“Anytime, girlfriend. You know I love you and the little squirt.”
The hearing room door swung open and a uniformed man announced, “Ashford vs. Hart.”
Rylie fought the urge to throw up. Instead, she straightened her spine and held her head high as Chase and Aubrey escorted her inside, with the others following. The large, wooden, raised desk where the judge would sit and preside over the hearing was straight ahead on the other side of the room. Below that was a female stenographer with her equipment. Next came two sets of tables and chairs where the lawyers would be. On either side of Rylie were rows of benches for the observers and witnesses. The court officer gestured for her, Chase, and Aubrey to sit in the front row on the right, while the Ashfords were then situated on the left. The lawyers all sat at their appropriate tables.
The room felt cold, but Rylie assumed it was more from her anxiety than the actual temperature. As if sensing her discomfort, Chase stood, removed his suit coat, and gestured for her to lean forward so he could drape it over her shoulders. His warmth and scent that lingered on the garment surrounded her, giving her solace. When he sat and put his arm around her, tucking her into his side, she almost sighed. What had she done to deserve this man?
Not for the first time, Rylie wondered if Chase was going to decide she and Mickey were too much trouble. She glanced up at him to find his gaze was on her. His hand squeezed her upper arm as he placed a sweet kiss atop her head. As if he’d read her mind, he whispered, “I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart.”
Before she could respond, the bailiff announced, “All rise. The Honorable Judge Harold Bernstein presiding.”
A door at the front of the room, to the left of the bench, opened and a gray-haired man strode in with a flourish, his long, black robe flowing behind him. Once he was seated, he looked out over the room with a bored but arrogant expression. “Be seated and let’s get started. Attorneys, introduce yourselves for the record.”
“He hasn’t changed one bit,” Chase murmured in Rylie’s ear. “He’s still a pompous ass.”
Once the lawyers were done spelling their names for the record and letting the stenographer know which law firms they were with, the judge eyed those seated in the gallery. “Who else is in attendance? Mr. Ferguson?”
Chase’s lawyer pointed to Rylie and gestured for her to stand. He’d told her earlier this would happen, and she jumped to her feet. “Rylie Hart, Your Honor. I’m Mackenzie Hart’s mother.”
“Adoptive mother,” one of the Ashfords’ two lawyers stressed.
The judge nodded in acknowledgment. “Fine. Who is with you, Ms. Hart?”
“My friend, Aubrey Young and my . . . my boyfriend, Chase Dixon.” God, it was weird saying that for the first time.
Bernstein’s eyes narrowed, and he glared at Chase. “Off the record.” The stenographer stopped typing and removed her hands from the machine in front of her. “What are you doing in my courtroom, Dixon?”
Oh, this wasn’t good.
Chase stood. His jaw was tight, his stance rigid, but he responded in a professional manner. “As Ms. Hart just stated, we’re dating. I’m here to support her.”
The judge let out a snort, and his gaze shifted back to Rylie. “I hope your taste in men isn’t an indication of your ability to raise a child, Ms. Hart.”
Rylie gasped as Ferguson loudly objected. “Your Honor, if you have an issue with who my client is dating, I demand you recuse yourself from this case.”
“Request denied.” He rapped his gavel on the desk. “Mr. Fairbanks, who are you representing?”
With her mouth agape, Rylie’s gaze shifted back and forth between Chase and Ferguson. Chase grasped her hand and added a little pressure before leaning down and whispering in her ear. “It’s okay. We’ll file a motion to fight his refusal to recuse himself after we get out of here. Just bear with it.”
She wasn’t sure she could.
Forty-five minutes of massive bullshit later, Rylie stormed out of the courthouse with Chase, Aubrey, and Ferguson on her heels. She was so fucking livid, she could barely see straight. Chase grasped her upper arm, pulling her to a halt, and Rylie realized she’d been a step away from blindly tumbling down the front steps of the building.
Chase wrapped his arms around her. “It’ll be okay, sweetheart. We’ll get this overturned.”
