CHARGED.

Jay Crownover.

Dedication.

Dedicated to the one person that has held my hand through all my worst decisions and cheered me on through all my amazing ones ... this book and this story about bad decisions leading to the best things in life is for you, Mom.

You're just the best, and every mistake I've ever made, every bad choice I've blindly made, you've been there to pick up the pieces afterwards.

Luckily, I do indeed have some pretty awesome stories to tell after everything is said and done, and all the storms have pa.s.sed. But nothing makes me happier than knowing that none of those tales of wonder and of woe would have had a happy ending if I hadn't been able to share them with you.

INTRODUCTION.

She's immature.

She's a brat.

She's annoying and not very nice.

Why is she getting a story?

Whenever I have a character that seems like they shouldn't get a story or like they might not deserve some kind of happiness, they are inevitably the characters that I most want to turn it all around for. I want to know their stories more than anything, and I want to dig into why there might be more to them than we initially see. It happened with Asa, and it happened with Avett from the minute she touched the page. I always knew I wanted Brite's daughter to get a story, but I had no clue how layered, complex, and difficult that story was going to be. She's a hurricane all right, and watching the storm break on the sh.o.r.e has made for some of my most favorite writing to date. I never start out with a character determined to make the reader like them, but I do hope that by the end of the journey, the reader understands the character and maybe even sympathizes with them a little bit ... and hey, if you do end up liking that character you were so sure you hated ... score one for me. <3 (looking="" at="" you,="" melissa="" shank!)="" i="" think="" avett="" is="" the="" character="" that="" speaks="" the="" most="" to="" the="" person="" i="" was="" at="" the="" same="" point="" in="" my="" life.="" as="" i="" was="" writing="" her="" i="" kept="" cringing="" and="" thinking,="" yep="" ...="" been="" there="" and="" done="" that,="" and="" now="" i="" definitely="" have="" a="" story="" to="" tell="" about="" those="" choices="" and="" the="" consequences="" they="" led="" to.="" sometimes="" the="" story="" is="" the="" best="" part="" of="" s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g="" up,="" and="" really,="" no="" matter="" who="" we="" are="" or="" where="" we've="" been="" in="" life,="" we="" all="" have="" a="" story="" to="" tell.="" i="" feel="" that="" for="" all="" my="" characters,="" but="" for="" some="" reason="" it="" really,="" really="" rang="" true="" with="" avett="" and="">

When I was twenty-two I made a lot of questionable choices: about men, money, school, and my future in general. I had to be rescued (by family, not a handsome fella, which was a total b.u.mmer for me!) and one would think I learned my lesson because I was sure that was as low as I was ever going to get. Flash forward to my early thirties when things once again fell apart because of my bad choices and my foolish stubbornness. There I was for the second time in my life needing to be saved with more stories to tell and harsh lessons learned. (That story involves Rule getting published and my whole life changing, so even though it starts with heartbreak, it ends with a dream come true.) So go out there and screw up. Have experiences so that you have stories to tell, and do it without an apology.

Memories and mistakes are both beautiful and important in their own ways.

Love and Ink, Jay.

All things truly wicked start from innocence.

-Ernest Hemingway.

CHAPTER 1.

Avett.

Don't worry, Sprite, bad decisions always make for good stories ...

I could hear my dad's gruff voice, lightened with humor, in my ear as he told me those words every single time I got caught doing something I wasn't supposed to do when I was growing up. I was always doing something I shouldn't then and now, so I heard those words a lot from him. Unfortunately, as an adult, my bad decisions resulted in consequences far worse than a sc.r.a.ped knee or a broken wrist from falling out of the tree in the backyard he warned me repeatedly wasn't st.u.r.dy enough to climb. And sadly, my dad rea.s.suring me in his firm and gentle way, while calling me his little Sprite as he kissed my boo-boos, wasn't going to help my current situation at all.

This boo-boo was big-time.

This boo-boo was life-changing.

This boo-boo was anything but a good story waiting to be told.

