Chapter Fifteen
Mandy
This was the first time I'd ever watched Damon handle a case this small.
I was used to seeing him in glass-walled courtrooms, his name in financial headlines, representing clients with more zeros in their settlements than most people saw in a lifetime.
Today he stood in a poorly lit county courtroom that smelled faintly of old carpet and coffee, speaking on behalf of an elderly man in threadbare clothes, both hands wrapped around the head of a worn wooden cane.
The man had missed a traffic fine deadline.
Nothing dramatic—just a small citation that, thanks to his limited mobility and a system with no patience for either, had compounded into late fees stacking on top of late fees until the total had become a genuine crisis for a man clearly living close to the edge already.
My own case was scheduled right after his. I sat in the back of the gallery and watched in silence, unsure what I was even watching for.
There was no sharp edge to him. No cold, calculated superiority, none of the courtroom theater I'd watched him perform a hundred times before.
His voice stayed measured, almost gentle, laying out the man's physical limitations and financial reality with a clarity that didn't need to raise its volume to be persuasive.
He'd submitted medical records, income statements, all of it prepared with the same rigor he used to bring to eight-figure settlements.
He wasn't charging a dime. He simply argued, with quiet, unwavering conviction, that the fines should be waived.
The judge granted it.
When the gavel came down, the old man's eyes went glassy.
He gripped Damon's hand in both of his and thanked him over and over, voice cracking on every repetition.
Damon just inclined his head, steady, reassuring, something warm moving across a face that looked more tired than I'd seen it in years—but tired in a way that looked almost like relief.
Watching from the gallery, something twisted tight in my chest.
I already knew he'd walked away from every high-paying divorce case on his desk.
I'd heard about the announcement. But seeing him actually live it—setting aside every scrap of pride to start over from the bottom, fighting for people who couldn't pay him a single dollar—stirred up something in me I didn't have a name for and didn't particularly want to examine.
After court adjourned, I stepped into the echoing hallway and found Damon and the old man still there.
He was working a few folded bills out of his wallet, pressing them into the man's calloused, trembling hands, insisting it was just a loan to cover the original fine.
The old man waved him off at first, embarrassed, but Damon held firm—quiet, earnest, patient in a way I'd genuinely never seen from him before.
Eventually the old man accepted, eyes wet, promising through a shaking voice that he'd pay it back the second his next check arrived.
I watched the old man shuffle off down the hall, and before I'd fully decided to, I found myself walking toward Damon.
I stopped in front of him and looked around the hallway with mock suspicion, one eyebrow raised. "Be honest, Damon. Is this some kind of reality show? Camera in the ceiling somewhere? Behind that fire extinguisher, maybe?"
He blinked, thrown for a second.
"Because you're acting like a saint." I crossed my arms, something I couldn't quite name creeping into my voice. "That's not really the Damon Walker I remember marrying."
He didn't get defensive. He let out a low laugh instead, something warm reaching all the way to his eyes as he looked at me, serious underneath the humor.
"I just wanted a change." He held my gaze.
"I'm done with divorce law. All of it." A pause, his eyes drifting toward the end of the hall where the old man had disappeared, something lighter settling over his expression.
"Turns out I'm actually pretty good with sweet old folks who just need someone in their corner. The way that feels? Honestly, it doesn't come in second to anything I ever got from the big cases."
That's when Edward appeared beside me.
We'd planned lunch together to go over a case we were handling jointly—he must have come looking when I didn't show up downstairs at the agreed time. But the second his eyes landed on the two of us standing close together in that hallway, something in his expression went cold.
He stepped up beside me, close enough that his shoulder brushed mine, and fixed Damon with a look sharper than anything I'd seen from him before.
"A little late to start playing the good guy, isn't it, Mr. Walker?"
The words landed like a slap. Color rose in Damon's face, his hands curling into fists at his sides—but for once, he didn't fire back with something cutting.
He didn't even look at Edward. His eyes stayed locked on mine, raw, pleading, stripped bare of every ounce of composure he usually wore like armor.
"I thought—" His voice came out rough, but underneath the rasp, it held steady. "A person can actually change. It's not too late for that. It can't be."
Edward's smile went cold and thin. He glanced at me, then back at Damon, unhurried, deliberate. "People can change any time they want. Speaking of timing—the court date's been set for your divorce from Mandy." A pause, just long enough to land. "I hope it gives you both a real fresh start."
The meaning underneath his words wasn't subtle. This divorce is her fresh start. Not yours.
The word court hit Damon like a match dropped on dry kindling. His eyes went bloodshot, his breath turning ragged, ugly, and before I'd even fully processed what was happening he was moving—closing the distance to Edward fast, raw aggression written into every line of his body.
I stepped between them without letting myself think twice.
I planted my hand flat against Damon's chest, holding him back with everything I had.
Through my palm I could feel his heart slamming against his ribs, wild, desperate, completely out of control.
I looked up and found his eyes locked on mine—so much anguish in them, so much obsession, that it looked like it might spill over and drown us both right there in that hallway.
"Damon." I held his gaze steady, made sure every word landed exactly where I aimed it.
"See you in court."