Beg for Mercy Read Online Free PDF

to go to Club One, where his “friend” Jimmy Caparulo had been working as a bouncer. Wished he hadn’t given in to his friend’s pleas to make amends after what Jimmy had done to Megan.
    But he’d gone to meet Jimmy, and that night he’d met her. Evangeline Gordon. Beautiful, mysterious, and in Sean’seyes, vulnerable, though he’d never figured out exactly why. But she had that lost-little-girl-in-need-of-saving vibe he’d always been a sucker for, and once he’d picked up on it, he couldn’t let it go. Not that she’d given him a whole lot of encouragement. He’d barely convinced her to go on a couple of coffee dates in the two weeks he’d known her, and she never gave up anything about herself other than what he already knew. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from trailing after her to the club, even though Jimmy was off that night and he had no other excuse to be hanging around. She was upset to see him, but she wouldn’t say why. After that, the details went fuzzy. He had a vague memory of her agreeing to leave with him, a blurry recollection of her looking up at him with big, scared eyes and asking if he would protect her.
    The memories after that were brutally clear. Her naked body, her cut throat. And blood. On the walls, staining the sheets.
    Staining his hands.
    He couldn’t protect her. He couldn’t protect himself.
    He sat back up, his chest tight, his body coursing with nervous energy. He sprang to standing, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Jumping jacks. Ten. Twenty. A hundred. A thousand. Now jumps—bend, spring, land, until his legs shook and his breath labored. Push-ups, sit-ups, more jumping jacks.
    For hours he bounced around the cell, until a tray of food passing through the slot in his door startled him from his frenzy. Ignoring the food, he collapsed on his bunk, his face salty with sweat and tears. He turned his face to the wall.

    Megan’s hysteria rapidly gave way to numb purpose. No way was she letting Sean do this, she thought as she stalked away from the main building out to her car. She had Sean’s attorney on the phone before sh even backed out of her parking space.
    “We can’t let him do this, Adam,” she said as she turned onto Highway 12. “We have to stop him.”
    Adam Brockner let out a long-suffering sigh. “I’m not sure there’s much we can do.”
    “Bullshit. There are always options. We can file a writ of habeas corpus, have Sean declared mentally incompetent—”
    “Sean’s depressed but he’s not mentally deficient, and no judge will declare him so. We can try to delay, but Sean has made his wishes very clear, Megan. Don’t you think you need to respect that?”
    Fury rose in her chest and she clung to it, its fiery sting so much better than the crippling grief at the thought of giving up on her brother. “He’s either suicidal or on some fucked-up martyr kick, trying to save me from myself, and you think I should respect that?” Thick raindrops spattered against her windshield. She forced herself to slow down as red brake lights flared in front of her.
    “Sean has his own reasons for wanting to take this course,” Adam said in his low, measured voice that usually soothed her but now raised her hackles. How dare he be so calm? “I spoke with him at length, and I believe he’s decided to accept the inevitable.”
    She wished Brockner was in the car with her so shecould hit him in the face. “An innocent man is going to be executed, and all you can say is it’s inevitable?”
    Thick silence hovered over the line.
    “You think he did it,” Megan said, disbelief sharpening her tone even as she wondered how she could be so stupid. She’d just assumed… had never bothered to ask him flat out if he believed Sean did it.
    “You can’t deny the evidence is damning,” Adam said.
    Yeah, tell me something I don’t know.
    “But you defended him.”
    “I can believe a client is guilty and still believe the state has no right to kill him. The