“Absolutely, Rylie,” Ferguson assured her as he stood next to them. Aubrey was on Rylie’s other side, with her hand on her friend’s shoulder in support. “I’m going to draw up a motion to appeal the denial of recusal and have the final decision thrown out.”
“How long will that take?” she asked. According to the very biased judge, Rylie had to share custody of her daughter with the Ashfords from now on. Mickey had to stay with the couple two full weekends of every month—Friday afternoon through Sunday evening—and for six weeks during the summer which was almost the entire time Mickey would be off from school. Holidays were to be equally split too.
“I’ll file it first thing in the morning, but I doubt anything will be done about it before Monday.”
“Which means Mickey has to spend the entire weekend with them—without one of Chase’s guards.” Another of Bernstein’s ridiculous orders. The Ashfords insisted on hiring their own security for Mickey while she stayed with them. This Friday after school, Rylie was supposed to bring Mickey to the law firm of Drake, Jansen, and Fairbanks and hand her over to the Ashfords for three days. The only reason she wasn’t going to leave town with Mickey today and go on the run was because it wouldn’t help her case when they got the hearing to plead for the ruling to be overturned. But, damn, the idea had crossed her mind over a dozen times already.
“I’m sorry, Rylie.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Ken. I know you tried.” She set her hand on the man’s forearm in reassurance. He’d done everything he possibly could back there, but the judge wouldn’t budge. Their only recourse was to get the ruling overturned. For now, she had to tell Mickey that she’d be spending the entire weekend with the Ashfords. From what her daughter and Tuff had told her, the two visits she’d had with her grandparents had gone better than expected. The second time Mickey had gone to their home, this past Sunday, they’d invited a few great-nieces and nephews to join them, so there’d been children her age for her to play with. While Carol Ashford appeared to be doing her best to develop a relationship with her granddaughter, her husband had said very few words to the young girl during both visits.
After Ken and Aubrey said goodbye to them, Chase ushered Rylie to the municipal parking lot where they’d left his car over an hour ago. It wasn’t long before he pulled his BMW into her driveway and turned off the engine. Neither of them got out of the car. They only had about a half hour before Mickey was due home.
Rylie glanced at Chase. “Since Mickey won’t be . . .” She swallowed hard. “Won’t be here on Friday, I was thinking of having pizza and movie night tonight.”
“That sounds like a great idea.” He picked up her hand and brought it to his lips and brushed them across her knuckles. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I shouldn’t have stepped foot in that asshole’s courtroom. This is my—”
She ripped her hand from his and glared at him. “Don’t you dare say this was your fault, Chase Dixon. You have been nothing but supportive of me and Mickey. That judge was prejudiced against you and took it out on me. He had no right to be, and if Ken can’t get the ruling overturned, I’ll be going to the press and making sure everyone knows what a douchebag Bernstein is.”
“Ha!” His grin and chuckle had her smiling despite the afternoon she’d had. “There’s the mama bear I’ve fallen in love with.” He grasped her hand and kissed it again. “And you’re right. If we have to bring this to the court of public opinion, we will. And if worse comes to worst, then I might just happen to know a guy who can make bodies disappear.”
When her eyes grew wide at what he was insinuating, he winked at her. “Just kidding.”
Som
ehow, she didn’t think he really was.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sitting in one of BHS’s conference rooms, Chase flipped through the pages of the report, hoping something would jump out at him. Over the past two weeks, they’d torn Senator Ashford’s life apart, but there were no skeletons in his closet. None in his wife’s either. At least nothing that hadn’t already been revealed, speculated on, or that would cause more than a blip as the eighth or ninth item on the evening news before being sidelined for bigger stories. However, Chase refused to believe he’d hit a dead end and there was no way to keep the Ashfords from taking full custody of Mickey. There had to be something.
“Find anything yet?” Ian asked as he and Irv strolled into the room.
Chase’s eyebrows shot up, and he glanced at his watch. “What are you doing here? We didn’t have something scheduled, did we?”
