Chapter Six

Archer

This was all happening way too fast. But when the case fell apart, when our client was killed by a sex worker in self-defense, I questioned all of my choices to date. My fathers had not wanted me to take the job with the big law firm, and I’d attributed that to their wanting the pack to have free legal advice, but by the time I got home, I was rethinking that opinion. As well as everything I’d done so far in my life.

My phone with the app I’d downloaded in it sat on the seat beside me. I hadn’t done more than that because I wanted out of the office as soon as possible. A very short time sitting at my desk left me itchy and uncomfortable. Of course, attorneys defended the guilty as well as the not guilty. Everyone deserved a solid representation of their side in court. And, in my limited experience, most defendants were less than transparent with their representative. It was up to us to use what we got from the client, from the court, and from any opposing side that might exist to best advantage.

That, according to my law school professors, was how it worked. We did our own research as well, but our goal was the best outcome for our often ragingly guilty defendant. I got that. I could accept it.

What was not acceptable in my book was an entire office full of people who knew that not only was this man guilty of the crime he’d been accused of, the weasel had murdered several women for the crime of being willing to have sex with him for money.

They knew this and yet made sure he got bonded out onto the street to continue his serial killing. It absolutely could not be expressed any other way. There would be fallout, the renewed investigation hopefully uncovering what was necessary to reveal what other crimes he’d committed. He might not have had any care for life of those he, according to the partners, considered worth less than his, but those women had families and friends who deserved to know what happened to them.

Since all I had was hearsay, I could only hope that the partners would do the right thing and make sure the detectives had an easier job of it. There would be a subpoena for them anyway. Dead men had no rights. Not even rich assholes who finally got what was coming to them.

At home, I poured a tall lager and carried it and my phone with me into the bathroom. Five minutes later, I was sitting in a steaming tub and examining all my life choices to date. Everything in me wanted to quit the firm immediately, but that would submarine my entire career path. I had to figure out what to do, and going back to my pack to be their legal beagle was not it. I had been giving them free advice all along, and that would not end, but I was not going back into the office anytime soon if ever.

I wanted a fresh start and maybe even someone I could come home to at the end of the workday. Someone who would be sitting in the tub with me or even on the closed toilet seat helping me sort out my future. My dads would have been glad to help, but I already knew what they’d say. Come home.

Tail tucked between my legs…not likely. I still had a little pride.

My phone chimed, and I reached for it to find a message from work. It chimed again and again. I considered ignoring it but couldn’t bring myself to do that. My attempt to relax in the warm, soothing water was not going to be work. I opened the company messaging app and read.

Archer, you are hereby assigned to work from home for the next month. And if you want that home to be the Caribbean, charge it to your company card. Please delete after reading.

I clambered out of the tub and skidded on the wet floor. My helpful nonskid bath mat remained folded over the hamper where I’d left it in my jumbled mental state. Fortunately, flailing arms and a wolf shifter’s natural athleticism saved me from landing on my bottom on the slate floor.

Grabbing a towel on my way out of the bathroom, I wrapped it around my waist and plopped down on the couch to see if the local news would confirm what I suspected was happening. If they wanted me out of the way, ready to pay for a month’s luxury accommodations out of the country, they had a good reason.

A raid. The local field reporter stood outside our building while law enforcement flooded in and out carrying boxes of files and computers and other things. Yeah…this was going to be huge. We had been defending a serial killer, and police, sheriffs, and what looked like feds in polo shirts and khakis with logos on the shirt pockets had descended en masse.

As the only one who did not know what had been going on for the past—had it been a year—I didn’t understand why they’d clued me in at the end. Perhaps they’d been so completely thrown off, they forgot I didn’t know? Or didn’t think I’d read between the lines on some of their comments.

Either way, I was delighted to stay at home and do low-level lawyer stuff for them while I considered my options. Beginning with checking out the Male-Order Mates app. An hour later, still wrapped in the bath towel and sitting on my couch, I downloaded, signed up, answered all the questions, and ended up talking to an alpha and omega that same night.

And…instead of heading for the Caribbean on the company dime, I boarded a train for a small town near a national forest, remaining available for work and neglecting to inform my bosses of where I would be working from. I’d probably never have had the nerve to leap into the possibility of two mates this way if my bosses hadn’t screwed me over and, on some level, made me responsible for crimes while our client was out on bond.

Fuck. Them.