Chapter 52 - Ryker
RYKER
The door to my office slammed open hard enough to rattle the framed law degree on the wall.
“Have a piece of advice for you, Kincaid.” Wolfe strode past my assistant’s protests like she didn’t exist, his voice dripping satisfaction.
“If your entire business model is predicated on exclusively representing innocent clients, next time, do a little due diligence to make sure they’re actually innocent before you take them on. ”
He slid a manila envelope across my mahogany desk with the kind of theatrical flourish that belonged in a bad courtroom drama. The thing was thick. Too thick for comfort.
I didn’t touch it. Not yet. “Nice of you to make an appointment, Wolfe.”
“While you’ve been busy digging into my victim,” he continued, ignoring my sarcasm as he settled into the client chair without invitation, “I’ve been looking into your client.
What I found?” He gestured at the envelope like it contained nuclear launch codes.
“Let’s just say, foster care records are a bitch to get, but private investigators with the right connections? They work miracles.”
My muscles tensed. Foster care records weren’t criminal records. They wouldn’t show up in standard background checks, and my team hadn’t had luck cracking them yet. Judge Kearns must have pulled strings to make this happen.
“We both know people reveal patterns long before they get caught.” His smirk widened as he nodded at the envelope. “Go ahead. Take a look.”
I kept my expression neutral as I opened it, but inside, my stomach dropped with each page. The first document was a sworn affidavit. Then another. Then another.
Behind him, I could see the rainbow sparkle gift bag still sitting on my credenza. An hour ago, it had been a colorful promise.
“Seven former foster siblings,” Wolfe narrated like he was savoring a fine wine. “All willing to testify about Faith Morrison’s violent tendencies. How one had locked herself in the bathroom with a knife when Faith got angry. Or how Faith chased one like an animal because she borrowed her sweater.”
The papers felt heavier with each page I turned. Notarized statements. Medical records with names redacted but injuries detailed. My chest tightened as I read an ER report describing a thirteen-year-old girl with defensive wounds and a puncture wound to her abdomen.
My eyes snagged on the photo of us at Axel’s dinner.
Faith looking at me like I hung the moon.
What I remembered about that night told a different story.
How guarded she’d been. How she’d barely spoken to me, barely met my eyes.
With that one photo, she’d rewritten history.
Made me believe I’d been blind to something that was always there.
Now I wondered what else she’d rewritten.
“That one?” Wolfe tapped the medical report. “Sixteen-year-old Faith Morrison’s roommate. Stabbed with a pair of scissors during an argument over a boy. No charges filed because, well, foster kids fighting each other? System barely blinks. But the girl remembers. Oh, she remembers everything.”
I flipped to the next document. A psychological evaluation from a group home. Subject displays concerning patterns of escalation when threatened. Recommend isolation protocols during aggressive episodes.
“And here’s my personal favorite.” Wolfe pulled out his phone, swiping to a video. “Posted on social media years ago. Deleted within hours, but the internet is forever.”
The video was shaky, clearly filmed at a bar. Faith’s face filled the frame for a moment, her eyes wild with rage as she held a broken bottle to another woman’s throat. The audio was muffled, but I could make out her words: “I’ll fucking end you!”
The blood drained from my face. This wasn’t teenage survival. This was adult Faith. Years ago, sure, but how much of that woman was the same one who’d stood in this office and given me photographs of trust?
“Now, technically,” Wolfe continued, pocketing his phone, “that could be drunken bravado. But combined with everything else? With the pattern of violence, the threats, the foster siblings who’ll testify?
” He leaned forward, his cologne aggressive in the small space.
“Your innocent client is starting to look like a killer in training who finally graduated.”
I forced my face to remain impassive, years of courtroom practice keeping my hands steady, even as my mind raced. “Childhood trauma and bar fights? That’s your big case theory?”
But even as I said it, poison spread through my chest. She’d hidden this from me. I’d explicitly told her to share every skeleton, every dirty secret that could come back to haunt us. She’d looked me in the eye and held back an entire history of violence.
