Page 1 of Bent, Not Broken

Chapter 1

Evan Slater

Judge Tamaki stared down at the people in the courtroom from where he sat in his seat, his reading glasses hanging off the end of his nose. His black hair was combed back today, and he didn’t look to be in a very good mood if the downturn of his lips said anything. I didn’t blame him. This case had been a clusterfuck of misused evidence and lack of protocol from the beginning. I blamed my partner Conrad for that. He was the idiot who didn’t offer Riggs a lawyer, no matter how many times Riggs demanded one. By the time I got into the interrogation room, it was too late. Riggs knew we’d fucked up, and his lawyers used it to their advantage. Now we were here, sitting in a courtroom where Riggs was on trial, and we were getting our asses handed to us.

Conrad sat next to me in one of the audience rows, his brunet curls styled back so he looked reasonably presentable, as if it would help with the way he disregarded procedure. He had his navy blue New Gothenburg police uniform on, like me, and his hands were clasped in his lap. His knee bounced until it irritated me and I kicked him in the foot. Conrad huffed, but the movement stopped.

I glared at Madden Polunin and River Demchenko. I’d been called to testify, and Polunin had ripped me a new one on the stand. It wasn’t the first time I’d come face-to-face with the smug asshole, and it probably wouldn’t be the last while he defended the Kings of Men MC.

Judge Tamaki looked at the jury to the left of him, mouth pressed firmly in a thin line. “Members of the Jury, have you reached a verdict?”

A balding man stood in front of the other members, clutching a piece of paper in his trembling hands. He nodded, chewing on the corner of his lip. Sweat beaded at his forehead and he wiped at it with the sleeve of his black suit jacket. "Yes, Your Honor, we have."

“Members of the Jury, on the Case of Mason Riggs verses the State of New York, what do you say?” Judge Tamaki shoved his glasses up his nose and stared at the man through them.

The bald man cleared his throat, straightening his back. “Your Honor, the members of this Jury find the defendant not guilty.”

Rage swelled in my gut and I clenched down on my teeth, gaze jumping to the bastard biker in between the two lawyers at the table in front of us. Riggs did a small fist bump with Polunin and grinned at him.

There were a few Kings on the benches behind him and they cheered too. One of them who I’d seen earlier, with a foreign-language tattoo on his upper cheek, leaned forward and patted Riggs on the back. After everything we did to catch these motherfuckers, all it took was one fuckup from us and a bit of conniving, and they were released straight back on the streets. Did the residents of New Gothenburg want a crime-free city? They’d never get it with these motorcycle clubs.

Tamaki slammed his gavel down and the room silenced. “Members of the Jury, the Court dismisses you, and thanks you for a job well done.” He peered at Riggs carefully, straightening his glasses on his nose. “Mr. Riggs, you are free to go, but I must warn you against breaking the law. Miracles rarely happen twice. This session is adjourned.”

“All rise,” the bailiff ordered, and the entire courtroom stood.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Riggs and Polunin. They were as bad as each other. I never understood why someone with a law degree, who promised to uphold the law, could actively defend a biker who was caught with drugs. The entire scenario never made sense to me, but then, I’d seen lawyers like him before. They were driven by money without a sense of care about who they were defending. As long as they got their retainer and fees, what did it matter that those drugs Riggs got caught with would kill teenagers?

The thought made me exhale angrily as Judge Tamaki exited the room. I waited until the door shut before I stood and strode through the crowd that had begun filing toward the doors, shaking off Conrad’s attempt to grab me. Polunin turned toward me, his chin held high and a smile on his smug fucking mouth. I stared at his lips, the way they curled just enough to make him look cocky. He was a lot shorter than I was, and while I’d usually use my height to my advantage to stare him down, Polunin never acted like his stature was a problem. His short brown hair was neatly parted, and a pinstriped gray suit molded with his slim, muscular body perfectly, and that just pissed me off more. He bought those nice clothes with blood money.

“Can I help you, Officer Slater?” He sounded so polite. Asshole.

“Are you happy that you got another criminal off on charges?” I didn’t bother trying to pronounce his surname out loud. I had no fucking idea how to say it to begin with, but I’d read it more than once in the newspaper. “Another one to put on your resume, while kids in our city die from overdoses because of these men.”

Riggs, an average guy with quick eyes and short brown hair that fought the product in it to curl, snorted from behind Polunin and grinned. I wanted to punch the arrogance off his face. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, Officer, they weren’t mine, and your partner wouldn’t give me a chance to call my lawyer. My rights were violated.”

Polunin patted Riggs on the shoulder and sent me a smarmy smile. “You don’t owe him an explanation, Mason.” He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Walk away. You lost, Slater. Again. What is this? The fourth time? Fifth?”

I bared my teeth at him. “One of these days, you’ll get what you deserve.”

“Maybe, maybe not”—he shrugged—“but right now, we won.”

Demchenko shook his head at me as though I wasn’t worth the time, and patted Riggs on the back. They were both tall, so he didn’t have to lean far to whisper something I couldn’t hear to his client before turning his back on me to pack up his briefcase.

Conrad grasped my shoulder, manhandling me back from Polunin. He glared at the lawyer and tugged me down the middle aisle and out the doors at the back of the courtroom. I didn’t tear my eyes off Polunin until I couldn’t see him any longer, and then I shoved away Conrad’s hold on me. Storming down the cement stairs in front of the courthouse, I stopped when I reached the bottom, breathing heavily through my nose. Anger swirled inside me and made my blood hot, and even the calming breaths Molly, the department’s shrink, had tried to teach me weren’t working.

Pressing my hands to my knees, I bent over. Inhale. Exhale. Fuck. I didn’t know why we bothered to catch the bastards in the first place if the jury was going to keep letting them off the hook. The sun beat down on my shoulders and the back of my head, and the hot, humid early summer air had sweat breaking out on my body.

“Hey, you all right?” Conrad’s shiny uniform boots came into view and his wary tone made me straighten.

“How could you fuck up like that?” I shoved his chest. “You know the procedures the same as me, Conrad, and now he’s free because you didn’t call his lawyer when he asked for one.”

He fell back a few steps and narrowed his brown eyes, square jaw tight. He was a few inches shorter than me, and his brown hair was messier than it had been in the courtroom. He often used his good looks, and those curls, to get his way with the women around the office, and I’d seen him charm people more than once on the streets, too. “I wanted to nail the prick to the wall.”

“The only thing you did was give his lawyers a reason to grill us on that stand.” I shook my head, resisting the urge to deck him like I wanted to. The captain would have our asses. No doubt we would get hit by the firing squad for Conrad’s mistake. “We needed to stick to the book this time, Conrad. You fucked up, and now Monahan will chew us a new one.”

“Whatever.” Conrad spun on his heel and stalked down the last step to the sidewalk. All I could do was follow, face flushed with anger.

As soon as we got back to the Lakeside Station on the northeast side that was our home base, and made our way into the bullpen, the captain shoved open the door to her office and pointed at us.