This boo-boo very well could be the end of me, the end of the rope where my patient parents had dangled precariously for years, and it very well could be the end of any kind of future I may have had. A future I was well on my way to letting a lifetime of bad decisions and even worse choices screw up. At barely twenty-two, bad decisions had sort of become my stock in trade and were as familiar to me as my own face. I was almost legendary, at this point, for putting all my trust in the absolutely worst kind of people. If there was a wrong path to take, I was going to skip gleefully down that road and not look back until I ended up exactly in the kind of situation I found myself in at the moment. It wasn't like this was even a new dead end; it was the same one I ran into over and over again. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get myself turned around, and the longer I was circling this dead end, the darker and more wicked it became.

I knew better. I really did, even if there was a boatload of evidence contradicting that fact.

I wasn't stupid, naive, immature, or senseless. I might appear that way to anyone on the outside looking in, but I had my reasons for being a consummate failure and lifelong loser. All of those reasons had nothing to do with me not knowing better and everything to do with me knowing exactly what I deserved.

For a long time now I had been spiraling out of control, whirling, falling deep and deeper into a pit of really awful actions and consequences, each seemingly worse and more painful than the last. I also hadn't made any kind of effort to try and pull myself out of the tailspin, so logically I knew the only place I was going to end up was right here, right at the lowest part of rock bottom. I never imagined the landing would be so jarring.

I had been in need of rescue for a long time and now I really needed it because I was facing a very real prison sentence, and a very real attorney dressed in an immaculate suit, while I sat there shivering, locked in handcuffs, and choking on fear. I never in a million years would have imagined rescue coming in the form of a man like the one sitting across from me. He looked like temptation and ruin, not salvation and redemption.

I wasn't guilty of what they were saying I did, but I wasn't exactly innocent in all of it either. Sadly, that was the story of my life. I was always the girl that wasn't quite good, the one who was just bad enough to be trouble, and the man seated across from me looked like he didn't have the tolerance or patience to deal with any of the chaos that I always seemed to be drowning in.

I laced my tense fingers together, and fought not to wince, or even worse, break down into sobs as the handcuffs snapped around my wrists, knocked loudly on the metal table that was separating me from the man that was supposedly here to save the day ... and me. He told me his name, but I couldn't remember it. I was a mess of nerves and confusion, and he wasn't helping put any of my anxiety to ease. I was also sleep deprived, and terrified of what was waiting for me after this meeting was over. My future had always been uncertain, resting on shaky and unstable ground on a good day. Right now, I was longing for that wobbly foundation, and scared s.h.i.tless that my latest bad decision had finally landed me in a spot that I couldn't lie, cheat, steal, or manipulate my way out of.

The stoic and startlingly good-looking lawyer seated across from me didn't look like any white knight I had ever seen. He was too slick for that, way too calculating in the way he looked at me while he silently judged me. No, this guy wasn't the good guy riding in to rescue the damsel and prove himself a hero; this was the guy that the villains paid megabucks to in order to keep them out of jail. In all that I had done, I'd never considered myself a villain. I knew I was a bad guy (or girl), but I wasn't a corrupt, amoral criminal with the actual intent to harm anyone other than myself. However, under the scrutiny of this man's unusual gunmetal-blue gaze, which held not even an ounce of warmth or rea.s.surance in it, I was starting to reconsider my stance. He made me feel like I was well on the road to corruption and disgrace, and he had yet to utter a single word. I'd never done anything bad enough or stupid enough that I required a professional to defend my actions before now, and I was having a hard time believing this guy gave a single s.h.i.t whether I was innocent or not.

All I wanted to do was cower away from him, and pretend like I was anywhere else in the world but in this tiny room with a metal table that was bolted to the floor between us. I moved my hands again, and couldn't hold back a flinch and a tremor as metal sc.r.a.ped across metal. Rock bottom was going to leave more than bruises if I ever managed to pull myself up and dust myself off. This was going to scar, deep and vicious, and I hated that I deserved every single stinging mark.

"I don't want your story." His words were sharp and to the point. I blinked at the rough sound of his voice in the sterile room.

