Dark Guardian (Black Hoods MC #3) - Avelyn Paige Page 0,1

supervisor, but he’s not going to bend the rules for you, either. Stay the course and wait until your court date.”

Defeated, he slides his hands off the desk and slumps back into his chair. If I had the ability to help him with his query, I’d remove the file from the locked records room and hand it over without batting an eye, but I have to follow the rules set forth by the courts or risk losing my job, which is something I cannot do. Jeopardizing it for one person affects the dozens of children in the case files scattered across my desk. Our department has always been understaffed, and with opioid use on the rise, more and more children are becoming wards of the state, so we’re stretching ourselves even thinner. It’s a dangerous game of chance when a child’s life is at stake in an abusive home.

In Mr. Jackson’s case, the names of his birth parents don't fall into the “emergency” category. He’s an adult. If he were a child, it would be a different story, but he’s not. There’s nothing I can do except offer my sympathy and pray it will be enough until the court makes a decision.

He’s silent, but I can see the wheels turning in his head. He wants to beg me, offer me something that could tempt me into breaking the rules, but it’s not going to work. He knows that from the last time he tried it.

“Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

His eyes harden, turning cold, dark. “No.” Getting to his feet, he spins on one foot and storms out of my office.

I count to ten before I allow myself to sigh in relief. Days like today are never easy. Every person who walks through the doors of our office thinks that if they press hard enough, we’ll cave, giving them all the answers to cheat the system. That’s not how it works. I’m bound by the governance of the State of Texas, and I won’t bypass the laws in place to protect my clients’ information.

Hearing a knock at the door, I peer up to find Cindy, one of the other social workers in my branch, dressed in a pink tailored business suit, her gray curls springing off the side of her head in multiple directions.

“How’d court go?” I inquire. The case she’d been assigned to has been particularly difficult these past few weeks, with four young souls separated into different foster homes while their grandmother fought for custody.

“Judge ruled against the grandmother.” Cindy’s eyes soften as a single tear glides down her cheek, her reaction mirroring my own. No one in our line of work is impervious to the painful things we so often see.

“That’s too bad.”

The children’s elderly grandmother stepped up the second her wayward son had been arrested for a drug charge, but she lives in an assisted living community that doesn’t allow children. I had a feeling the court would rule against her, being that she had no means of finding alternative housing, as well as her medical ailments. It’s one of the few parts of this job that still bothers me after all these years, seeing the heartbreak of families being torn apart under circumstances such as this. As hard as they try, it’s just not enough in the eyes of the court of law.

“So, how was your meeting with Mr. Jackson? I saw him as I was coming back from the court. He looked… pleasant,” she asks with a smirk. Pleasant. Not the exact term I would use to describe him. A thorn in my side would be more apt.

“He’s not happy that I couldn’t push through his request prior to the court date.”

“I wish they would realize our power is limited. We’re caseworkers, not magicians. We can’t just wave a magic wand and poof! The judge makes a ruling in their favor.”

The image makes me laugh. No wand on Earth would make a judge work any faster. And with some of the judges in our county, I’d rather use the wand to dismiss them than summon them like the devils they are, especially the one assigned to Mr. Jackson’s case. Judge McAdams is a stubborn man when it comes to child service cases. His track record is far from great. I can count on one hand the number of times he’s ruled in the loving parent’s favor.

“Me too, Cindy, but it’s easier to berate the messenger, it seems.”

Looking at her watch,