Jensen:: A Military Bad Boy Romance (The Bradford Brothers Book 1) (6 page)

My mind flashes back to when I was a teenager, and we’d all just found out that Mom had left Dad for some no-good vagrant.

“Boys,” Dad had said, after sitting us down on the couch.

Ramsey and I were almost bigger than he was— Ramsey probably was probably already taller than he was— but he still called us “boys.”

“I know you’ve been wondering where your mom has been. And I’m sorry to tell you this, but I don’t think she’ll be coming back any time soon.”

“How can you just put
up
with this?” Harlow had accused Dad, as he threw a sofa pillow across the room in frustration. He was still practically just a kid and didn’t know any better. “We
know
she’s gone. She’s been gone. She’s not coming back. So why are you holding onto all her stuff like this is some sort of free storage unit instead of our
house
that she
left
?”

“Harlow,” Ramsey had said— always protective of Dad, of any of us— “Calm down.”

“Kids at school are
talking
,” Ramsey had shot back, with a pout.

“Shut your mouth.” Ramsey didn’t want to further hurt Dad by piling more dirty, ugly truths on top of the truth that Dad was just starting to face, even though it had been plain as day to the rest of us for some time.

Dad had been a prominent political figure and we’d enjoyed a rather privileged, middle class upbringing up until that point. But now kids at school were saying our mom was a slut and an alcoholic, and our dad was a “cuckold.” I’d had to look that one up.

At the time, I was convinced that life would get better. Mom would realize her mistake and come home, and Dad was obviously willing to welcome her home with open arms. We would be a family again and everything would be okay.

“You haven’t had an easy life, Kidd-o,” I can almost hear my dad say now.

It sure didn’t pan out like I’d wanted it to. Mom did occasionally come home but it was only to crash with us when she was completely broke, and to get more money from Dad before she moved on to the next guy. Dad had to support us
and
Mom and her habits— which had progressed from alcohol to drugs, and from seedier and seedier men. We were still always the talk of the town and he didn’t run for re-election because he had slipped into a pretty deep depression and suffered from anxiety and panic attacks.

From that time on, the Bradford Brothers were on the outs. We were bad news. No good. Our family’s reputation was toast and our parents were the laughing stocks of the town. It was our mom’s fault, but for a long time I harbored resentment towards my dad— and I know that at least Harlow did too.

“I miss you, Dad,” I tell him now. “I wish you were here to help me through this.”

Dad passed away unexpectedly a year later, when Ramsey was a senior in high school and I was a junior. Harlow was just a freshman. The autopsy revealed rampant coronary hypertension that had gone unchecked, leading to heart failure.

Mom came back into our lives then, begrudgingly. She was worried that the state would take Harlow if she left Ramsey and me to take care of him. Ramsey went off to the military and I was left to deal with our crazy mother for Harlow and me both. Sometimes I think Ramsey goes easier on my mom than Harlow and I do because he wasn’t around to see how awful things got.

Harlow was understandably mad at my mom but she would punish him any time he brought up what she had done to us. And she would punish me for even mentioning Dad or how much I missed him.

I stayed home for a year after graduation to help take care of Harlow— because Mom was more absent than she was present, and when she was present, she seemed bent on making our lives miserable— but Harlow was kind of off the rails himself at that point. He was getting into trouble at school and didn’t want to be around anyone but his bad influence friends. I had gone down that path for a while but Ramsey had showed me through example that a better future existed for me.

So I joined the same Special Ops force that Ramsey was in— Pararescue— and we were both surprised when Harlow got his act more or less together and joined us a couple years later. Everyone in our unit referred to each other as “brothers” at times but it was nice to be together as actual brothers. Even— no,
especially
, I suppose— later when everything bad happened.

I try to shake my head free of bad memories and concentrate on the good ones I have of my dad, before everything went to shit. The way he made us pancakes with peanut butter for breakfast. The way he would sing as he drove us to school. The way that he and my mom used to be in love. I don’t know what happened, but the love was there once, and I had been able to see it plain as day.

“I think I met someone, but it’s a complicated situation…” I start to tell my dad.

No
, I tell myself.
I’m not going there
.

I had promised myself that I would never be like my dad. I wouldn’t get my heart and life literally ruined by a woman. Sex was one thing, but love was another. I had decided a long time ago that I would have plenty of the former, but none of the latter. I wouldn’t take a chance that my life would turn out like my dad’s.

“Well Dad, I have to get going, but I just wanted to drop by and say hello. And that I love you.”

“Take care, Son.” I can almost hear my dad’s voice say the phrase he would always say in parting.

I leave the cemetery feeling slightly better but wondering if things will ever feel normal again.

Chapter 7

This is it. Today’s the day that I get to take the direct testimony of my firm’s client, and then the cross-examination of the most important witness of the biggest trial of my career to date. I take a deep breath and can’t help but look around to see if Brian showed up. He’s not in the courtroom.

I sigh, realizing I should have known that he wouldn’t be here. I
did
know this, but couldn’t resist checking anyway, just in case. Brian has been all but non-existent in my life lately, barely asking me how my day was or if I’d like to grab dinner.