"I don't want to know if you knew what your boyfriend was up to or not. I don't care. All I want to know is if you understand what you're being charged with, and how serious those charges are. If the answer is yes, all I need to know is if you are willing to do whatever I tell you to do moving forward."

Did I understand how serious the charges were?

Was this guy f.u.c.king kidding me right now?

I was hooked up in cuffs. I was wearing an orange jumpsuit, and had on rubber shoes that squeaked across the floor when I walked. I hadn't slept in two days because, after everything went down the night I had been arrested and booked, I'd been locked up in a cell with one woman who was so strung out she kept seeing little gremlins coming out of the floor and, as a result, kept jumping up on the rigid bunks suspended from the concrete cell wall, barely missing stepping all over me. The other woman in the holding cell was there because she had tried to run her cheating husband over with the family minivan when she found him in bed with their next door neighbor. He had been in the family's dining room at the time, so not only was the woman fighting mad about the affair, but she ranted and raved well into the early hours of the morning about how her unfaithful spouse better be on the phone with the insurance company to repair the damage she'd caused. She was a bag stuffed full of crazy, and the more I tried to ignore her, the more she seemed determined to tell me her entire life's story.

Yeah, Legal Eagle, I had a pretty d.a.m.n good idea how serious the charges were, and I was scared s.h.i.tless about what would happen to me if I was going to be found guilty of them.

I lifted my chained hands in front of me and let them fall back on the table to make a noisy and unmistakable point. The man didn't bat a single, ridiculously long eyelash at the motion, but his mouth tightened a fraction. It was a pretty mouth. All of him was pretty, in one way or another, and I wondered if when he walked out of this industrial meeting room he shook himself off like a wet dog to rid himself of the feel and taint of crime, sleaze, and bad decision making. He looked like the type that had never, ever took a wrong step. He oozed confidence, self-a.s.surance, and arrogance like it was an expensive cologne that was crafted and bottled just for him. It should be rea.s.suring, should make me feel like he had this all handled, like I would be home safe and secure in my own bed in no time, but instead it made me bristle and feel even worse than I already did. I was a train wreck and that was bad ... but having a witness to the wreckage, a witness as put together and unflappable as this man seemed ... Well, that made the fallout from my latest bad move seem a hundred times worse.

This guy wasn't the type to chase bad choice after bad choice. In fact, he made his living riding to the rescue for us poor slobs that did. A very nice living if the Rolex on his wrist and the Mont Blanc pen he was tapping against the file in front of him was any indication.

"I understand how serious the situation is." My voice was quiet and tiny in the empty room. I c.o.c.ked my head to the side as we continued to size one another up. "My dad hire you?"

I wanted to hold my breath while he answered, but I couldn't get my lungs to work. I couldn't get anything to work.

I was a screwup. I was a failure, a flunky. I was a loser, a manipulator. I was one hot freaking mess on top of another, and through it all my parents, more often than not my dad, had always been there to pick up the pieces. He forgave me. He excused me. He cleaned me up and gave me helping hand after helping hand. He loved me when I didn't want to be loved. He was always there, but not this time.

Bad decisions make for good stories, Sprite.

Dad's words chased themselves around in frantic circles in my head as I felt myself slip a little farther, fall a little deeper and realized this ... this point was actually my rock bottom, as the man who claimed to be my defense attorney shook his tawny head in the negative. "No. A former client actually contacted me and asked me to represent you. He paid my retainer in full and told me that any bills that are incurred while handling your case should be handed over to him. I was hired before the police had you booked and taken to lockup."

My dad wasn't here to kiss the boo-boo this go-around. He wasn't waiting in the wings to dust me off and tell me everything would be all right. Not this time. This time I had gone too far and a miserable, uncomfortable night with a drugged-out weirdo and a psycho, suburban mom had nothing on the ice cold fear that climbed up my spine, vertebra by vertebra, at the thought that I had finally done something Brite Walker couldn't forgive. I knew it was coming. I knew that even my big, bada.s.s, former Marine, Harley-riding father had a breaking point. I pushed and pushed to reach that point my entire life. I always figured when the fracture happened it would come with a giant boom. I expected an explosion that would level Denver. The fact that it was barely a whimper, a whisper of sound that indicated a good man's heart was breaking, made me feel even worse than I already did. I had no idea how it was possible, but I sunk even lower than rock bottom. This was what a torrent of misery and despair felt like and I was submerged neckdeep in it.

