by Lola Gabriel
She stepped into the room, and her client turned around. She made an almost audible gasp when he faced her. She could see now how much he suited the short, almost crew cut hairstyle. He was gorgeous, his face looking like it had been chiseled to perfection. But the thing that held her in her tracks for a moment was the intense, ice blue eyes. They locked on hers and held her in place, and she felt a tingling between her legs. She caught herself and looked away from her client’s eyes.
Get a fucking grip on yourself, Lexi. Not only is he a client, he’s a client who killed someone. Don’t even go there. Lexi took a step towards him and extended her hand.
“Lexi Lord,” she said.
“Mitchell Cole,” he said, taking her hand in his, which was big enough to swallow hers whole, but while his handshake was firm, he made no attempt to crush her hand. She felt sparks running through it and up her arm where he touched her. She resisted the urge to pull away. When he finally released her hand after what felt like forever, she gestured for him to take a seat. She sat down opposite him, placing the file flat on the table but leaving it closed for now.
“Where’s Hughes?” Mitchell demanded. His voice was full of confidence, the voice of a man who always got what he wanted. Well, not this time.
“Mr. Hughes,” Lexi said, emphasizing the title, “has passed your case over to me. I’ll be representing you now.”
“I don’t think so,” Mitchell replied.
“Excuse me?” Lexi felt her temper starting to rise.
“With all due respect, I’m paying a lot of money for this, and I don’t expect to get dumped off on some junior.”
“Some junior?” Lexi asked with a bitter laugh. “Let’s make one thing clear, Mr. Cole. I am a senior partner at this firm.”
Mitchell looked at her in surprise, but then he nodded and smiled sheepishly.
“I apologize,” he said. “I made an assumption based on the fact you look so young.”
At thirty-one, Lexi knew she was young to be a senior partner at a prestigious law firm, and she got told a lot that she looked younger than her age. Mitchell wasn’t the first client to mistake her for a junior member of the staff, and she knew he wouldn’t be the last. Still, she couldn’t quite let go of the irrational anger she could feel like a lump in the back of her throat.
It hit her suddenly why she was so angry. She wanted Mitchell to like her. No, not like her as such, but at least respect her as a lawyer. She cared what he thought of her. She swallowed past the lump, turning the anger in on herself. She was off her game today, for sure. It was those damned eyes.
“It’s fine,” she said. “Now—”
“Wait. You didn’t answer my question. If Hughes isn’t dumping me off on a junior, then why has he passed my case on to you?”
Lexi thought for a minute. Jared had told her to explain this to the client. So she would. But how? She bit her lip to keep from smiling when it came to her. She would use the same words Jared used when he was trying to flatter her ego so she would take the case with less bitterness.
“Mr. Hughes asked me to take this case because he said you wanted the best defense lawyer money can buy. Now, are you happy to proceed, or would you like to spend the rest of your life behind bars? Because right now, I’m happy to go with either option,” she said.
Mitchell held her gaze again for a moment, and she wondered if she’d gone too far. Guilty or not, Mitchell was entitled to a defense, and she knew his case would bring in a fair chunk of money for the firm. If he walked because of her attitude to him, she would have a lot of explaining to do.
Lexi felt herself relax when Mitchell’s intense gaze became warm, his eyes sparkling as he smiled. It started slowly, but it spread, and Mitchell nodded his head.
“Now I get it. You’re fiery. I like that. I’m happy to proceed.”
“Good,” Lexi said, aiming for a cool, professional tone but missing the mark slightly when she found herself unable to resist the urge to return Mitchell’s smile. She opened his file and looked down at it, although all the case details were already in her head. She just needed a moment out from beneath his gaze. She looked back up, steeling herself against the flutter in her stomach.
“If we take this to court, then you’re looking at a life sentence with no parole. I’m confident that if we go down the plea bargain road, I can get the sentence down to twenty years. I know that sounds like a long time, and it is, but you’d only be in your fifties, and you’d still be able to make a life for yourself.”
“I thought you were meant to be the best defense lawyer in the city,” Mitchell said, raising an eyebrow. “Twenty years doesn’t really feel like your best effort.”
“I can maybe get it down to fifteen, but that’s far from guaranteed,” Lexi admitted.
“Yeah, that’s still not really working for me. I’m thinking that the best defense lawyer should be looking at proving my innocence.”
“Proving your innocence? You’re saying you want this to go to trial?” Lexi said.
“Ideally, I’d like to get it thrown out before it gets that far, but if it has to go to trial, then yes, of course. I understand the risks, but there’s no way I’m pleading guilty to something I didn’t do.”
His eyes and his voice were full of fire as he spoke, although his voice was calm and low, too. Mitchell didn’t intend to go down without a fight, and something in the way he spoke, the way he looked her straight in the eye, made her think that maybe this wasn’t so cut and dry after all. She had to find out more, but she knew she had to tread carefully. She had to think rationally and not let those eyes or the delicious tingling between her legs distract her. And she definitely couldn’t let herself wonder what his lips would taste like on hers.
“You know how this will look to a jury,” she said carefully. Mitchell nodded and waited for her to go on. “Your fingerprints and DNA were found at the scene.”