When I ask him if everything’s okay, he swears it is and that he’s just distracted. But he works maybe ten hours a week and parties the rest of the time, so I don’t know what he has to be distracted about.

I stand up to begin my questioning of Jed Marks but Jack Holt, Brian’s dad, hands me a sheet of paper. Even though he’s the supervising attorney for the trial, so far he’s let me handle the entire thing on my own.

I frown, wondering if he’s going to step in to do the big cross-examination, or if his interference means he no longer thinks I’ve been doing a good job, even though he’s been assuring me for the past week that everything has been going even more smoothly than he expected and that he’s very happy with my work.

“You’re doing great, Riley,” Mr. Holt assures me in a whisper. “But there was a sudden change in strategy and I’ve put together these questions to ask instead of the ones you prepared and we went over last week.”

Sudden change in strategy? When was there time for the managing partners to meet about this case between yesterday’s full-day trial session and this morning, and why? He put together new questions? Did he not like mine?

It makes no sense. We had painstakingly gone over my prepared questions until neither of us had any doubt that they were perfect. And now he’s handed me one sheet with questions for our witness and on the back questions for the opposing witness, and they’re completely different than those that we had planned out.

I’m not prepared; I haven’t had time to practice my direct questioning since I didn’t even have these questions until now. How could he sandbag me like this? And why?

As I quickly scan the questions, the answers become a little more clear, but not much. It appears that someone at my firm was given information about the other side’s case, and I doubt that it was done above board. There is no way we could know all of this information unless someone had discovered it unethically or had been provided the information unethically.

And the worst part is that the notes clearly indicate that our client was guilty of trading insider information. It looks to me as if someone at our firm is trying to sink our own client. The new information completely ruins our case in the civil lawsuit and means I’m not supposed to be questioning the client on the stand. I’m not allowed to let him lie, and if I know he’s lying, I’m supposed to withdraw my representation as his lawyer.

“Go on,” says Mr. Holt, impatiently, in a hissed whisper under his breath.

He actually wants me to do this. I’m not sure what’s happened but he wants me to be unethical in order to win this case. If I’m ethical, I’ll lose it.

And perhaps I’ve been set up the whole time. I’m the associate handling the trial so if I do the wrong thing, it’s my bar license on the line. On the other hand, Mr. Holt would still be responsible as my supervising attorney instructing me to be unethical. So I guess he just doesn’t care.

What did you think?
I ask myself, while trying to decide what to do.
That he built the richest law firm in the city by being some moral upstanding citizen?

I know deep in my gut that this behavior is probably par for the course for my law firm. This trial is likely some test or initiation, to see if I have what it takes to be partnership material.

I flash forward to the future in my mind and I see my father shaking his head disapprovingly at me, not for being unethical but for no longer having a job. And my mother’s face in tears, asking me what’s to become of all the money they spent to put me through law school. They thought my career was set, and now I’m fired, and they don’t even know or care why. They just can’t believe that their baby girl would disappoint them like this.

I clear my throat and ask the first question.

“Mr. Marks, have you ever traded insider information about your company’s stocks?”

“No, of course not,” is his quick answer from the witness stand, just as I’d expected.

But the paper I’m looking at tell me that he has. It also tells me a lot of damning information about the other side that I’m not sure how the firm got its hands on— but apparently the strategy is to deny, deny, deny while muddying up the waters with all the things the opposing side has done wrong that we somehow know about now.

I pause. This is where I’m supposed to recuse myself. I suddenly wonder if it’s a test in the opposite direction— maybe the firm wants to make sure I’m ethical? It’s a laughable thought but I don’t know which way is up anymore.

Mr. Holt reaches up and points a finger to the next question, angrily, as if he thinks I suddenly can’t read. But I just can’t do it. I can’t go through with this because even worse than having to look at my parents’ disapproving faces if I don’t would be having to look at my own face in the mirror every day if I do.

Hopefully this is a test in the
right
direction, but even if it isn’t, hopefully Mr. Holt will understand. He truly wouldn’t want an unethical associate or partner in his firm. And I will just have to convince him of that, once we are outside of court.

I take a deep breath and look from the unabashedly lying face of my client to the bored face of the judge beside him.

“Your Honor? May I approach the bench?”

“Certainly,” he says, looking relieved to have something to listen to besides allegations of stock market tampering.

But at the same time Mr. Holt says, “Your Honor, I need to have a word with my associate.”

“Well which is it? Does your firm want a bench conference or a recess?”

“No recess is necessary, Your Honor,” Mr. Holt. “I’ll proceed with the questions from here. Ms. Morrell isn’t feeling well, and will need to be excused from the direct examination she just started.”

“Fine, but no more last-minute switches,” says the Judge. “This isn’t a baseball game and you’re not a pinch hitter.”

I look at Mr. Holt in disbelief, but he motions to the exit of the courtroom, his eyes dismissive and annoyed. Just like that, I’ve been tossed out.

As I gather my briefcase and walk out, my client looking at me in confusion, Mr. Holt continues the line of questioning from the notes he had given me.