by Amy Gamet
“Right. Royce. The man who behaves like a close personal friend of yours, but is actually the judge who dismissed murder charges against you and Cowboy.”
“He wasn’t a friend at the time.”
“Because that would reek of impropriety on his part if he let his friends go free.”
Jax set his drink on the bar with a thud. “I’m still co-commander of this team. You’d do well to remember that.”
Logan knew he was pushing back too hard, but he couldn’t seem to stop talking, stop picking at the scab that covered Jax’s culpability.
He needed to see what was underneath, now that he knew his hero was made of flesh and blood. He had to know the depth of the darkness Jax had kept hidden from view. “I don’t want to work for a man I don’t respect.”
Jax stared at him for a beat. “It was an accidental shooting.”
Logan leaned in close. “Tell me what the fuck really happened, or I’m gone.”
Jax seemed to focus far away, the silence stretching out to an uncomfortable void. When he finally spoke, his voice was low. “We had no choice.” He met Logan’s eyes. “We did it because we had no choice.”
“Go on.”
Jax shook his head. “All you need to know is none of this was Royce’s fault. Now someone wants him dead, and it’s our responsibility, Cowboy’s and mine. If we could solve this without involving you, we’d do it. But you’re the one with the skills we need, Logan. And you’re just going to have to decide if you trust me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Jax. You have to decide if you trust me.”
An intense light flashed brightly through the window over Jax’s shoulder, white light so bright it seemed to burn a hole in Logan’s retinas.
“Get down!” yelled Logan, lowering his own head as he pulled down Jax. The sound erupted and the shock wave hit, shattering the window into the bar, spraying glass like water from a sprinkler.
Someone was screaming.
“Go, go, go!” barked Jax, but Logan was already on his feet, passing Jax as he pulled out his weapon. They ran into the blindingly sunny day, black smoke billowing from a sedan full of fire, fifteen-foot flames licking the sky.
A car bomb.
A figure could be seen in the car, barely human, covered in flames, and Logan rushed to the vehicle in an instinctual move to help the victim. The heat burst forth as if from the gates of hell but still he reached for the door, jerking back his hand when it was instantly burned.
He was ambushed from behind, Jax screaming in his ear as he pulled Logan away from the car, “Get back! You can’t save them now.” But Logan could still see the person on fire—dying right before his eyes.
“Jesus,” yelled Jax. “The license plate! Look at the fucking license plate!”
Logan’s eyes popped open, zeroing in on the piece of metal, a single word showing clear.
Justice.
“It’s Royce,” said Jax, his voice like a sob. “The motherfucker got Royce.”
The smoke was noxious and Logan stumbled backward. He was inhaling the smell of gasoline and burning flesh, and he needed to vomit.
Sirens echoed in the distance.
There was nowhere to go, nothing to do but watch the car burn.
A firetruck arrived and firefighters hopped out, attacking the fire with long hoses until all that was left was a scorched black shell.
And what remained of a human being.
Logan had never been so close to death, seen it reach up from the depths of hell with gnarled fingers and rip someone from the earth. He thought of the man he’d just met upstairs and imagined his torched skeleton now covered in water.
He bent at the waist and threw up.
Cowboy boots appeared in his line of vision. “You need to find out who did this,” said Cowboy. He sighed heavily. “I know you think what we did was wrong. I could see it in your eyes. But the judge didn’t deserve to die like this.”
Logan righted himself and looked at the other man. There was emotion in Cowboy’s voice.
Regret.
“He was an innocent man who spent his life fighting for good over evil and someone burned him alive. I know your sense of justice is reeling right now.” Cowboy pointed to the wreckage. “But that’s where your anger should be directed. That’s the greatest injustice of all. Help us catch the guys who did this, even if Jax and I aren’t the heroes you thought we were.”
It was a challenge. A request. A demand.
Jax crossed to them and narrowed his eyes at Logan, that steely stare that Logan had always found intimidating now seeming older, more pained. “Are you with us?” Jax asked.
They needed him. He was an integral part of this team, a vital gear in the machine that could find Justice Royce’s killer.
And Logan knew he would continue to work for HERO Force. He would find out who was responsible for this and do everything in his power to bring them down.
He lifted his chin. “Yes.”
“Good.” Jax pointed out surveillance cameras. “I want video from those cameras, and I want it now.”
2
Gemma Faraday parked and opened her car door, heat coming at her like she was opening a hot oven. She stood and started to sweat in the sunshine, her silk blouse still stuck to her back from the equally hot walk from the courthouse to her vehicle.
Day nine of record-high temperatures in Atlanta with no end in sight, and the weather was smothering her as surely as a well-placed pillow.
Her heels clicked on the pavement as she crossed to the nursing home, waves of heat from the asphalt making the building shimmy like a mirage. She thought of last night’s news, death count from the heatwave now over a dozen, most of them elderly.
She walked through a revolving door and into the lobby, the icy air conditioning as welcome as the smell of old age was not. These elderly people weren’t dead.