“I know. But I didn’t kill Lisa. I wasn’t there the day she was killed. I hadn’t seen or spoken to her since we split up, two weeks before. We were dating for almost three years, though. Is it really such a stretch to think that my fingerprints and DNA would remain in her house?”
Lexi considered it. It was possible but unlikely that the evidence was old traces of him, and she told him as much.
“Then I’m back to my original theory,” Mitchell said. “I know it sounds farfetched, like a movie or something, but I think I’m being set up. I don’t know why or by who, but it’s the only explanation.”
Was it, though? Surely the more obvious explanation was that he had killed Lisa Malone, or at the very least lied about being there.
“You had a motive to kill Lisa,” she pointed out, watching his reaction. He looked more disappointed than anything, and Lexi felt a moment of uncertainty. She didn’t want to disappoint Mitchell, and that feeling was damned dangerous.
“Did I?” Mitchell asked. “No offense, but you might believe that cheating on someone is reasonable grounds to murder them. I don’t.”
Lexi was shocked by the bluntness of his words, but she had to admit he had a point. While the police would say this was a motive for murdering Lisa, was it really? Did people really think someone cheating on you made murder acceptable?
“Actually, I don’t think there’s ever a good reason for murder. Except self-defense or in extreme cases where a parent does it to protect a child,” Lexi said. She knew she was saying too much, giving too much of herself away, but the more she heard Mitchell talk, the more she believed he was innocent. Even his crazy theory about being set up had a certain plausibility to it.
She looked down at the file again, and this time, it wasn’t just to avoid Mitchell’s gaze. She reread the evidence page in the file, and she felt her instincts kicking in. She hadn’t seen it until Mitchell had convinced her he was innocent, but she did now. Murder scenes were messy. Investigations were messy. This was all too neat. Everything was just in the right places to be found easily, with no chance they could b
e missed by even a halfway decent SOCO team.
“It says here you refused to provide an alibi when you were questioned by the police at the point of your arrest,” Lexi said, looking up at Mitchell again.
“I didn’t refuse to provide an alibi. I said I didn’t have one,” he clarified.
“So where were you? You were questioned the day after the murder. You must know where you were,” she probed.
“I do know where I was, but it doesn’t give me an alibi,” Mitchell said. He rubbed his hands over his face, and when he spoke again, Lexi was conscious of the fact he wouldn’t look her in the eye this time. “I was at home. Alone.”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that,” Lexi said.
Mitchell did meet her eyes. The slight tremor in his voice was gone with his next word: “Why?”
“Because when I work with a client on their defense, I expect them to be honest with me. And that was a lie,” she said. She knew she was crossing a line once more, but it angered her when clients put their futures in her hands and then lied to her.
“I’m not sure what you’re saying, Ms. Lord,” Mitchell said. Another lie.
“Lexi,” she automatically corrected him. “I’m saying I believe you didn’t kill Lisa Malone.”
Mitchell’s shoulders sagged, and she could see the relief on his face.
“You do?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yes. But I don’t believe the bullshit about you being home alone at the time of the murder for a second. I’m going to represent you to the best of my ability, but in return, you don’t get to lie to me. Is that clear?”
Mitchell nodded his head.
“So I’ll ask you again. Where were you at the time of the murder?”
“I… I can’t tell you,” Mitchell answered after a second’s pause.
Lexi considered this. It was a step in the right direction. He had dropped the lie. It further convinced her that he was innocent. Chances were that he had been doing something pretty shady at the time of the murder, or he would just tell her where he had been.
“Look. if you were doing something illegal, then I understand why you’re loath to admit it. But unless you were actually out killing someone else, nothing you can say can be as bad as this charge,” Lexi said.
“I’m sorry. I… I can’t say,” Mitchell repeated. She could see a pleading look in his eyes. “Can you still prove I’m innocent without it?”
“I honestly don’t know. But I’ll give it my very best shot.”
“Then that will have to be enough,” Mitchell said. “Thank you.”
Lexi nodded, and they went through the other details in the file, but she learned nothing she could really use. Her mind kept going back to how the whole case was just too neat, and she already knew where she would be starting on her investigation.
After the meeting, Lexi went back to her office to look over the closing argument for the other case that Alex had left for her. She made a few minor adjustments, but on the whole, it was good. Lexi was relieved about that, because she was finding it hard to focus on the document. Her mind kept going back to Mitchell’s case, or more accurately, back to Mitchell.
She couldn’t get his ice blue eyes out of her head, the way he had looked at her with a pleading look, begging her to believe him. And she did, although she was beginning to question her own judgement now that she was away from him. Was it possible that he had done this, and she only believed him to be innocent because she wanted to believe him? Because it was easier to believe he was wrongly accused than to believe she felt such a strong attraction to a murderer?
Whatever the reason, she did believe him. And whatever it turned out he had done, there was a voice inside of Lexi, a voice she had never heard before, that whispered to her now, telling her that Mitchell Cole had been destined to come into her life. That somehow, they were destined to be together. She tried to tell the voice to shut up and go away—she didn’t even believe in destiny. But no matter how much she resisted, it didn’t go away. It just hung around, taunting her, reminding her of the effect Mitchell’s presence had on her body.
