by Moriah Jovan
“Justice, c’mon. Give me a chance.”
“I’m in a relationship. You don’t get a chance. Not now, not ever.” Okay, which would be the better word choice in that paragraph: shall or must?
“But—”
Suddenly a big hand dropped flat on her desk and she resisted the urge to chuckle as she continued to struggle over the minutiae of her document.
“Deputy,” Knox rumbled, “she said no. How many ways do you need to be told?”
“Well, can you blame a guy for trying?”
“Yes, when the woman says no and you don’t take it on its face.”
Justice rolled her eyes.
“But—”
“Deputy,” Knox said slowly, precisely, and Justice tried not to laugh out loud, “she’s married.”
Oh, now that was interesting.
“Fine,” he muttered and slunk off. Justice still wasn’t eager enough to disrupt her concentration to look at Knox.
“This is why I don’t like what Giselle did to you,” he muttered.
“Curious you staked your claim without actually staking your claim,” she said absently.
He grunted. “What are you working on?”
“A personal project. I’m on lunch. I can do that.”
“Not on county stationery, you can’t.”
“Hello? Recycling? I’m using paper from the shred bin for scratch. As usual.”
“You’ve got a smart mouth.”
“You liked what my smart mouth did to you last night.”
“Mmmm, yes I did. Come to my office and do it again.”
Suddenly, she stopped writing and stared at the blank she’d just drawn as a placeholder because she didn’t know what to put there. “How much?”
“How much what?”
She looked up at him then, her eyes narrowed because she wasn’t so involved in the mechanics of her plan that she couldn’t remember and get mad about the reason for it. “How much did you pay for me?”
His expression was somewhere amongst shock, anger, and wariness. “I’m not going to answer that,” he said. “That’s a sucker’s question.”
“Of course it is. There’s no amount of money that would justify it. An actual brood mare would cost more than I probably did, but a whore wouldn’t.”
He stiffened and his eyes widened. “A whore? Is that what you think?”
“How much, Knox? Don’t act like I don’t have a right to draw the worst conclusions or that I don’t have a right to know. I have a right to know how much you value me.”
His chest began to heave and she knew she was pushing him. She meant to. She wanted to know and goading him for it was the only way she’d get it.
So she poked at him again. “I want to know if I’m a Park Avenue call girl or a 63rd and Prospect streetwalker.”
His teeth ground.
“Or, in the alternative, if I’m Secretariat’s dam.”
His nostrils flared.
“Oh, hey, here’s a thought. You know Kelly’s in Westport, right?”
Knox’s eyes narrowed and he sucked in a breath. Of course he would know about the shackles still embedded in the brick walls of a bar that had been used for buying and selling slaves before the Civil War. He knew exactly what she was going to say—
“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, Justice,” he finally snapped. “Happy now? A quarter of a million dollars and he wanted more. If I could’ve gotten my hands on any more at that moment, I’d have paid it.”
Her eyes wide, Justice gulped as she watched him stalk off, her head spinning. Never in her wildest imaginings would she have thought . . . She couldn’t really imagine having that much money, much less that Knox had paid that amount for her and had been willing to pay more if he’d been able to liquidate anything else fast enough.
Maddening, was what it was.
She walked into Knox’s office, where she found him pacing, his hands wiping his face and running through his hair. She spoke low, calm.
“I don’t know if I’m more pissed at you for not shoving a gun up his nose for daring to blackmail you, or with him for pimping me out. I’m not going to be home until very late tonight and for the next few evenings. I’ll also be gone all day Saturday. Just letting you know.”
She walked out as calmly as she’d walked in, Knox saying nothing. It was indeed very late when she got home that night. She showered, then climbed into bed beside him. She knew he wouldn’t be asleep—he never slept when troubled—so she wrapped herself around him. He pulled her close.
“Do I want to know?” he asked softly.
“No. I suggest you keep your nose out of it until I’m done if you don’t want it smashed.”
That made him chuckle. “Are you still mad at me?”
“Of course I am. You so didn’t have to do any of that if you hadn’t—”
“I know. I know. Done it the hard way. Sebastian bashed me over the head when I did it.”
“Now, about my smart mouth . . . ”
Justice drifted off to sleep half on top of him after her smart mouth had licked and sucked everything she could from him, his hands in her hair, keeping her close when he came. She sucked and licked up every last drop, then lay down between his legs, her cheek on his belly. She absently caressed his bare hip and thigh.
I bet she wants to fuck Knox Hilliard as much as I do . . . She wouldn’t know what to do with him if she had him.
She snickered. “Heh.”
“Thank you,” he whispered, stroking her cheek and playing with her curls. “I love it when you do that.”
“I love it when I do that, too.”
He chuckled, but soon she heard his breathing even out.
Early Saturday morning she threw on jeans and a white sweater and well-worn cowboy boots. She tucked her gun in the back of her waistband and stuck her badge on her jeans pocket. She threw her briefcase in her car, laid her gun on the seat, spun out “Legend of a Cowgirl” (because she needed that little extra kick today), and was on the road before Knox woke up. A bare three blocks from home, her cell rang.
