Page 7 of Release

She cut all contact with him and got the abortion.

One of my sources said the old fuck liked to breed. That it made him feel young, because his only legitimate child, Junior, had been born with great difficulties and complications that left his wife unable to have more children. That he would deliberately fuck his conquests bare, with the intent of getting them pregnant.

And brag about it to a few select, close friends.

I’m not one to yuck someone else’s yum, but that’s a creepy damn fetish. Everything’s fun and games and perfectly fine when you’re talking about consenting adults, until you start involving children who didn’t ask to be born.

Oh, did I mention he preferred to do this to girls who were seventeen or eighteen, and rarely slept with a woman over the age of twenty?

Benjamin knew if anyone could figure out a path to righteous justice for these women and children, it’d be me.

Of course I was Benjamin’s first call when Renata Elena Espinoza Gutierrez and her son, Declan Terrance Ronald, were brought to the homeless shelter that Benjamin’s church ran in Nashville.

* * * *

The boy sitting across from me in the restaurant booth looks older than his almost fifteen years, but I know grief and worry will do that to you.

He’s also smart. Brilliant, even. I drove down to Murfreesboro first thing this morning, the power of attorney his mom signed yesterday in my hand, and retrieved his school records and test scores. I am highly impressed by what I see.

I need the records so I can get his name changed on them, too, and get him enrolled in school here in Nashville. I want to try to get him into one of the charter schools, if possible. I have contacts.

I also have in hand the emergency court order—now under seal—that my former fuck buddy and one extremely kinky and submissive man, Judge Stafford Coughlin, signed for me yesterday in chambers. Declan’s new name is Declan Ronald Howard, and thank god his mom’s name was so fucking long to start with. I trimmed her first and last names from the new birth certificate. Thus Declan’s mother’s name is now listed as Elena Espinoza.

Four booths away from where we currently sit, I have a clear view of Nashville Metropolitan Council Member David Horrence. He hasn’t noticed me because he’s too busy canoodling with a blonde younger than his oldest daughter, a woman who is definitelynotMavis Horrence.

His wife and the mother of his three children.

Mavis is also the one with the money in the family. He married rich, but the trust fund is in her name, and she has an air-tight pre-nup.

I know, because one of our firm’s top attorneys drew it up for them years ago.

See, all those trappings of a respectable life still conceal a dark and dirty secret. Mavis isn’t an unattractive woman, either. She teaches yoga and has a damned nice body. But she’s married to a fucking dick.

I film a few minutes of video with my cell phone while Declan quietly peruses the menu. Then I take a few pictures. It simply looks like I’m checking my phone, not that I’m actively gathering evidence.

Hey, we’re in a public place. There is no expectation of privacy here.

In his civilian life, David is the owner of a construction company that does a lot of government contract work for TDOT on roads and bridges, both new construction and maintenance.

He’s also been a pain in my fucking ass, because he screwed one of my friends out of nearly a million dollars in income by somehow strong-arming a school building contract in a neighboring county to go to one of his buddies.

Sure, all’s fair in love and war, but don’t fucking screw the taxpayers in the process. That’smymoney, too, because some of the funding is allocated by the state. The lowest, best bid didnotget the contract, and I know some of that money will personally line David’s pockets in kickbacks.

Benjamin had seen David here before and recognized him, gave me the tip about it, and I paid the restaurant’s owner to let me know when the guy showed up.

Today, I was fortunate enough that a holy confluence of events happened to allow me to sit here and do what I needed to do.

David Horrence doesn’t know it yet, but he’s about to get rat-fucked by me, without lube. I can completely ruin his life with all the accumulated information I now have on him.

Meaning I can use him.

Because he’s the brother-in-law of Bill Pickering, a state senator who’s been a pain in George’s ass from day one of George’s tenure in the General Assembly.

Not that I’ll tell George any of this, because I don’t want him tied to it in any way. But I can’t wait for him to start telling me that Bill Pickering has suddenly started voting in lock-step with him, backing his bills and basically giving George a legislative happy finish every time he wants to get something done.

Otherwise, David Horrence will find himself facing a brutal divorce, a couple of government corruption investigations, as well as financially crushing holds on several pending contracts his own company has with TDOT, costing him the posted bonds he had to foot to bid the contracts in the first place.

Declan and I talk, and he says he wants to become an attorney.