I blinked back tears and tilted my chin up at the attorney. "Who's paying for you to be here?"

My mom loved me. She had a huge heart that was made of marshmallow, but she had reached her point of no return with me much earlier in my life than my father had. My parents divorced when I was in high school, right on the heels of one of the most defining moments of my youth. My dad rallied like he always did and tried to make the separation as easy on me as possible. My mom went from being distant and confusing to actively pushing me away. I was never sure if she forced the distance between us because things were so easy between me and my father or because they were so hard between her and me. Either way, the strain in our relationship did nothing to help the rapid descent that started to engulf me when I realized exactly what kind of person I was.

A harmful one.

A guilty one.

A selfish one.

I could even be considered a dangerous person, if you asked the right people, and they weren't necessarily wrong. It was amazing how hazardous doing nothing could be. It had even more disastrous results than doing the wrong thing ... at least, it had up until now.

The lawyer's cultured and smooth voice startled me out of my dreary thoughts. "Asa Cross. He was one of the victims of your boyfriend's armed robbery attempt. The other was an off-duty police officer. So it's no surprise that they booked you and locked you up with almost zero lag time. The DPD protects its own so no one is looking to do you or your boyfriend any favors."

I winced when he brought up Jared.

Jared, the boy who had come along and convinced me he loved me. The boy that a.s.sured me we were so much alike we couldn't fail. He was as screwed up and unhappy as I was, so we were bound to be together forever.

Jared, the boy that had hid from me the fact he was not only an addict with a serious problem but also deeply involved in the city's drug trade until I was so far in, with what I thought was love for him, to pull myself out.

Jared was the perfect punishment for a girl that couldn't get it together and deserved nothing more than exactly the kind of guy he really was.

Jared was also the boy who had run off with his supplier's stash and money, leaving me behind to pay the price for his dishonesty and to pa.s.s along the message that his connections weren't happy with him. He was also the boy that managed to convince me the only way to help him to help us, was to steal from the one place that had always been home no matter what. He convinced me that petty theft made no difference, that it was money I was owed anyway since my father had handed over his bar, his livelihood, without a thought as to what that meant to me. Jared was good with words when he wasn't high, and like always, I couldn't do the wrong thing fast enough. Only, the handfuls of cash from the register barely put a dent in the amount he owed.

Like I said, I wasn't stupid or naive, so I should've known when he told me he needed to swing by the bar my dad used to own and where I used to work that he was up to no good. Jared was always up to no good, and more and more frequently that no good left marks on my arms and legs. He'd learned pretty quickly that even though I constantly disappointed and let down the people that loved me, they still cared, they always cared, and they didn't appreciate me walking around with black eyes and swollen cheeks. He hadn't slapped me across the face again after Church, the new bouncer at the bar, followed us out to the car one night and gave a few crystal clear hints about what would happen to Jared if I showed up looking roughed-up again. Addicts were unpredictable, but they knew how to hide the things they were doing that were wrong, the things they didn't want other people to know about. So Jared still did bad things to me; he just got more skilled at hiding the evidence, and I pushed harder at the people that cared so I didn't have to make excuses. I could never explain why I stayed or why I thought a guy like Jared was the kind of guy I was supposed to be with. I knew why, but that didn't mean my reasons would go over well with them because, despite everything, they cared about me, even if I knew I didn't deserve it. The lawyer didn't want my story ... That was fine because it felt like I would be torn in half every time I was forced to tell it.

"Why would Asa hire you to represent me? He hates me." And rightly so. I had given the gorgeous southern charmer a thousand really good reasons to loathe me in the short time we had known each other. I couldn't imagine why he would go out of his way to help me out. He wasn't exactly the warm and fuzzy type, even on a good day.