I’d given her everything. My time. A caseload that could have been dedicated to several high-paying clients, clients that would have kept my new firm afloat, kept my employees paid.
I’d staked my reputation on her. Made enemies with a judge, with a DA.
People who could bury me and my cases for years.
But most of all, I’d given her my heart.
And she’d taken it, knowing she was lying to me the entire time.
“Not a theory.” Wolfe’s voice pulled me back.
“A narrative. And juries devour narratives like starving dogs.” He straightened his tie with practiced precision.
“You and I both know I’m not just trying her for one murder, Kincaid.
I’m putting her whole life on trial. And right now?
” He glanced at the papers spread across my desk.
“Her life looks like a documentary about how killers are made.”
He stood, smoothing his jacket. “Oh, and there’s more evidence coming. My investigator found three former employers willing to testify about missing money. You know how juries hate thieves.”
Thieves. Another thing she hadn’t mentioned. Another lie by omission.
He moved toward the door, then paused, looking back over his shoulder. “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? If she really killed Daniel Kearns in self-defense, why not just tell you about her history? Unless …” He let the word hang in the air like a noose. “Unless self-defense was never the real story.”
The door clicked shut behind him with a soft finality that felt like a coffin closing.
I stared at the evidence spread across my desk. Each piece building a portrait of someone who didn’t just snap once. Someone who’d been violent her whole life.
The empty frame for Knox stared back at me from my desk. Faith believed I could save him. Believed in me when no one else did. Had that been real? Or just another manipulation? Another way to make me feel like her hero while she played me for a fool?
My hands clenched into fists. There had to be context. Reasons. Foster care was hell, and kids did what they had to do to survive.
But why hadn’t she told me?
The question burned hotter than anything else. Why look me in the eye and lie when I’d made it crystal clear that surprises in court got people convicted? When I’d told her I needed everything? When I’d laid my entire reputation on the line for her?
Because guilty people lie, a voice whispered in my head. Just like your former client lied. Before you got him off and he killed again.
No. I pushed back from my desk, the chair slamming against the bookshelves. Faith wasn’t like him. She couldn’t be. I’d learned to spot the difference between justified violence and cold-blooded killers.
Hadn’t I?
I’d had doubt once. One dark moment where I’d wondered. I’d promised her it would never happen again.
But that was before.
Before she lied to my face. Before she withheld the most damning evidence in her entire case.
Before she risked not only her own freedom, not only my career, but also played with my fucking heart.
She’d let me fall. Let me fall hard. All while sitting on this bomb, knowing it would detonate, knowing it would destroy everything.
Maybe that made me a terrible person. God knew Faith had been through hell.
I knew how hard it was for her to open up, how every vulnerability felt like handing someone a weapon.
The morally correct thing was to feel only worry for her.
And I did. Part of me ached for the scared kid with scissors, for the woman who’d learned that secrets meant safety.
I felt pity too. That she was still so damaged, so insecure that she couldn’t trust me with the truth.
But right now, in this moment, I mostly felt furious.
I was exhausted from giving Faith passes because of her past. She needed to take responsibility.
If she cared about me half as much as I cared about her, she wouldn’t have put me in this position.
She wouldn’t have accepted the damage to my career, to my conscience, to everything I’d rebuilt after my last mistake.
Maybe Faith didn’t love me after all.
And worse, so much worse, maybe she wasn’t the person I thought she was.
Heat crawled up my neck.
She’d made a fool of me. Made me believe in her innocence while hiding a history that screamed guilt.
Made me fall in love with her while keeping secrets that could put her away for life.
And now Wolfe would parade every violent incident, every stolen dollar, every lie in front of twelve jurors who’d see exactly what he wanted them to see: a cold-blooded killer who’d been practicing her whole life.
I shoved the entire stack of papers off my desk. They scattered across the floor like evidence at a crime scene, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough to satisfy the rage building in my chest, hot and suffocating and righteous.
I’d trusted her. Believed in her. Loved her.
And she’d lied.
I snatched my keys from the desk, metal biting into my palm. The decision crystallized with brutal clarity, sharp enough to cut.
I was going to confront Faith.
Right fucking now.