Chapter 1 My Brother's Best Friend

JENNA'S POV

I looked up and saw the knife coming straight at me. My heart stopped. This was the end. The knife was blunt and soaked in blood. It had been used on someone earlier. I wondered whose blood it was. Jace's? "Get away from me!" I screamed. This was what I get for coming too close to the truth? A knife in my face? I wanted to dodge, I wanted to run, but my legs did not belong to me. They wouldn't move. "Jenna! Run!" A familiar voice called out to me. Just as the knife was about to strike wherever part of my face it was closest to, and probably permanently damage it, a knife whizzed out of open door and stabbed the attacker's hand. SHINNNK!!!! I heard the sound of the knife entering his hand, and his scream afterward. "Aaaargh!" "Jace?" The knife fell out of the attacker's hand. I drew back and looked towards the door, Jace Maddox was standing there, panting heavily. He held out his hand; "Jenna come!" I ran to him, my legs finally responding. My heart beat wildly as I ran stretching my own hand towards him. Towards his open arms. Towards the man I loved. But the moment I was about to touch him I heard a .... BANG! The next thing I felt was the searing pain in my back. I had been shot. "No! Jenna!!!!" I heard him cry my name as I tumbled into his arms, my senses numbing. I'm sorry Jace. I guess I couldn't make it to the Mountain cabin with you after all.

2 YEARS AGO

It was another Saturday, my favorite day of the week. Every Saturday evening, my fellow lawyers and I would gather at Sancfrost city bar, one of the most popular bars in the city, and drink away our stress. There, in that bar, we could cool the nerves that had been taut all week from working on our cases, writing briefs, conducting investigations, and interrogating clients and suspects. This week had especially been hectic for me, though there was hardly any week that was not hectic for Star City's top criminal defense attorney. "Gosh! I'm so fed up with my client's tantrums!" Daniela, my closest friend at the law firm, blurted out. She grabbed the bottle on the table and poured what was left of its content recklessly into her cup. Then she downed the drink in one cup. I chuckled. "Which of your clients and what did they do this time?" Sasha usually drank a lot when she was very frustrated. "That idiot divorced his wife months ago! The court already shared their properties between them. However, it was mostly his property since his wife was a housewife and barely had anything to her name. Now that his wife recently won a lottery of forty million dollars, he's requesting the court to give him his share of her lottery!" "Oh! That would be difficult to get." "Yes! And I am the one they put in charge of this case." " If I seriously were the judge, I'd throw the bloody case out of court, coz it's trash!" said Alaric, another friend of mine. Alaric laughed and hiccupped. He was about to grab the bottle, but I stopped him. "That's enough drink for you for today, Alaric. I'm not about to carry you home after you fell asleep drunk in a bar." Alaric chuckled and hiccupped again. "But I'm not drunk yet." He was giving me the stare. Yes the stare, because I knew that stare. It was the stare he gave me anytime he dared to , the stare of longing. I knew Alaric had a crush on me but I have been pretending not to notice. I felt nothing for him. "You are drunk as f*ck, dude," said Grace, another friend and the youngest attorney in our midst. "So what about you, Jenna? How was your week, and which cases are you holding?" She asked me. I had not gone to court this week. I had spent it mostly on investigating criminal cases. "Hectic as usual. Just yesterday, I visited four main police stations in that city, trying to find a clue for the recent issue I had been handed. Yet, the facts of the case had been so vague I could barely see anything useful in the police stations I visited, nor could I find something I could link it to." The Sancfrost bar was our haven. A place where we could rant about our cases like we would love to at work. "Oh, you won't believe the new development in that case I told you about. You remember the children of that dead rich man fighting for his properties?" I leaned closer to hear my friend recount her latest court case when a dark and familiar shadow fell over our table. "Jenna, still hiding in the corner with the good girls?" a deep voice said, every word dripping with mockery. I took a long, deep breath, mentally preparing myself before turning around. There he was, Jace Maddox, every bit as infuriating as the last time we met. He wore a crisp black suit, the tailored fabric doing little to conceal the powerful frame beneath. My brother's best friend and my constant annoyance, Jace, always knew how to push my buttons. "Jace," I acknowledged coolly, sipping my drink, "I didn't know they let strays into places like this." He smirked, leaning onto the table. "Come now, Jenna, don't be rude. It's been a while. Thought I'd say hello." Daniela raised an eyebrow and whispered, "Is that the Jace Maddox? Wow, Jenna, your brother's friends are something else. Really handsome?!" I shot her a warning look. "Yes, and this particular one is trouble." He overheard, as he always did. "Always the protective little sister, aren't you? Tell me, what tall tales has Peter been feeding you this time?" "It's not tales," I countered. "It's watching you act, year after year." "Oh, come on. Can't we leave the past in the past and enjoy a civilized drink together?" His voice was soft and teasing, a direct contrast to the sharp tension between us. I hesitated, our glaring contest lingering for a few more seconds. "Fine. One drink. But only if you promise to behave." His chuckle was low and slightly menacing. "Now, where's the fun in that?"