3
Mitchell left the offices of Hughes and Watson feeling a little bit more optimistic than he had been when he had gone in. Lexi, his new lawyer, believed him, which was more than he had felt Jared Hughes did. When Hughes was his lawyer, he didn’t care one way or the other whether he believed him. It was his job to represent him, not pass judgement on him, but Lexi was different. He wasn’t glad she believed him because he thought it would affect how she represented him. He was glad she believed him because he had felt something when he looked at her. Like a pull inside of himself, drawing him to her.
Some of that had been down to the fact that she was absolutely stunning. She had a short, dark brown bob that hung in choppy layers around her face and the most beautiful hazel eyes he had ever seen. She was short, he would guess around five-foot-three or four, and she was petite in a way that brought the word fragile to mind. He had already discovered she was anything but fragile inside, though. She wasn’t the sort of woman who took shit from anyone. The thought made him smile. He hadn’t been joking when he had told her she was fiery, and he liked it.
The way Mitchell had felt an instant attraction to Lexi wasn’t the only reason he felt himself drawn to her. His dragon had taken an immediate interest in her, stirring inside of him when he had seen her. It had scented her, and it obviously liked what it had found there.
Could she be…? No. She couldn’t be. It was impossible. Mitchell pushed the thought away before it could even fully form. Lexi wasn’t his mate. She was his lawyer. His dragon’s interest was piqued out of self-preservation, nothing more. That knowledge, however, didn’t stop Mitchell from thinking about her all the way home. And it certainly didn’t stop his dragon from examining her scent and making Mitchell pine for her.
When he got home, he went inside and pulled his cell phone out. He sent Samuel a text message asking him to come over. He had avoided all of Samuel’s questions about the case until now, and he was finally ready to tell him everything. He knew Samuel would stand by his side. He always had. But Mitchell also knew he had let Samuel and the pack down by placing them in danger, and now his actions on that fateful day had put him in a position where he was being accused of murder and was unable to defend himself properly. This would cause another slur on the pack.
He put a pot of coffee on, and by the time it was ready, Samuel was knocking on his door. He let him in and poured them both a coffee, and then he sat down opposite Samuel.
“Are you ready to tell me what the hell is going on here?” Samuel asked once they were seated.
“Yes. But you’re not going to like any of it,” Mitchell said.
“Try me,” Samuel said. “Whatever it is, it can’t be as bad as being kept in the dark about everything.”
Mitchell nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. I’m sorry. I just… I wasn’t ready to talk about it. I needed to get it all straight in my own head first. I’ve pretty much given up on that happening, but I’m as ready as I’ll ever be to tell you what I do know.”
He took a deep breath and began.
“It all started on June 30th. A man came to see me. Jake. He told me his partner, Tilly, had disappeared. I was a little confused about why he was coming to me with this. I’d never met him in my life, but I decided to hear him out. I don’t know why. I guess I felt sorry for him, and saying it was not my problem hardly seemed like the right thing to do. I kind of wish I had now, though, but deep down, whatever the consequences are, I know I did the right thing. He knew about the supernatural world. He knew who I was. His sister had mated with a vampire, and I think they had helped him track me down. Anyway, he told me Tilly had been taken by Joshua, the demon Matchmaker of the district.”
Mitchell saw Samuel’s face darken at the mention of the Matchmaker. It gave him a ray of hope. Maybe Samuel would understand what he had done and why he had done it after all.
“He asked me to save Tilly. I knew going after Joshua in person would put the pack at risk. But I couldn’t say no. I could see how desperate he was. And in the end, I agreed to help him. I went out to Joshua’s lair. He tried to mind control me, but I was able to turn, and he was no match for my dragon. I burnt the bastard to a crisp and rescued Tilly. On the way back out of Joshua’s lair, when I could see he was almost healed, I told him to leave town, but I don’t suppose he has heeded the warning. The pack needs to be on their guards. He’ll come after me, I know that much, and I’m ready for him. But I’m not sure how the rest of the demons in the district will react. I’m a little worried I’ve started an inter pack war, to be honest. And yes, I realize I should have told you this sooner, just in case.”
Samuel shook his head.
“No,” he said. “Well, yeah, you should have told me sooner. But not for the reason you think. The pack isn’t in any danger because of this. You should have told me just to unburden yourself. The demons don’t like Matchmakers any more than we do. Their alpha hates the fact that the biggest Matchmaker in the district is a demon. They won’t get involved. There’s been no unrest, no sign of them coming for us. They won’t actively come and thank you, that would be a step too far, but I’d be willing to bet my last dollar that most of the pack, including the alpha and the beta, want to.”
“Good,” Mitchell said. “That took a huge weight off my mind.” He meant it. He could cope with the consequences of his actions catching up with him, but the thought of his actions bringing danger on the pack had bothered him to no end.
“I’m still lost, though,” Samuel admitted. “Joshua is immortal. I’m sure getting fried hurt like a bastard, but it didn’t kill him. So how are you up on a murder charge because of this?”