They just acted like it.
She smirked at a familiar nurse as she passed. “Hi, Laurie.”
“He’s waiting for you.”
He doesn’t even know who I am.
She grit her teeth to keep from stating the obvious and kept walking, telling herself the nurse was trying to be nice.
Click. Click. Click. Click.
Damn it. She was running late, her father’s favorite news program long-since begun, her caseload weighing on her mind and waiting not-so-patiently for her to return to her chambers.
You don’t need to come here anymore.
That nagging voice that longed to be free of this obligation was the devil on her shoulder. What was the point in visiting your father if he didn’t even know who you were?
Because I know who he is, and I love him.
That was the point. She’d stand by her father’s side for the rest of his life. It was important. Maybe the most important thing in her life.
The truth of the sentiment echoed in her mind. She was the only child of Al and Beverly Faraday, both only children themselves. Since her mother passed away, her father was the only family she had in the world.
There was no significant other, no husband or ex, the only real relationship of her life having ended years earlier—leaving her stronger, lonelier, and and more than a little bit sad.
She pushed into her father’s room, struck as she always was by the complete lack of color in the space. There was beige in a multitude of hues, even a few specs of white, whereas in her memories, her father had always been surrounded by color.
It was a nice place. The best facility money could buy; her bank account could testify to that. Yet it was apropos that his room was a small square of space cut off from the rest of the world and operating completely independently from it.
She took in his sleeping form, so much smaller than it used to be. She touched his white hair and his eyes opened, confusion registering in their depths.
Her face fell. That look never got easier to take.
Last year, even, he’d recognized her as often as not. There were ev
en days when they could talk about case law or her latest verdict—him debating the merits of the decision like the devil’s advocate that he was.
You have a gift for the law, Gemma-girl.
She swallowed against the emotion in her throat and moved for the television, turning it on. “Time for the news. You like this.” They were already doing the weather.
“We missed the beginning,” he grumbled.
“You were sleeping.”
“I was awake.”
She pulled out her computer, half-listening to the television. More of the same. Hotter than hell with no relief in sight. Atlanta was always hot in summer, but this wasn’t just hot, this was roasting—like chickens-in-a-grocery-store kind of roasting—and it made her cranky.
Her inbox had over a hundred unread messages. She sighed heavily while the news droned on in the background.
“It appears we made a mistake when we reported the car fire today in downtown Atlanta. Here again is the image we brought you at the top of the hour, an explosion we reported as having killed state justice Anthony Royce.”
Gemma’s head shot up. Video of firefighters putting out a car fire played on the screen. Everything in the room grew louder, as if her panic had amplified her hearing.
Royce who’d once said he loved her.
Royce who’d lied and broken her heart.
Royce who she stared down whenever their professional paths crossed, which was far too often.
The anchor cleared his throat. “It appears that was a mistake. The occupant of the vehicle was in fact Barbara Royce, Anthony Royce’s wife. She was pronounced dead at Grady Memorial Hospital.”
“Oh God, no,” she whispered, holding her hand to her chest. The familiar guilt settled in her stomach like a stone. She’d once been responsible for hurting Royce’s wife. Embarrassing her. Humiliating her. And now she was gone.
She’d seen Barbara at the Governor’s Ball last fall, turning to catch the older woman staring at her from across the room. Their eyes met and held for several moments, a silent reckoning between them.
I’m so damn sorry.
Gemma imagined Barbara in that car, surrounded by flames. The terror she must have experienced. And the girls! They must be devastated.
“But in a bizarre twist, the FBI reports Justice Royce was abducted from the sidewalk near the explosion by two men as he approached the burning vehicle. The police department has released this video of the abduction, taken from a surveillance camera from a local business.”
A grainy image of a sidewalk appeared as two men dressed in dark clothing hopped out of a light colored van. There on the right was a man with Royce’s familiar gait and Gemma’s mouth dropped open as she watched the other men grab him and throw him in the van.
“Wow,” said the female newscaster.
“Wow indeed, Janet. Authorities are asking anyone with information about the crime to call Crimestoppers.”
Royce had enemies, herself included. But what kind of motive could someone have for kidnapping?
Maybe he was dead, too.
She shut her laptop, her hands shaking. She needed to get out of here, get back to the office to see what people were saying. Maybe they knew something more than was being reported on the news.
How the hell had she missed the gossip this morning?
You were locked in your chambers, working.
She was always working, never socializing with the rest of the staff at the courthouse. It was safer to keep a coffeemaker in her chambers. Easier to keep bottled water than to face her coworkers.
“I have to go.”
“It was nice to meet you,” said her father.
“You too, Dad.” She stood and walked briskly toward the door, calling over her shoulder, “See you tomorrow.”
3
Gemma plopped onto the leather couch in her chambers feeling like a wet towel that had been wrung out. The car bombing and Royce’s kidnapping had the courthouse turned on it’s head even though he worked in a different building—with heightened security and the gossip mill buzzing to a nearly audible hum.