“Not telling you,” she said immediately before hanging up and turning the phone off.
Two squad cars pulled her over in Chouteau City, one in front of her and one behind. The trooper in the front car got out, walked back, leaned against the top of the car.
His mouth twitched. His tongue was in his cheek. He was trying very, very hard not to laugh. Justice sighed. “Uh, Justice, Knox has an APB out on you.”
“Surprisesurprise.”
He snickered. “Where are you going?”
Justice gritted her teeth. “Hadley, you and Knox can kiss my ass.”
He chuckled and wiped his hand across his mouth. “You know we’re going to follow you. He said you might need backup.”
“Bastard,” she muttered, and the trooper laughed all the way back to his car.
When she drove up the farm’s driveway, she saw a new car. That was the only difference she could fathom. It was December, so the fields were fallow. Between the time she’d left in June and now, nothing had happened here and if it had, she couldn’t tell what.
She got out of the car, tucked her gun back in her waistband, grabbed her briefcase, and walked up the porch stairs. With a wave, she signaled the troopers to stay put. Once in the house, she found Martin McKinley sitting in his easy chair, the TV blaring nonsense. He had a can of cheap beer in one hand and the remote control in the other. The place was littered with empty beer cans and fast food trash. It reeked of stale beer and . . . other things she didn’t care to try to identify.
She couldn’t tell if he’d gone to sleep and awakened that way or if he hadn’t been to sleep all night. It was only 7:30 in the morning and she couldn’t give him that much credit for getting up that early. He probably hadn’t moved a muscle except to get up and go pee. If that.
“You’re so pathetic you don’t even know what to do with a quarter of a million dollars.”
Startled,
he struggled his way around in his easy chair to look at her, his face ashen. “Justice. You’re not supposed to be here. Go home before— Go home.”
“Before Knox gets here to take it all away again?” He didn’t answer her, so she continued conversationally. “Knox has no interest in taking anything away from you.”
He gave her a wary look. “He doesn’t?”
“Naw.”
“Are you sure? He’s a mean bastard.”
“Ah, so you see him differently now that calling the FBI’s off the table.”
“He told you about that?”
“Of course he did. He’s my husband.”
“So why are you here?”
“I am going to take it all away from you.”
He rolled his eyes and released a disdainful puff of air. “Sure.” He turned his back on her and relaxed back into his easy chair. He pointed the remote at the old TV he hadn’t bothered to replace with something expensive and changed it to a shopping channel. Justice wasn’t sure if her level of anger now stacked up to her level of anger at Raines, but it was a close call. How dare he dismiss her!
He’d done that her whole life and she suddenly realized that she’d always thought she deserved it, that she’d always acted like she deserved it so she’d gotten it everywhere she went. She’d accused Knox of thinking he deserved no better than what he got, but who was she to talk?
Knox was the first person ever to not dismiss her out of hand, who’d listened to what she’d had to say. Knox had made her who she was because he’d listened to her and validated her when no one else had.
And she had stayed with Knox. What a pathetic, perfectly matched pair they were.
Justice hefted her briefcase and stood between her father and the TV. He protested with an exasperated whine. With one swift donkey kick, she put the thick heel of her boot through the glass of the TV and knocked it off its rickety stand onto the floor.
That got his attention.
She pulled a document out of her case. “Sign that,” she said flatly and handed him a pen.
“What is it?”
“Power of attorney.”
“I don’t need that. I’m fine.”
“You won’t be if you don’t sign it.”
“Oh, what are you going to do? You’re spineless. You’ve always been spineless.”
Justice felt her brain freeze and the warmth in her soul mist away like steam, leaving only darkness and ice behind. Was this how Knox felt when he got that cold cynical look on his face? She calmly reached behind her back, pulled her Glock out of her waistband, and chambered a round. She pointed it at the easy chair, between his legs. “Sign it,” she said in her Terrible Voice, the voice that had come out of her at Raines.
He didn’t know what to do at first because he obviously didn’t know who this Justice was and she felt the first warmth of satisfaction come back into her body. He began to beg and plead. Cry and moan. Attempt to explain himself.
It took one shot into the easy chair between his legs to convince him she was serious, then she stuffed her gun back in her waistband.
The documents flowed and he signed them all without question, without hesitation. She couldn’t tell if he cried and carried on because of her gun or because of what he was signing, but really, he was too busy writing to read. She calmly fed him document after document until her entire folder was done.
After that, she demanded he cough up the title to his new car, which he signed over to her for one dollar. She didn’t bother to give him that. She figured his old car would be sufficient to get him to an actual job, provided he got one.
“Your first rent payment, money order, will be due in the Chouteau County prosecutor’s office on the first of February, addressed to me,” she said as she assembled her things and arranged her briefcase. “If I don’t have it, I’ll come collecting.”
“But Justice, you took everything I have. How am I supposed to come up with rent?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care, but you have almost two months to do it.”
“But why? I’m your father!”
“No, you’re my pimp.”
