“You sound like you’re not mad at her.”
“How can I be mad at someone that was assaulted? In her mind, it was me. I’m not happy with the way shit went down, but blaming the victim isn’t going to make this right for me. She went through something traumatic and me getting pissed at her is only going to make her relive those events. I can’t do that to her.”
I had to give him credit, he was a really good person. If it was me, I wouldn’t give up until I made the fucker pay. But the way he was thinking, taking the woman’s feelings into account, that took a very strong person with a high moral standing. Still, it just didn’t make sense to me.
“Did you ever think of hiring someone to investigate for you?”
He snorted. “What for? When I was court-martialed, they didn’t want to hear what I had to say. And getting something like this overturned is nearly impossible. That’s partly why I took the job with Knight. He said that he might be able to help me.” He ran his hand over his face and sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part. I know it would take a lot to get my case reviewed.”
“What would it take?” I asked curiously.
“It would take someone getting this in front of the President. The only way for me to go back to living my life with the same honor and respect that I had when I was serving is to get a pardon from the President. And the way my case looks right now, I’m not sure I have anything that would make the President look twice at my case.”
“So, why do you think Knight can help?”
“I don’t know that he can, but he seemed pretty fucking adamant that Cap might be able to do something.”
“What are you going to do if you can’t get your case reviewed?”
He shrugged slightly. “I don’t know. I’m fucking tired.”
He sounded tired. I could only imagine the weight of his discharge constantly hanging over his head. For someone else, it might not seem that bad, but for a military guy, they took honor and respect seriously. It was the core of what they stood for. Without it, being told that you didn’t deserve to wear the uniform, that was a crushing blow.
“I keep imagining what it would be like to go apply for a job and not have that judgment in their voices when they call me back and tell me they can’t hire me. You know, for the past two years, I’ve been doing underground fighting just to have a decent paying job. I save all of my fucking money because one day I’ll be too old to keep fighting. I can’t get loans to go back to school, so this is all I have. It’s like one day I was serving my country, and the next, I was being cuffed and thrown in a military prison to await my trial. It was over just like that,” he said, snapping his fingers.
I slipped my hand into his and gave a squeeze. “I’ll fight with you. I don’t know how much help I can be, but I still have some connections. Maybe I can help. If not, I’ll stand by you. I know what kind of man you are. So win or lose, I’ll be here with you.”
He leaned in and kissed me lightly on the lips, his eyes slipping closed in relief. My heart broke a little for him, for what he must have felt like since his discharge. If I could help him in any way, I would. Suddenly, all this shit that I was dealing with at the FBI paled in comparison to the fight Parker had ahead of him, and I would stand up for him the way my father and brothers stood up for me.
Chapter Twenty
Parker
“Has Becky found anything yet?” I asked Knight. I walked into the conference room just as he was about to walk out.
“Not yet. There’s a lot to sift through, but if anyone can find something, it’s her.”
“Maybe I should just head back to Pittsburgh.”
“Why would you do that? We still have a job to finish.”
“We have nothing but a hunch that something is wrong.”
“No,” Knight said testily. “We have a money trail that doesn’t add up. We have what looks a lot like insider trading, and for a senator to buy up that much stock in a company, he must know something really fucking important.”
“Yeah? And how does any of this have jack shit to do with me? Come on, Knight. So, the Senator is a piece of shit. That’s up to the constituents to vote him out of office.”
“But they’re not going to do that unless they have a reason to.”
“I’m just not seeing why I need to be involved in this. I mean, I’d be pissed if I found out this guy was doing illegal shit, but at the end of the day, how does any of this directly impact me?”
“So I suppose we should all take that attitude. Let those in power do what they want because it doesn’t directly affect us,” he snarled.
“We’re two very different people, Knight. You see people doing bad shit and you want to get involved. Me? I’ve already been involved in the bad shit and now I just want to lay low and live the rest of my life in peace.”
“And you really think that’s going to happen? Your life is shit right now. You could be here, doing good work instead of beating the crap out of nobodys in an underground fighting ring.”
“Yeah? What kind of work would I be allowed to do?”
“You could get into training like I did.”
“Because you can’t legally carry a weapon?” I guessed. His
