Wallace’s mental state at the time of the shooting on his wife. On Ray for dying.
That was bullshit.
Jennifer hadn’t made him pick up the gun and almost kill his lover. She hadn’t done that.
It was all Wallace’s doing. Would that man ever be responsible for his own actions? Jennifer sat there, trying to be as stoic as her son as the court preceding continued around her.
This was it. The last time she would ever fix anything for Wallace again.
But then again, it wasn’t for Wallace she was doing this, was it?
30
Jake hated wearing suits. He resisted the urge to fuss with his tie as he took a moment to study the occupants of the courtroom. Because of the sensationalism associated with a wealthy family like the Henedys and Jordan Carrington’s daughter, plus one victim being the governor’s brother-in-law, the judge had ordered a mostly private courtroom.
Jake was good with that. More details tended to emerge that way.
He wanted every detail of what Wallace Henedy had done. More importantly, he wanted the why.
Izzie deserved to finally know the why.
Jake stared at Henedy. The sonofabitch was tall, on the thinner side. In decent shape for a man his age. In good enough shape that he’d done some damage to Nikkie Jean that day. What kind of bastard attacked a five-foot, one-hundred-pound, pregnant woman who had always been terrified of her own shadow?
After shooting her best friend in front of her three times. It was a wonder Nikkie Jean hadn’t shattered in the wind.
There were special places in hell for men like that. Jake’s fist bunched.
He fought the urge to storm over there and yank the smarmy bastard out of his chair and knock the living shit out of him.
Henedy had almost taken Izzie out of this world. Away from Jake and the others who loved her. He’d intended to do that to Nikkie Jean.
Now, Henedy sat there in his chair like he owned the world. There was no distress on the man’s face. That pissed Jake off even more.
Jake watched everyone involved.
Izzie couldn’t be there. It was going to be weeks before she was back on her feet again. But Jake was there to be her voice.
They would damned well listen.
Nikkie Jean and her fiancé were near the back of the room. As far from Henedy as Nikkie Jean could be.
Allen Jacobson sat next to them, a somber look on his face. It was sheer shitty luck that he had been there that day. For him.
For Izzie, it had been a gift. Jacobson had been strong enough to carry her to help that day, despite his own injury. Jake had seen the tapes. Jacobson had seen what was happening—and he hadn’t run for help. Or waited for the TSP to arrive to fix things.
Jacobson had stayed.
That choice had saved Izzie that day. She wouldn’t have gotten to help in time if he hadn’t.
Jake would always owe the man that. He’d erect a shrine in Jacobson’s honor for that alone. That didn’t mean he trusted or liked that arrogant prick. Men like Jacobson thought wealth bought them absolution of all their sins. Men like that sinned a lot.
He had seen that before, too.
Jake should at least thank the man for what he’d done for Izzie. He owed the man a great debt. He was a MacNamara; they always paid their debts.
He came from an old-school family. Family was everything, and when someone hurt that family, there would be hell to pay. His brothers, especially, espoused the idea of eye for eye, tooth for tooth.
Jake considered himself the most civilized of his brothers.
But he understood.
When he’d called Italy and told his oldest brother what had happened to their niece it had taken him forty-five minutes to convince his brothers not to hop the first plane to the United States. They weren’t active in Izzie’s life in the last decade, but he couldn’t have raised her without their advice, or financial help at times.
It was what MacNamaras did for family.
Izzie and the rest of their nieces—he didn’t have a nephew among twelve nieces—were the center of their family now. Jake liked it that way.
There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do to protect Izzie. Hell, he’d moved countries to take care of her when she’d been a kid.
Today was the preliminary hearing. The judge asked for an update on the victim’s condition.
To see if she’d died or not. That would have changed the charges. He’d been on this merry-go-round before.
Never had it been so personal before, though.
Jake