at the Miami office so Jackson can be here with us. We need all hands on deck if we’re going to figure this shit out.”
Webster frowned. “Shepherd and Calder don’t even work for us anymore.”
“Look, this shit is inner-circle only until we have enough to bury these fuckers. Got it?” Linc asked, dropping the coffee and donuts on the counter. “It’s not that I don’t trust my other guys, but this is…” He shrugged. “This is family business. So, we keep it quiet.”
Webster swallowed the lump in his throat. “We can’t do anything until Cy’s free, Linc. I won’t lose him again. If I can’t figure out how to prove he’s innocent, then he’s going to end up dead or doing even more time just for protecting me.”
Linc clapped him on the shoulder. “We won’t leave him behind. He’s important to you so he’s important to us. But, in the meantime, we need proof. You’ve clearly been up all night. So, what have you got?”
Nothing. “They’re really good at framing people, especially people who don’t have anybody to speak up for them. Nothing specific came up to prove any kind of judicial misconduct, so I started looking at it from a different angle. I took one specific judge and started looking at how she sentences people. There’s a clear bias based on race, gender, income level.”
Linc leaned against the counter, crossing his arms. “What does that prove?”
“I don’t know yet, but it’s something. Calder’s PI license is still active, right? I’m going to need access to bank statements, property records, everything. They aren’t doing this for kicks. They’re all profiting somehow. We just have to follow the money to prove this is not just your everyday average bias, but actual malice.”
The doorbell rang, and Linc nodded towards Webster’s room. Go get dressed, I’ll get the door and fill the guys in. We need to get out in front of this thing.”
Webster nodded, heading back towards his room. He was all for getting in front of things, but that always left the possibility of the thing running them over. All of them.
Cy laid on his bunk, an old book in his hand, reading. Or trying to, anyway. Nicky was never far from his thoughts, and despite their nightly five minute phone calls, it was never enough. Nicky kept begging him for patience, telling him they’d be together soon, but there was a sudden loneliness Cy could no longer shake. Life inside had been far easier when he didn’t know what he was missing, when he’d never kissed somebody or held somebody or just had somebody who understood what it was like in there.
Nicky’s absence was drastic, a big gaping hole in his life, a missing limb still causing phantom pain. Cy had never truly missed somebody before, not as an adult, but he missed Nicky. Cy missed his laugh and his touch and the way he fussed over Cy, like he wasn’t twice Nicky’s size. He missed the way Nicky loved him, the way he wanted Cy to take care of him. Nobody had ever needed Cy but Nicky. Now, Cy needed him, too.
Nicky was right, though. Things in the prison were different now. He no longer had a work assignment. At first, he’d believed it was due to his hand injury, but when they returned him to the canine program, Cy realized Nicky really had convinced the warden to give in to his demands. Cy no longer had a cellmate despite the extra bed. He was given extra privileges, like daily showers and access to the library. There had been no talk of Thor returning or Cy receiving additional time for his assault, but his crew still stalked Cy almost daily, though none had made any moves to enact any plots of vengeance. It was as if Cy now had a protective bubble around him. Even Kemp and Rogers had disappeared.
But, despite everything, he refused to hope for freedom. He refused to believe that, after all this time, anything would just come easy for him. He also wasn’t sure he wanted freedom on the backs of hundreds of others who hadn’t been so lucky. He had to trust that Nicky had a plan to make it alright somehow, but being free of this place wasn’t something he could allow himself to dream of. Not yet.
The sound of footsteps falling outside his door and the jangling of keys rattling on a chain had him sitting up. Two guards stood at his