Shaking his head, the owner of Trident Security took a seat next to him. “Nope. I was in the neighborhood and decided to stop by to see if there’s any update on Mickey’s case.”
Irv had grabbed two ginger ales from the room’s small fridge and set one in front of Ian before quietly sitting across from the other two men. Chase tossed the file he’d been reading onto the table and sighed. Tomorrow, Rylie had to bring Mickey to meet the Ashfords at their attorneys’ offices. Chase had been hoping to find something to help Ken get the court order overturned, but, so far, he was still at a loss. “If there’s something we can hold over Ashford, we haven’t found it yet. Gordo and her team have been searching for days.”
“There’s got to be something—the guy’s a fucking politician. There’s always something they’re hiding.”
“And I think I’ve found it,” Gordo said as she rushed into the room, carrying an open laptop, and plopped down into a chair across from Irv. Her eyes were sparkling with excitement, but Chase knew better than to demand she tell him what she’d discovered. She was the type of person who needed to provide visuals to back up her intel. Her fingers flew over the keyboard, and the huge monitor hanging on the wall at one end of the conference table came to life. “While I had everyone else digging through Senator and Mrs. Ashford’s pasts, I decided to do the same for their kid—Warren.”
“Something that negates the fact he’s dead?” Irv asked.
“Oh, yeah.” Grinning, she opened several windows on the laptop, and they all took up a different section on the big screen. One of them was an Instagram page. “Nobody ever took down Warren’s profile. His buddies and cousins are still commenting with the occasional tribute to the scuzzball on some of the old photos.”
Ian snorted. “Scuzzball? Seriously, Gordo. You need a better insult than that. I can let you borrow one off my twat-roster if you want.”
As Chase expected, his computer geek ignored the man’s offer and continued hitting the keys in front of her. “It’s amazing what you can discover on someone’s social media accounts. It’s like a time capsule that’s always accessible unless you deactivate it—and, even then, there are ways to access the info. Thankfully, the Ashfords made it an easy task for me by leaving Warren’s accounts active.” Several posts containing images of a few men popped up on the screen. Warren was one of them, although he looked much younger than he had in his last profile picture. “See?”
All three men stared at the screen, confusion etched on their faces. After a moment, Chase said, “Um, can you give us a hint, Gordo?”
Using a laser pointer, she indicated a spot below one of the photos Warren had posted. And then the same spot on another. And another.
“Holy shit,” Irv muttered before raising his voice. “How long?”
“Five months,” she responded.
Ian’s impressed gaze met Chase’s. “She’s almost as good as Egghead.” That earned him an indignant snort from Gordo. He smiled and winked at her before turning his attention back to his friend. “I think Irv and I are on the same page. Are you?”
Smirking, Chase nodded. “Yup.”
“Can I be there when you take him down, if this turns out how I think it will?”
“I’ll send out engraved invitations and serve drinks and hors d'oeuvres.” He turned to his second-in-command. “I want you to track down the others in those photos and get statements. I don’t want a single loophole missed.”
When Irv stood, the ever-efficient Gordo handed him two pieces of paper. “Warren liked tagging his friend in his posts. I crosschecked their photos with their profiles and wrote down their names, addresses, phone numbers, and where they work.”
Taking the info, Irv was almost to the door when Chase called out to him, “Jester and Minx are in the bullpen. Take him with you and send her in here. I have something I need her to do.”
“You got it.” The man disappeared into the hallway.
Chase smiled at Gordo. “If this pans out, you just earned an extra week of paid vacation.”
“Awesomesauce.”
Getting to her feet, she skipped out the door as Chase pulled out his cell phone and used the speed dial feature to make a call. He had less than forty-eight hours to get his ducks in a row.
“Hi, Chase,” Rylie greeted him, and, as usual, her sexy voice had his mind playing out a fantasy with her in the starring role and gloriously naked.
He shoved the inappropriate thoughts from his head. “Hey, sweetheart. When you get home, I need you to do me a favor and bring those boxes with Emma’s stuff in them out to the living room. I need to look for something.”
