Page 72 of Jackson

Barlow and Browne escorted me down to the visitor center and into a small, private room where Nina was already sitting at the table, a thick folder in front of her. She smiled at me and stood once I was brought over to her, her eyes growing a little sad when I raised my arms up to carefully squeeze into the stationary seat attached to the table.

Once the COs had the door shut, she sat back down again. “How are you?”

“I’m okay.” My palms were clammy when I wiped them against my thighs. “What about you?”

She snorted. “Busy. You’ve got me running around quite a bit.”

Instantly, I felt bad. “I’m sor?—”

“Oh stop,” she chastised. “I’ve been dying for a good case.”

See, the funny thing about Nina was that she reminded me a lot of Jackson. Both of them were the kind of workers to love running themselves into the ground and did it with a smile on their faces. Sitting around and doing nothing was like a death sentence to them and the more work piled onto their plate, the better off their mental health was.

“Well, you’re welcome then,” I joked.

She smiled at me. “That’s the spirit.”

Opening up the folder, she spread out a few pages and spun them around to face me. “I’ve already submitted your appeal. We’ve got a court date on Friday. What I need from you is to go through these and read them, and then, if you agree to what’s written, I need you to sign and date them.”

A court date.

She really is a fucking miracle worker.

Looking back up at her, I asked, “You actually did it.”

“Hey, don’t give me credit yet. We’ve still got to meet with the judge. I’m trying to get you time served. Callahan’s not one to overturn a conviction even with substantially more evidence submitted. But as long as I can get the evidence that was previously thrown out about your past history with the victim, then we have a shot at getting you out of here.”

My heart thudded. “How soon?”

“As soon as fucking Friday, kid.”

Holy shit.

“Like I said, though…” she went on. “We’ve got to meet with the judge first and see what he says. He could order a retrial with new circumstances with the new evidence submitted or he could throw out what was used previously and have us start over with what’s left. It’s all up to him what will happen.”

Honestly, she could be talking gibberish and it’d still sound the same to me. All I was hearing was thatyesthere was a real shot that I could be getting out of here soon.

As soon as fucking Friday,like she said.

I could seeJacksonas soon as Friday.

Blowing out a breath, I nodded at her and set my hands down on top of the table. “Okay, tell me where to sign.”

CHAPTER 30

Jackson

“Your Honor,given that the evidence presented here was not allowed or presented at the first trial, our appeal is for a resubmission of said evidence. We find that at the time of the trial, since the evidence of the defendant’s past abuse with the victim was not taken into account, nor were the circumstances surrounding the inciting incident given proper context and presented to the jury, it directly affected my client’s current conviction.”

Hearing Nina speaking so eloquently to the judge, and the entire courtroom, gave me the peace of mind that she was going to try her damned hardest to get the case turned over in our favor. She’d been working tirelessly on it while I’d been running around as her errand-boy, gathering whatever evidence I could while she put together a new case file to present to Judge Callahan.

The old one had been a fucking mess and tracking down Ayen’s old lawyer even more so. How the hell that man was able to still practice up until last year was beyond me.

Seeing Ayen in his SAC uniform was jarring, to say the least.

My heart had sunk when he’d been walked into the court room, his head tilted down, while two COs were on either side of him, holding onto his arms like he’d bolt at any second if given the chance. The chains between his cuffs had rattled like bells and caused a chill to run down my spine—a sound I’d probably never forget.

But once he’d lifted his head up enough to allow for one of the CO’s to unlock his ankle chains in order to allow him to sit properly, his gaze had scanned over the gallery and landed directly on me. Seeing his eyes light up like that had made it all worth it—the running around, the sleepless nights worrying about him, taking a leave from the program in order to help Nina pull all of this together. Every. Single. Minute.

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