She hadn’t learned anything new about the incident, and she certainly hadn’t expected the majority of the gossip to be about her.
It was like the past eight years hadn’t happened, and she was right back there, Anthony Royce’s mistress who’d slept her way to the top.
A knock on the door to her chambers and she squeezed her eyes shut. “Come in.”
A woman with short black hair pushed into the room, her best friend, April. They’d been roommates in college and had remained close ever since. “I got out of work as early as I could, sweetie.”
“Did we have plans?” asked Gemma, racking her brain.
“No, I just figured you’d appreciate a friendly face. I think you need a drink.”
“I don’t want a drink.”
“Your ex-lover’s been kidnapped and his wife’s been killed by a bomb. Honey, if anyone needs a drink, you do.”
Gemma shivered at the thought of Barbara Royce’s fiery death. “She didn’t deserve to die like that. She didn’t deserve any of it.”
“This has nothing to do with you and Royce. Don’t go there.”
“How can I not?”
“Because you didn’t know he was married! You’re not a psychic, for God’s sake. He lied to you. It’s been eight years. Stop blaming yourself.”
“Do you think she stopped blaming me?”
“We’re going out for drinks. Now.”
“No.”
“I’m not asking, I’m telling.”
“I have work to do, even if I’m not in court.”
“And you’re really able to get it done today? Like this? You look like shit. Clearly your mind is other places, so take it home with you if you need to, but get the hell out of this office and away from the people who are looking at you sideways.”
Not again.
Gemma’s shoulders dropped. “You noticed that, too.”
“Hell yes. Your secretary was tripping over her tongue talking about you. Get your purse.”
She swiped at her eyes, unaware she’d been crying. She didn’t feel like going out. She felt like going home and sobbing in a quiet, dark room. “I know you’re trying to help, but I just want to go home.”
“I know you. You’re going to beat yourself up until your soul is black and blue, then you’re going to stay up all night worrying about Royce.”
“Which is exactly what I should be doing right now.”
April took her by the elbow. “Well, too bad, because you’re coming with me.”
Gemma let herself be dragged from her chambers, past her secretary who yes—damn it—had an all-knowing look on her face. The rumors had nearly derailed Gemma’s career eight years earlier, rumors that were mostly true.
The only part that was pure fiction was the notion that the affair had gotten her the judicial nomination. That wasn’t true at all.
But it sure as hell looked true.
She’d been a hair’s breadth away from moving to a new town and starting over when things started to improve, then one day the rumors were gone.
Well, now they’re making a comeback.
She sighed heavily, even as she knew she was grateful for her friend’s pushy intervention. “Okay. We’ll go out. But I don’t want to go to a dance club.”
“Fine. We’ll go to that bar you like on Peachtree.”
4
Logan walked down the crowded street, lights from restaurants and bars shining in the haze. Nighttime seemed just as hot as the day, the air clammy and still. He was aware of the people around him, but all he could see was the burning car and the one woman he couldn’t save.
Royce’s wife.
Logan wanted to find the guy who did this and make him pay. He wanted to strap him into a car and make him burn alive like he’d done to that poor woman.
He squeezed his hand with the bandaged palm, pain screaming along his nerve endings. He wasn’t
ready to go home, couldn’t imagine falling asleep, and he’d found himself back in front of HERO Force headquarters where the explosion had taken place.
He’d walked in one big fucking circle.
Of course you did. Where the hell else are you going to go?
Two women stood on the sidewalk with their backs to him, and he stopped walking, listening to their conversation. One of them was crying. The other put her arm around her and said, “They’ll find him. Royce is a badass. He’s going to be okay.”
Adrenaline shot into his bloodstream. Gone was the lost soul who’d been searching for meaning in the middle of destruction. He was back on the job in a heartbeat.
He narrowed his eyes. Who were these two? Coworkers of Royce? Maybe friends?
“The pavement,” said one. “Look at the pavement.”
The other woman nodded. “I know, it’s fucking terrible.”
Logan’s eyes went to the blackened asphalt and he remembered the acrid smell of the flames that had caused it.
“Let’s get you home,” said the other.
“I don’t want to go home. I don’t think I could stand it.”
“Then come with me to the club.”
“Fine. I don’t care anymore.”
Logan followed them, his mind working to put the pieces together. Was this woman having an affair with Royce?
He wanted to see her face. Get a name. She didn’t seem to know where Royce was, but surely she was involved with him somehow.
The women walked several blocks until the thump-thump-thump of music could be heard floating on the air, then he followed them into a dance club, throngs of people pressed together and moving.
He let himself get caught in the flow of humanity away from the women, wanting to get some space between them and himself so he wouldn’t appear too conspicuous.
The music was loud, bass rumbling through his body. He scanned the crowd, his eyes catching on exposed flesh and short skirts, men groping women on the dance floor. The entire space stood in sharp contrast to the rest of his day like sunshine against the darkest night, and his cock suddenly ached with need.