d pushed their toes right up to the line. So much so that Judge Madison issued prior approval allowing Olivia to have her phone on her person while in the courthouse.
It wasn’t often that a federal judge would approve a phone in the courtroom—even on airplane mode—but in this instance, there was a genuine fear that if Olivia left her phone in her car per the courthouse rules, she wouldn’t be able to call the police for help as she left the building.
Threats to federal prosecutors weren’t the norm.
They also weren’t that infrequent.
Olivia appreciated the judge’s concern.
While Olivia was prosecuting a single monster doing the unimaginable, Olivia believed that the defendant’s two brothers were in on the crimes. Her team didn’t have the solid evidence that a federal case required to initiate a trial.
They had Kyle Offsed dead to rights, though. He was going to trial, trying to avoid the life sentence he so richly deserved.
Kyle hadn’t left jail since his arrest for the murders. That was to protect the public. There was also the benefit—whether Kyle agreed or not—of protecting him from his partners in crime. If his brothers thought Kyle would bring lynchpin evidence against them or testify to their shared culpability, it was possible they’d try to silence him—blood was not thicker than jail time.
When presented with the mountain of evidence against him, Olivia's team had hoped that Kyle would take a plea deal to a lesser charge and name his brothers.
But that hadn’t happened. Yet.
Once the jury found Kyle guilty, and he faced a life-without-parole future, there was always the possibility that he would ask for sentencing leniency. He might even get it if he offered up some useful information that would scrape his brothers’ scum from out of the societal pot. Olivia was sure that the Offsed brothers would go a far piece to make sure that never happened.
With Kyle tucked out of their reach, Olivia knew that one way the whole vile Offsed brotherhood might try to slide free of repercussions was to get a mistrial. And it occurred to her that if she, the lead prosecutor, were to suddenly vanish, the Offseds might think that the trial would vanish, too.