Page 83 of EverGreene
Conrad moved to the door but was stopped just short of reaching the hall when a couple of officers from our local sheriff’s department stepped into the room. His face fell when one of the officers pulled out her handcuffs.
“You’re arresting me?” Anger had shifted to outright desperation. Absolute music to my ears.
“That’s generally what happens when they slap handcuffs on your wrists and read you your Miranda rights.” TauntingConrad probably wasn’t the wisest thing for me to do in that moment, but holy fuck was it satisfying.
“Don’t think you’re getting out of this.” Conrad sneered, lunging in my direction. “If I’m going down, you’re coming with me. That includes those friends of yours and your new sex toy over here. In fact…”
He didn’t have time to finish his sentence before his face said hello to my fist. If we had been in the ring, this would have been considered an epic knockout, and I suppose it still was, despite being in the middle of a hotel conference room surrounded by my employers, colleagues, and the woman I’d been stalking for the last year. Conrad’s eyes rolled into the back of his head before he collapsed to the floor.
“I completely understand if you need to cuff me, too,” I said, holding up my hands.
“For what?” the arresting officer asked, looking down at the ground. “I didn’t see anything. As far as I’m concerned, he was standing and then he passed out.”
“That’s what I saw, too,” Denise chimed in, having put her phone away.
“I didn’t see anything, either,” Blaine added.
“Hey, Jefferson,” the officer called out to someone in the hallway. “Cleanup on aisle seven.” A larger, brawny officer whose stature alone would make him a formidable opponent in the ring entered the room. “Little help here.”
“What happened to him?”
“Fell,” Jason answered from the back of the room.
“Is his nose broken?” Officer Jefferson asked, noticing the pool of blood near Conrad’s face.
“It would appear so.” The arresting officer and Officer Jefferson glanced at each other.
“Well, okay then.” He bent down and picked Conrad’s limp body up from the floor. The other officer who came in with thearresting officer helped hoist him up and, together, they walked on either side of Conrad, lifting him upWeekend at Bernie’sstyle and carried him away.
“Paperwork on this is going to be a nightmare.” The arresting officer sighed, turning to speak to the partners. “I’m going to need at least one of you to come down to the Department. He’s probably going to be conscious before we get back there. He’ll bond out soon, and I want to make sure we have everything straight to turn over to the prosecutor’s office.”
“I’ll go.” Matt volunteered. “Loche, I’m going to need you to come with me, though.”
“Will do,” I said. “This trial is officially Blaine, Jack, and Ever’s to finish now, anyway.”
“Oh, shit. I have to get a closing written for tomorrow.” Blaine groaned, slumping in a chair.
“Ever has one written,” I said, looking back at Ever. “Don’t you.”
“I’ve been working on it all day. I almost have a draft for you.”
“Oh, thank Christ.” Blaine let out a breath in relief. “I was not ready to pull another all-nighter.”
“I’ll have it to you in the next hour,” Ever said.
“Let’s get going, Loche,” Matt said. “The sooner we get there, the sooner we can get back, and I can get a drink to try to forget about today.”
I nodded, stealing another glance back at Ever, who met my eyes. She smiled a small smile, which I returned as if to silently say,I told you I would take care of him.
Now there was only one thing left to do.
Chapter 21
Ever
The solid wood bench was already making my rear end fall asleep, while at the front of the courtroom, Blaine was delivering the closing I’d put together to the jury with a few revisions from him. Being the end of the trial, the courtroom gallery was largely empty aside from Caroline, Jason, and me, along with a couple of staff members from the defense counsel’s office. Matt had left early this morning to head back to the office to quell any rumors that might be going around. Kim had ridden back with him, seeing as how she’d ridden here with Conrad.
Every creak drew my attention to the door to see if it was Loche. I hadn’t seen him since he went down to the police department, though Jason had spotted him talking to Matt this morning. The amount of space he was taking up in my brain was embarrassing. But no one had ever stood up for me the way Loche had. It was like an aphrodisiac. It was probably a good thing I hadn’t run into him because I’m pretty sure I would have climbed him like a tree.
