Falling Hard (Billionaires in Disguise: Lizzy, #1) by Blair Babylon

it.
    “I just want to talk to you,” he said.
    “If you’re on my client roster here, I can’t
see you outside of business hours. Cancel your space on my list,
and you should sure as hell cancel your membership, too.”
    “I’d really like to talk to you now.”
    “I have an hour free.” Lizzy walked over to
the other armchair. “So let’s talk.”
    He paced. “Have them bill me. I owe you that.
I took one of your time slots.”
    “I don’t want them to bill you. It will nail
you to the TOS.” Lizzy tugged her short skirt down around her
thighs and swung her feet in the blue shoes that weren’t
particularly near the floor.
    “It would be unethical for me to renege on
that. It’s a contract.”
    “You’re in a place called The Devilhouse.
Don’t talk to me about what’s ethical. You’re not getting
billed.”
    “It’s lawyer ethics. It’s a billable
hour.”
    “I don’t do lawyer ethics. I’m a philosophy
major. I do real ethics.”
    “And that’s why I’m here. That’s why I need
to talk to you.” Theo ran his hands through his hair in one
heartsick gesture, mussing it further. He looked better with his
hair a little wild, like he might play rough. “Lawyer ethics are
fucked up.”
    Lizzy cocked her head to the side. “Tough day
at work?”
    He gestured to the security camera with it’s
red Cyclops light, slowly blinking. “Can you turn that thing
off?”
    “Sorry. Devilhouse rules.” That was true,
plus, like hell Lizzy was turning off the cam in a soundproofed
room with a guy she had met once in a social, public area. She
didn’t have her Taser with her.
    Theo sat in the other armchair. His head fell
forward into his hands, and a snow-white doily slipped to the
floor. “I can’t tell you. It’s privileged. I certainly can’t tell
you while we’re being taped.”
    Oh, well, okay then. Sure, she would just
turn off her only protection, in that case. “I don’t think they can
be shut off. If you shouldn’t tell me, then you should stop
talking.”
    His hands tightened in his hair. “I did
something terrible today, because I had to. The alternatives were
worse, I think. I don’t know. I don’t know which wrong was
worse, and I need someone to tell me whether I made a huge mistake.
The other attorneys are all giving me lawyer advice, but I think I
did the most wrong thing out of all the possible wrongs.”
    He sounded like he was coming apart at the
seams. “We can talk in generalities.”
    Theo nodded, still clutching his hair in his
hands.
    Lizzy scooted her armchair closer to his and
laid her hand on his back. Heavy muscle layered his back, too. She
stroked his warm spine, soothing him. “So talk.”
    “Professionally, this has been the worst week
of my life.” He drew in a shuddering breath. “I let a guy walk. The
evidence against him was tainted by procedural violations, which
doesn’t mean he’s not guilty. It just means that some people didn’t
jump through all the legal hoops in the right order while they were
trying to save innocent people’s lives. I called his lawyers, told
them what happened, and asked the judge to dismiss the case. We
didn’t have enough evidence without the tainted stuff to even hold
the guy.”
    “And he’s a bad fucker.”
    “I know he’s going to kill more people.”
    Lizzy recoiled. “Like a serial killer?”
    “Not like BTK or the Zodiac killer or
something. It’s just business for him. He’s a thug. He’s in
trafficking.”
    Lizzy had heard enough of Rae’s stories about
the Border to ask, “Drugs or people?”
    “Both. Plus guns. He prefers people,” Theo
inhaled hard again, “because you can only sell drugs once. You can
sell a woman over and over.”
    “ Fuck, Theo.”
    “His lawyers know the names of all our
witnesses who were going to be called to testify while we were
building a case against him. His lawyers are dirtier than shit.
They’ll hand him the list. I convinced every one of those witnesses
to