“But—”
“If you still can’t come up with the money when I come collecting, I’ll have you evicted. I’ll warn you now that every deputy in the county and every trooper on this stretch of highway is either terrified of me or loves me, so I won’t even have to file suit before your clothes are out on the roadside. And you should feel lucky I’ll let you have that much. Everything on this piece of property is mine now, along with the money Knox gave you.”
Justice walked back around his chair, across the living room, and out the front door, her sperm donor dragging behind her like a wet rag. She wasn’t surprised to see the troopers gone and Knox casually leaning against the front of the truck waiting for her, wearing jeans, a thick black pullover sweater, and driving moccasins. His badge hung on his jeans pocket and she could see the bulge of his gun stuck in his waistband through his sweater.
His hair gleamed gold in the winter morning sunlight and his thick morning beard made him look delectably wicked and dangerous.
She caught her breath at his beauty, then shook her head to clear it. This was business time. She clipped down the stairs and across the crappy dirt where lawn should’ve been. She tripped on a clod and sneered at it, comparing it to the smooth, lush (although now brownish) lawn at home. Lazy bastard.
“Howdy, Martin,” Knox drawled with a smirk.
“You went back on our deal!”
“Nope, sure didn’t. She works her own deals. They teach you how to do that in law school.”
“She shot me!”
Justice stopped cold and turned to glare at him. “You’re lucky I didn’t blast your dick into the floor,” she snarled.
“Hilliard! Are you going to let her talk to me that way?”
“She does what she wants and right now, what she wants is to kick your ass, so sorry. Can’t help you.”
“Oh, I see. Big badass Hilliard’s pussy whipped.”
“Say. Martin. Should I have my deputies canvassing River Glen for any teenage girls you might’ve taken a fancy to?”
Justice watched as he paled and gulped. Her mouth dropped open and she drew in a long, slow breath. She felt Knox’s gaze on her and she closed her mouth with a snap.
“I don’t have time for this,” she said to Knox when she’d recovered herself. “Bank closes at noon. Let’s go.” She climbed into the passenger seat of the SUV.
As Knox got in and started the car, she stared out the window, away from that man on the porch. She thought if she looked at him, she might puke.
Knox escorted her into the bank with a hand on her back. His presence garnered the attention of the branch manager, who helped her himself. She then proceeded to drain every account Martin had and pour it all back into Knox’s accounts. Knox made one brief phone call to Sebastian. It wasn’t very long before the bank officer, thrilled to have had contact with the Sebastian Taight, had an email with an encrypted zip file of all of Knox’s account numbers and detailed instructions on how Sebastian wanted the funds parsed up and routed.
Most of the money was still there. Martin hadn’t known what to do with it after he’d bought the car. The only thing that money represented to him was a lifetime of easy chair and TV and beer and cigarettes and no work. Perhaps a fifth of Jack Daniel’s if he happened to be not lazy enough to get off his ass to go get it.
He’d be able to afford none of that now.
Knox didn’t say anything as the documents were notarized. He lazed in the chair beside her, his right ankle propped on his left knee, his elbow on the arm of the chair, his face on his fingertips, watching her, watching the process.
It was after one when she’d finished her business. The bank had been closed for an hour and she didn’t care that a few people were inconvenienced.
Once they were back in the car, she said, “Back to the farm that I own now. Gotta pick up my car,
plus I want to show you something.”
Knox still remained silent for another long while and she finally looked at him. He was leaning back against his door, his elbow on the door ledge. He watched her carefully.
“Did you mean to make him a sharecropper?”
“Yes, I did.”
“What are you going to do if he doesn’t produce anything?”
“Won’t matter,” she muttered. “He’ll be in jail by spring.”
Knox stuck his tongue in his cheek. “Gonna follow up on that, then?”
“Yes.” Justice swallowed, hard, and wouldn’t look at Knox.
She felt his hand on the back of her neck and she turned to melt into his kiss. “I’m sorry,” he whispered against her mouth. “I’m sorry I did this, sorry I put you through this.”
“I’d rather know the truth, no matter how nasty,” she murmured in return, her eyes opening again and watching him kiss her, watching him watch her. “I’ll get some deputies on it Monday.”
“Yeah. About that.”
Justice sighed. “You already did it.”
“When you came back and told me how he reacted to you, I started sniffing around.”
“I’m guessing you can’t make a case?”
“No. I couldn’t turn up any underage girls and I couldn’t get any of the barely legal ones to talk.”
“My mother was underage.”
He started. “What?”
“She was fifteen when I was born. My grandfather gave him a choice between marrying her or going to jail.”
He stared at her and asked slowly, as if he didn’t really want to know, “How old was he when you were born?”
“Thirty-three.”
He held his breath and then released it in a long whoosh and wiped his mouth while he stared out the window. “I should’ve just killed the bastard when I had the chance,” he muttered, as if to himself.
“I’m sure my grandfather thought the same many times.”
“So you’re reliving your mother’s history.”
“I wasn’t underage.”
He shuddered. “Close enough,” he grumbled, then he chuckled suddenly as he started the car. “Between your father and my mother, we were just fucked from the get-go.”