Page 8 of Free to Judge (Amaryllis Heritage #2)
CHAPTER SEVEN
Striding into Hudson Investigations half an hour later, I’m immediately swept underground into a secure space that only individuals with the highest credentials can access.
I’m temporarily transported back to the early days of working for the agency before I became entangled with the treacherous Byrnes family.
Every step I take electrifies my spirit as I absorb the pulsing chaotic energy.
Whispers say Keene built this very office to be near his wife when her pregnancy with their eldest daughter was first discovered.
A sly smirk curls my lips. After today, I can completely imagine a tiny Kalie in utero throwing punches even before birth.
“Why are you smiling?” Jon growls in a low, demanding tone after catching up to me.
I let him in on my inner thoughts. He bursts out laughing before warning, “I’d keep that story to yourself since we’re about to chat with Uncle Keene.”
We push through the open office space amid the rapid-fire greetings from colleagues—some rallying from our team.
Our path takes us past a glass-walled conference room where Liam Payne, Jon’s soon-to-be brother-in-law, is mercilessly tongue-lashing a few miscreants.
After listening for a few minutes, Jon and I chortle when we realize it’s over an un-expensed stop at a food truck for one of the company’s higher profile clients.
He elbows me with a wicked glint. “Doesn’t this make you wonder what’s going to blaze across the front page of StellaNova in the morning?”
I scoff, my voice laced with biting sarcasm. “Not a damn thing if they value their jobs.”
“What do you think’s going on?”
I observe Liam more closely as he waves a stack of papers in his hand. “Twenty says it’s because they didn’t fill out their paperwork in triplicate. He was always a pain in the ass about that in the bureau too.”
Jon bellows out a laugh. “Probably.”
“Still, I imagine if your father gets wind of this, it will give him something to mock him over at your twisted spectacle of a family dinner.” I haven’t let myself experience real family in years—not since Tanya opened hers up to me.
And then they cut me off after her brutal murder.
“For all the theatrics you’ve dealt with today pertaining to my family, you’d have one hell of a story to sell to StellaNova. That, or you’re getting used to us.”
I stop dead in my tracks. “Take that back.”
Jon’s brow furrows. “You don’t want to be like us?”
“Be like you? Hell, I figure by the time I’m done, you’re just going to assimilate me or kill me.”
He howls with laughter as I demand, “Tell me I’m wrong, and your family isn’t like the Borg?”
“I can’t. They’re worse. They breed more chaos.”
“Point made.” We walk a few more feet when a clearly pregnant Rachel Aiken, daughter of one of Hudson’s owners, sends us a brisk wave before diving into a corridor that’s so secure that if your biometrics aren’t stored, or if you’re not invited in, you may not make it out alive.
Jon shudders. “She scares the crap out of me.”
I nod. “Her husband has balls of steel.”
“He needed them a few years ago.”
I know there’s a story there, but Jon goes on to tell me what to expect when we meet with Keene. I interrupt. “You know, I have dealt with the man.”
“Yeah, but this is his daughter,” he warns me.
“Then she should have better control over her emotions.”
“That’s not the defense I would go in with.”
“I’m not that suicidal. Plus, you’d have a hard time hiding my body. Every move of mine is being tracked by some media hound with a Mafia fetish—particularly the romance readers on TikTok,” I add, arching an eyebrow at him.
“Better you than me.”
“That’s right. Your pretty face was exposed, so no more gritty fieldwork for you.”
Jon snarls a response. The truth stings him and I immediately feel bad for the dig.
Jon was a true chameleon, ever shifting, until that notorious night when Tanya’s life ended and the score Jon and I agreed to settle together began.
Still, he’s one of the few people I call a friend.
I try to lighten the mood. “After today’s display, I’m leaning toward believing the stories you’ve told me about them. ”
“I can’t make this shit up. Ask Liam if you don’t believe me.”
“I know you have enough money, so give me the license to market this. I can’t be the only one who should get a front row seat to the reality show you call your life.”
He snickers, a grudging smirk playing on his lips. “You’d cash in big if you could convince my family to star in one.”
“If even half your stories are true—especially the part about your relatives dancing on tables—the possibilities are endless. We’d wind up with a wild mashup of Say Yes to the Dress meets Dancing with the Stars,” I retort.