“Um . . . sure, but why?”
“I’ll explain when I see you. I’ll bring home dinner too.”
A few moments later, Chase ended the call and made a second one to another person on his speed dial.
“Judge Harrelson’s office. Amy Carlin speaking.”
“Hello, Amy, this is Chase Dixon. Does His Honor have fifteen minutes on his schedule to meet with me today?”
“Oh, hi, Mr. Dixon. Let me see . . . yes, I think I can squeeze you in. Does four thirty work for you? He should be finished with court around that time.”
Ashford wasn’t the only person with friends on the bench who owed him favors. “Four thirty is perfect. Thank you.”
He disconnected the call and grinned at Ian whose eyes were filled with amusement. For the first time since this whole mess started, there was a spark of light at the end of the tunnel. Chase hoped that by the time he was done, that spark would turn into fireworks.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rylie and Chase followed Ian Sawyer into the law offices of Drake, Jansen, and Fairbanks. Meanwhile, Mickey was at Chase’s house, under the watchful eyes of Tuff, Boots, and Meat. In case things went awry today, he’d wanted to make sure the girl was safe. Although, after he’d presented her with all the evidence he and his employees had gathered over the past few days, Rylie didn’t think Mickey was the one who was going to need protection after this meeting.
Carrying a black, buttery-soft leather briefcase and dressed in a dark-gray business suit, white button-down shirt, and a sky-blue tie, Chase appeared sexy and intimidating as hell at the same time. However, he let his two lawyers, who’d also accompanied them, approach the receptionist. The blonde woman looked confused when Ken Ferguson handed her a business card, while Jessica Takahashi stood next to him. Clearly, she hadn’t been expecting anyone other than Rylie, Mickey, and maybe Chase. Good. That meant they still had the element of surprise. Chase and his employees had spent the past two days gathering up all the evidence he was about to throw into Lloyd Ashford’s face. They’d crossed their t’s and dotted their i’s.
They rode the elevator up and arrived at their destination with no stops on any other floors. While the receptionist picked up her phone and called someone, speaking in a hushed tone, Chase’s gaze raked over Rylie, warming her skin. “Have I told you how sexy that suit looks on you?”
She had several “power” suits for when she was meeting with new clients. This one consisted of a navy-blue skirt, that stopped just
above her knees, with a matching jacket in a material that wasn’t too heavy for the warm weather. Underneath, she wore an ivory, sleeveless shell. Confident things were going to end in her favor, for the first time since she’d received the court order demanding Mickey’s DNA test, Rylie smiled and took a step closer to him. “I might say the same thing to you.”
She brushed an invisible piece of lint from his lapel. He must have his suits made for him because they fit him perfectly. She longed to dip her hands under the jacket and caress his pectoral muscles, to feel them quiver under her touch as they’d done last night when he’d made love to her.
His lips quirked, and she suspected he wanted to kiss her, but that would negate his air of authority and take-no-prisoners attitude that was needed for this meeting. Instead, he winked at her with a silent promise of what was to come later when they were alone.
A door at the end of the hall swung open, and a man—Rylie couldn’t remember if it was Jansen or Fairbanks—strode out, his face pinched with annoyance. He hadn’t been expecting Chase’s lawyers either. When he tersely greeted them, she realized he didn’t like them. It appeared the feelings were mutual too.
“What’s going on?” Jansen asked. Jansen, that’s it. “Where’s the kid?”
Chase growled. “The little girl is safely off-site.”
Not happy with that answer, the lawyer narrowed his eyes and set his hands on his hips like a petulant child. “What the hell does that mean? You were supposed to bring her here so her grandparents can take custody of her. If she’s not here within the hour—”
“Don’t start making threats you may not be able to follow through on, Rick,” Jessica interrupted. “Before we get back to Mackenzie’s status, there’s something we want to discuss with you and your clients. I guarantee it’s going to be an eye-opener for a few people.”
Blood Bound (Blackhawk Security Book 2) Page 15