Page 52 of Jackson

She raised a brow. “That’s it?”

“What more do you want from me?”

“I just didn’t think you were spending enough time with any of them that would get you close enough to get their side of the story.”

“When you work with people long enough, you start to see their humanity,” I said.

Her sigh was long, but she didn’t argue with me. Lifting her hand away from the file, she let me slide it closer to her, flipping open the front flap to look over the cover page detailing the highlights of Ayen’s case.

While she read silently, I ordered us a light lunch and two coffees, needing the caffeine myself from barely sleeping lastnight. No matter what I did, I replayed Ayen’s words in my head so many times that I had them memorized by now.

The hitch in his voice when he spoke, the dead tone of him telling me it was pointless to even try to get his sentence overturned, all of it. And while he lay sleeping peacefully on my chest, I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t let this go no matter how hard he fought me on it.

That son-of-a-bitch husband wasn’t going to win and taint Ayen’s life for the rest of eternity. I wouldn’t let him.

Halfway through finishing my plate of food, Nina finally pulled her head out of the documents. “Jesus, this kid has had it rough.”

I nodded and chewed slowly.

If she saw half of what I did just from that file alone, I knew Ayen had a real chance. Nina was a viper in the courtroom. A lawyer not to go toe-to-toe with if you knew what was good for you. She’d gotten that reputation from college and had allowed it to be carried with her all the way to the firm she worked at now, not letting the ‘boy’s club’ stop her from doing some great things for people.

I admired her every damn day for not giving up and making something of herself that my late brother would be proud of.

She sighed. “I’ll be honest, this is going to be a tough one.”

Lowering my fork, I said, “You don’t think he can be proven innocent?”

“It’s not that. The problem is that a lot of his evidence proving spousal abuse wasn’t put in front of a jury. So all it seems like from that perspective is spousal estrangement gone wrong.”

“We can’t get all of that in front of another jury?”

She shook her head. “He wouldn’t be going for a re-trial since he was already convicted. I could see about getting a judge to look at it, but you know those asswipes. They protect each other and if one degenerate decided on something, there’s not typically any other judge who will actually go against the original judgment. Especially, if they’re in the same county circuit.”

Leaning back in my seat, I let myself sit with the information.

Ayen’s original lawyer had told him that going up in front of a judge for a dismissal was pointless, and while at the time I’d thought that was complete bullshit—and still do—maybe it was because of the abhorrent politics within the justice system.

Forcing my baby bird to relive any of that shit in order to have the slim chance of a possible overturned conviction was a big ask, and understandably, not something he should be put through again.

But on the other end of the tossed coin, whatifit was the thing that got him out of prison?

Whatifputting this file in front of a judge—the right one this time—got him set free and his record wiped in exchange for parole and time served?

I doubted he’d even care about the parole part, anyway.

“I need him out of there, Nina.” My voice was soft as I spoke.

Her eyes widened briefly, caught off guard by my sudden confession. It wasn’t every day that I opened up and bared my soul like this, especially about a taboo subject involving an inmate that I absolutely had no business getting entangled with.

This was the real deal, though. My feelings for Ayen were all encompassing, to the point where the four weeks I had left with him were feeling like hours now. Our time together was slowly dwindling away by the ticking of a grandfather clock, ominously waiting to chime at midnight.

I couldn’t let him slip through my fingers and be lost to the system for another three years.

What happened if someone were to hurt him while he was there?

There was no guarantee that he’d be safe, regardless of what part of the prison he was in. Anyone at any time could deem him as a threat and take him out.

I could never forgive myself if that happened. Not when I could do something to try and prevent it altogether.

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