The attorney lifted a gold-colored eyebrow and leaned back in his seat. He put his expensive pen down on the file in front of him and considered me through narrowed eyes. This guy had silent interrogation and intimidation down to a fine art. I felt like he could tell exactly what made me tick and exactly why I did the things I did simply by looking at me. I wasn't used to that kind of perception from anyone, especially not from a guy that clearly came from a different kind of world than I was familiar with.

"Considering your current surroundings, shouldn't you simply be grateful that he did?"

I bristled a little at the censure in his tone. "I'm just confused."

"Good. That's what I want you to tell every single person that asks you anything about what happened that night. You were confused. You didn't understand what was happening. Your boyfriend coerced you and lied to you. You had no clue what his plans were that evening."

I shifted in the rock-hard seat and all the chains attached to me rattled again. "That's all true. I didn't know what he had planned that night. I never would have gotten in the car with him if he told me he was going to rob the bar." But I knew as soon as I recognized where we were headed, something bad was going to happen, and I did nothing to stop it ... again.

I could have slid into the driver's seat and left. It would have been so easy. I could have put the car in drive and kept going and going until I ran out of gas and ended up somewhere far away from the nightmare I was stuck in now. I could have climbed out of the car, walked inside that bar, and begged Jared to stop. I could have picked up my cell phone, called the police myself, and told them that my junkie of a boyfriend was tweaked out, owed some bad people a lot of money, and was currently trying to stick up the bar that had saved my dad's life and that had always been a safe place.

So many good choices, so many right things I could have done, and yet all I did was sit there in the car and wait. I knew it was going to go bad. I knew someone was going to get hurt and I had done nothing. Nothing was the worst choice of them all, so of course that was the one that had settled around me like a lead blanket. I was suffocating on all the things I could do, should do, but it was the nothing that won. It was the nothing that defined me. It was the nothing that owned me, ruled me. It was the nothing that haunted me, chased me. It was the nothing that I spent my entire life trying to repent for and live beyond, but nothing always won.

Moments later, while I was still fighting through the nothing of the past and the paralyzing nothing of the current moment, I found myself facedown on the asphalt of the parking lot in front of my father's legacy, being arrested for accessory to armed robbery and, according to the very angry cop that shoved me in the back of his patrol car, looking at anywhere from three to five years in prison if convicted.

"I told you I'm not interested in your story. Your boyfriend is in the hospital with a bullet wound but he's already singing a pretty little tune that points the finger at you as the mastermind behind the robbery. He's painting you as a vindictive daughter, angry that the family business was pa.s.sed on to someone other than you. He's claiming you used your relationship to manipulate him into robbing the place, to teach your father a lesson. Considering he has a five-mile-long criminal record and a history of drug-related charges, he's not exactly credible, but then again, neither are you."

He tapped the file in front of him with his index finger and all I could do was sigh. That file held a lifetime of poor decision making on my part. It was all laid out in black and white, every flaw, every terror, every mistake ... right in front of this too-pretty man and his chilly and unwavering gaze.

I don't think I'd ever been this exposed, this unprotected and bare, before anyone. It wasn't a pleasant feeling and it took every last sc.r.a.p of self-control I had not to squirm guiltily in my seat.

"I've had a few hiccups here and there, but I've never been in jail before now." I sounded defensive and infantile. I didn't understand how he wasn't getting up and walking out of this room without looking back. I thought that was probably what I would do if I was in his shoes ... not that I would ever be able to afford his shoes. The guy was the complete opposite of everything I had ever known. I don't think my dad even owned a suit and the only time I saw him in a tie and shoes that weren't boots was when someone was getting married or buried.

Those golden eyebrows danced upwards again and the corner of his mouth pulled down in something that would have been a frown on a less extraordinary face, but on him it looked more like a practiced expression of displeasure. I wanted to kick myself for noticing anything about him other than his credentials, considering the circ.u.mstances. He was distractingly good looking and it was annoying because I needed to focus on my impending doom, not his perfectly straight teeth and his disarmingly sharp blue eyes. "Multiple tickets issued for underage drinking, public intoxication, a recent DUI, a citation for shoplifting, a citation for trespa.s.sing, more than one basic a.s.sault charge ... should I keep going?"