“I tell no lies. Now, speaking of truth versus performance art, how’s your cover holding up?” Jon challenges.
I extend my arms, showcasing every seam of my impeccably tailored three-piece Brioni suit—a suit that costs as much as a down payment on a luxury car.
It’s almost surreal to think that seven years ago I wouldn’t have known a Brioni from Macy’s nor would I have been close to a man of Jonathan Lockwood’s caliber.
Yet today, both are lifelines that keep me in this brutal game we’ve orchestrated.
At least until I uncover the full, vile truth of who ordered the takedown of a federal agent. Sure as hell, he’s one of the few who know why I’m playing to begin with.
We reach my desk, and I collapse into the chair amid a chaotic mess of papers—a deliberate, explosive chaos that only I can decipher. Jon leans casually against the cubicle wall, his presence a welcome distraction from the looming tasks.
“You should see it firsthand,” he murmurs, as if the words barely carry the weight of impending doom.
My stomach churns. Part of me yearns to detach from this underworld of raw filth and ruthless brutality, yet another part trembles at the thought of feeling vulnerable at that table—a tempting reason to shatter my hard-won resolve.
“One day,” I reply diplomatically.
Jon arches an eyebrow, but before he can press further, a voice booms from down the hallway. “Look who finally decided to show up!”
I don’t even need to stand to know who it is. The combined silence and the way everyone snaps their mouths shut tells me all I need to know: Keene Marshall—sanctimonious prick extraordinaire and everyone’s despised boss—has descended into our war room.
I can almost hear the collective groans echo in my head as everyone within earshot wonders, Who screwed up this time? The answer, glaringly clear, is me.
Knowing I’m about to take the massive fallout for the team, I rise and extend my hand to the older man. “Miss me that much?”
He scoffs derisively. “Hardly. Just wondering if you’re finally going to file any of your past due expense reports.” He gestures at my chaotic desk. “Or if this is just another miserable social call.”
Before I can retort, Jon cuts in, “It’s not nearly as bad as it looked, Uncle Keene.”
He arches a brow—then his tone shifts, slicing coldly, “What wasn’t?”
At that instant, Keene’s cell rings. He picks it up and for just a moment his countenance softens before muttering with exaggerated disgust, “It’s Kalie. I wonder which of my relatives I need to post bail for this time.”
Jon whispers, “Holy hell. He doesn’t know.”
“I don’t know what?”
Damn it. A shitstorm is approaching fast—too quickly for us to avoid it. I snap at Jon, “You didn’t tell him yet?”
Jon waves his phone, exasperated. “I thought he already knew! You saw the text. I thought we were being summoned because of it.”
That’s when Keene answers the call that might seal our impending doom. “Hey sweetheart.”
At that moment, if I still clung to any hope of redeeming myself before destiny, I’d be praying hard.
Keene’s veneer of amicability shatters, his calm morphs into rage as he bellows, “What the fuck do you mean you were arrested, Katherine Laura?” His green eyes turn into shards of green glass, lethal and aimed directly at me. “I see.”
The way Keene handles his oldest child being apprehended reveals I must have taken a far worse hit than I initially thought—unless I’m completely unhinged. Perhaps a brutal mix of both.
Before I can muster a defense, Keene clamps down on his temper long enough to order, “Don’t say another fucking word, Kalie.
I’m sending your godfather to bail you out.
” He pauses for a moment before continuing, “No, don’t argue.
And don’t, under any circumstances, accept any favors the chief offers.
” Then his voice softens moderately. “Stick to the damn book, sweetheart.”
Jon groans, pain and tension etched in every line of his face.
He has every right to be terrified. I manage to gulp down what may be my final few breaths.
Despite the fact I’m a lawyer for one of the largest crime families on the East Coast, they still don’t make me want to shit in my pants the way Keene does when he’s angry.
Right now, angry was left down the road a ways back.
After he ends the call, he fixes his steely gaze on both me and Jon before coldly ordering, “My office. Now.”
Without waiting for an answer—because neither of us dares defy him—Keene spins on his heel and storms toward the elevator, leaving behind an electric void of impending doom.
On the way there, Keene unleashes a torrent of wrath upon his nephew, momentarily sparing me the lethal laser beams of his glare, leaving me to wonder what’s going to be my fate when we’re behind closed doors.
I don’t have long to find out.