Page 18 of Hart of Vengeance
I lifted my hands. The cuffs banged against the table as I placed my forearms on top. “I’ve never worked for Duke before. I’m not about to start now.” Duke didn’t want me in his business anyway. He’d told me that a time or two.
“I would hate to see you dead before you were twenty,” Duke had said.
I hadn’t argued with him. I didn’t care about money laundering. Selling drugs was an easy business anyway.
“But he is my brother, and we do have a few family issues to work out.” Then it dawned on me. Jade’s sister and Duke were an item. Maybe that was the girl who had answered the phone. “Jade, how’s your sister?” Savannah Kelly was a wild one. She was into drugs but had never gotten them from me. I’d promised Jade in high school that I would never sell to her sister, and I hadn’t.
Jade winced. “Sir, can Duke affect Denim’s parole?”
My eyes went wide. “Are you worried about me?” Her tone led me to believe she was, and warmth blossomed in my chest.
Jade stiffened as though she hadn’t meant to ask that question in front of me.
Kelton scribbled in his binder. “Duke could be a problem for your parole.”
“What?” Horror careened through me, and my stomach knotted. “He’s got nothing to do with me. He hasn’t even visited me in prison.”
“If he comes up in your hearing, make sure you express that,” Kelton said.
I gritted my teeth. I would seriously squeeze the life out of my brother if my parole was denied because of him. “You know, the FBI seems to think I’ll get parole.”
Kelton reared back, his jaw tightening. “Come again?”
Jade’s green eyes sparked with an emotion I couldn’t figure out.
I was hesitant to say anything more. I pointed at Jade. “Is she bound by the same client-attorney law?”
“She is. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be here. She works for me and only me. So talk.”
“Two agents showed up here about two weeks ago, asking me to help them get dirt on Duke when I got parole.”
Jade licked her lips. “Would you?” Her question sounded more like a plea than anything.
If she knew me, she knew I wouldn’t. She’d known how tight Duke, Dillon, and I had been as teenagers. But I got the feeling she was dying for me to hand Duke over to the Feds. Suddenly, I was curious if Duke had done something to Jade. If he had, I would kill my brother with my bare hands.
“Who were the agents?” Kelton asked. “Jade, take notes, please.”
A hint of excitement washed over her.
“Agent Travers and Agent Brock. They’re watching my brother. They’ll expunge my record if I help them. My murder charge would disappear.”
Kelton scrubbed long fingers over his clean-shaven jaw. “What did you tell them?”
“In so many words, I told them to fuck off.”
“You don’t want your record cleared?” Shock rode Jade’s tone. “Your brother isn’t an angel.”
Neither am I.
Kelton seemed proud of his employee.
Jade had never liked the shit we’d been into as kids—gangs and drugs mainly. Eight years later, her opinion hadn’t changed. Then again, gangs and drugs were petty stuff compared to money laundering and guns.
I picked at a cut on my finger. “None of us are angels.”Except for you.She had been pure and innocent, and I’d never wanted to see the light snuff out of her eyes. Part of me was relieved she still had a spark, and I outright grinned that she seemed to have her shit together.
“What’s with the smile?” she asked.
Nothing and everything.