I gave my head a little shake. "No. I understand that it can't be my word against Jared's because we're both equally untrustworthy. Neither one of us is running around with angel wings attached to our backs."

That had his frosty demeanor thawing enough that the corners of his mouth kicked up and I felt my breath catch and my eyes widen at how the slight expression turned him from outrageously handsome into something so otherworldly attractive that my simple human mind couldn't compute it. I wondered if he won all his cases because the female jurors were too blinded by l.u.s.t to listen to any of the evidence he presented. That could really work in my favor, so I sure hoped it was part of whatever he was planning to spring me from the slammer.

"You don't need angel wings or a halo to persuade a judge or a jury that you're innocent. You need to listen to me and be more believable than him. I think it's pretty obvious he's trying to throw you under the bus. I've seen the surveillance tape the cops took from the bar and this is not a respectable individual we are dealing with."

If he had seen the tape, then that meant he had seen Jared grab the back of my head and slam my face into the dash of the car when I told him I wasn't going to be part of whatever he had planned for the bar. Absently, I lifted up my joined hands and rubbed at the knot that was still prominent between my eyes. I hadn't had a mirror to look in to check out the b.u.mp but the paramedics at the scene had declared it a minor injury, even if the headache that had eventually settled in from the blow felt pretty major.

"No, he's not respectable at all. He's an addict."

"It sounds awful to say, but that actually works in our favor." He picked up the fancy pen again and folded the file closed in front of him. He rose to his feet in a lithe movement and I found myself shrinking back in my chair to make myself as small as possible. He had already been sitting on his side of the table when the cops brought me into the room so I wasn't expecting him to be as tall as he was, or as big. "Your bail hearing is in the morning, which unfortunately means another night in lockup for you. However, I'm confident I can get you released tomorrow but it isn't going to be cheap, and I also need to prove to the judge you have a place to go if they do, in fact, grant you bail."

He looked at me expectantly and all I could do was shrug. My dad wasn't here and that spoke louder than any words he had ever said to me.

"I was staying with Jared at his place, but clearly, I can't go back there now. As for bail ..." I shrugged again. "I don't have any money and I doubt that my parents are willing to foot the bill. I'm not sure that I'm willing to ask them for that kind of favor."

His eyes narrowed a fraction as he reached for the paperwork on the table and slid it into a leather satchel. Even his bag looked expensive and fancy.

"If the judge sets bail and it doesn't get paid, then you stay in jail until we have the preliminary hearing. That can take weeks, maybe even months."

I blew out a breath and felt that bottom I had careened into reach up to embrace me even tighter. "It is what it is. I've let both my folks down a lot over the last few years but getting caught up with a guy that would rob the bar, a guy who could threaten my dad's people." I shook my head. "I deserve to rot."

I was being overly dramatic but that's how I felt. I deserved to sit in jail and so much worse than that. Self-pity was good company down here at rock bottom and I wasn't ready to let go of the warmth it provided just yet.

He gave me a look I couldn't read and headed for the door. "I'll call your parents for you and see if we can have something in place before tomorrow. Working on your case will be a lot easier for both of us if you aren't incarcerated. Remember, you need to listen to me, Ms. Walker. That's the first rule in all of this."

Panic hit me like a truck. What if he called my dad and my dad told him he'd had enough of his problematic daughter and her endless nonsense? What if he couldn't love me anymore? Jail I could survive; losing my father for good, well, it would be the end of me.

Without thinking I jumped to my feet, which had the chains on both my hands and my legs rattling loudly, and two uniformed officers hurried into the room. I was about to make maybe the worst decision to date but I couldn't stop the words from sliding off my tongue.

"Don't call my dad!" Recklessness, thy name was Avett Walker.

The attorney turned around and looked at me like I had grown a second head. He didn't say anything as the officers moved to either side of me and told me to calm down.

"You can't call my dad." The words sounded as panicked and as desperate as I felt on the inside.