“She’s not that bad,” John replied. “And I can’t get my head on straight about this case. I need the help.”

“You better have your head on straight when you go into her office or she’ll chew you a new asshole.”

“I know. I was gonna go check with Naya about that sex trafficking case she worked last month before I went to Riley’s office.”

Richie nodded. Conferring with colleagues was commonplace and one of the best tools in a public defender’s arsenal. John had learned immediately that pride always, one hundred percent of the time, had to be shelved when it came to better serving a client. He helped absolutely no one if he didn’t ask for help when he needed it, and he wasn’t about to let his arrogance get in the way of exonerating someone.

Knowing he had only a few minutes if he wanted to catch Naya—he’d heard her say she had court that day—John quickly checked his email on his desktop and frowned. There was one personal email from his father, and it was addressed to both him and Maddox. Email threads with the three of them were historically...not great.

John opened it and groaned. His father wanted the three of them to “get out of town” at the end of August. “Just a week somewhere cooler,” the email suggested. John scrolled down the links his father had taken the time to copy and paste. There were two rentals on Martha’s Vineyard and one rental on a lake in Colorado. He did some quick pricing math.

If they were splitting a vacation like this evenly, John would owe roughly $168 a night. Just for lodging. And that wasn’t counting the amount it would cost to even get to these places.

“Why in God’s name do people like leaving New York?” he grumbled to himself.

Money sat like a stone at the heart of this email. If John had accepted money from his father, the way he’d tried to get John to do countless times, John would easily be able to afford a vacation like this. As it was, John couldn’t even afford the week off of work, let alone an ungodly expensive week off of work. Which also meant that he wouldn’t be spending a week with his father and brother. Who were doing their best to include him in their lives.