Chapter 28
Laurette Devereux
Fear makes a lousy bedmate.
Last night was endless, stretched thin and suffocating for all the wrong reasons.
Sleep never came in full pieces. I drifted for a few minutes at a time, only to jolt awake at the smallest noises—the light scrape of branches against the window, the soft groan of the house settling, the whisper of traffic outside.
Every sound became a question. My heart never settled—and it still hasn’t—beating a frantic rhythm I can’t command back to calm.
Half of me kept listening for Bastien, for that charged shift in the air, for that unmistakable sense of him approaching before he ever touches a lock.
The other half of me waited for footsteps that didn’t belong to him, footsteps with intent, footsteps sent by Julian.
Every time my phone lit up, my pulse jumped hard enough to hurt.
Every time it stayed dark, a colder ache settled beneath my ribs.
By the time morning light filtered through my window, the room was all wrong. Too dim. Too still.
I move through my morning routine on autopilot—shower, hair twisted into a precise knot, and blouse buttoned to the dip at my throat.
I sip coffee I don’t want but force myself to drink it anyway. Routine keeps me upright and moving.
The woman staring back at me in the mirror doesn’t look ready to prosecute anyone. She looks as if she’s bracing for a blow she can’t yet see.
I grab my bag, lock the door behind me, and walk out to begin the day. Because whether Julian’s shadow is real or imagined, whether he meant every threat or not, I refuse to let him be the reason I cower.
Fear might follow me out the door, but resolve does as well.
The courthouse seems off before I even step through the main doors. The air carries a weight it didn’t yesterday, a pressure settling over the marble and glass that prickles along my skin the moment I cross the threshold.
Security greets me the same way they always do: polite nods and clipped good mornings. By the time I reach the elevator, my nerves are humming.
The doors slide open on my floor, and the shift is immediate. This isn’t the fast-paced churn of courthouse mornings. No rustle of files, no sharp arguments spilling from open office doors, no frantic whispers about witnesses or deadlines.
Instead, there are clusters of people gathered in tight circles, heads bent close, voices pitched low. Not workplace chatter, not routine. This is the sound of news no one wants to say too loudly.
The back of my neck prickles with each pair of eyes dragging across me. My heels strike the tile in sharp, echoing beats—far too loud in a hallway that is so quiet.
Something big has happened.
Denise from records stands by the file room door, clutching a stack of folders. She offers a smile, but it’s strained, gone before it reaches her eyes. They flick downward, avoiding mine.
My pulse climbs higher.
By the time I reach my office, my palms are damp, and my breath is tight in my chest. I close the door behind me.
Whatever storm is waiting out there, whatever shift rattled this building awake, I feel it pressing against the other side of my office door. And I know it’s about to hit.
The knock is light, and the door swings open before I can respond.
Richard steps inside and shuts the door behind him. Not gently. Not halfway. Shut.
He doesn’t close my office door unless the ground is about to move beneath my feet.
He holds the folder at his side, posture stiff and expression taut. Every inch of him says he’d rather someone else deliver the words.
“Laurette—”
I push halfway out of my chair, bracing my palms on the desk. “What’s happened?”
“Julian Lemaire is dead.”
For a full heartbeat, the words don’t land. They hover in the room, weightless and unbelievable.
“I’m sorry. What?”
“Someone murdered him last night at his mistress’s residence. Throat cut. And the scene was clean. A professional kind of clean.”
The bottom drops out of my stomach.
My knees decide they’re done holding, and I lower myself into the chair before they fail me.
My face arranges itself into shock, and my heart slams against my ribs.
Murdered.
The threat that shoved itself into my home, into my father’s voice, into my sleep is gone.
“Do they have any leads?”
He answers with a shake of his head. “Nothing yet. Only theories. Julian wouldn’t have a short list of enemies.”
I tighten my grip on the pen in my hand, the plastic flexing. “Right. Of course.”
Many would consider me his enemy.
His gaze lingers on me. “I’ll loop you in as the investigation develops. Until then, stay focused on your current caseload and don’t entertain the gossip. People get reckless with stories in these situations.”
“Understood.”
Richard nods once, then opens the door and steps out. Silence drops into the room, settling over me.
I sit there for a long moment, staring at the grain of my desk. My lungs expand fully for the first time since Julian Lemaire threatened me.
A single, undeniable truth threads through me with clean, cutting clarity: I’ve never been more relieved in my life.
I should tell Richard about the threats. It’s the ethical thing to do. It would look bad—catastrophically bad—if it ever comes to light that Julian threatened me and I said nothing.
Every ethics seminar, every protocol binder, every mandatory training I’ve ever half-slept through makes the same point—disclose threats immediately, put them on record, create a trail, protect your integrity and the case’s.
If Julian’s threats ever surface, my silence will look suspicious at best and incriminating at worst. The moment anyone connects “Julian threatened Laurette” to “Julian was murdered,” every eye in this building will pivot toward me. Or toward someone acting on my behalf.
I know all of this. And still, I don’t move. I don’t open my mouth. I don’t reach for the phone.
Instead, I sit there staring at my computer screen. My heartbeat wedges itself under my sternum, tight and pounding. Because another thought wedges itself deeper and colder.
What if this wasn’t random?
My father came to warn me, tense in ways he never shows.
Julian made it clear he’d kill me if I pushed his son’s case. And now he’s lying on a metal table with his throat cut.
Cleanly.
Professionally.
My father was shaken. Truly shaken. And now the man who frightened him is dead.
What if the two events aren’t separate?
The thought should terrify me. The ethical implications alone should make me sick.
Instead, something heavier settles in my chest, something I don’t want to name.
If my father acted, if he removed the threat because I left him no other way to keep me safe, why would I shine a spotlight on him for doing what he thought was necessary?
Do I want detectives asking why he visited me last night, why he was rattled, why Julian would target his daughter in the first place?
The thought alone sends a chill through me. And do I want to sit on a stand while lawyers tear apart every decision my father made to protect me? Absolutely not.
The answer hits instantly. So I bury it. I push the truth down, sealing it beneath every justification I can reach for.
I tell myself it isn’t relevant to Evan Lemaire’s prosecution, that introducing speculation will only muddy the waters, that the case needs clarity and not the chaos that comes with half-formed theories.
I pretend silence is the smarter option, the safer route, the more controlled path forward.
But none of that is the real reason.
The truth is simpler, more personal, and far more dangerous to acknowledge. I’m keeping quiet because I’m protecting someone I love.
It’s an unnerving thing to sit in my office surrounded by statutes and binders and case law while holding a secret large enough to tilt an entire investigation. To sit at the center of the justice system with something this explosive clenched behind my teeth is surreal.
Richard will never hear about Julian’s hypotheticals. The detectives won’t either. The threats stay with me, buried where no one can dig them up.
And so does the silence.
By noon, I’ve reread the same sentence five times and still can’t tell you what it says.
My focus is shattered into useless pieces, slipping through my fingers every time I try to drag it back to the files on my desk.
The office has settled into a strange equilibrium—steadier than the frantic whispers of the morning but no less tense.
People are still talking about Julian’s murder.
Just differently.
The initial shock has cooled into speculation. Motives. Suspects. Political fallout. Professional gossip dressed up as analysis.
I can’t sit here any longer.
My chair scrapes back from the desk, the sound sharp enough to make Sarah glance into my office through the open door with a flicker of curiosity.
I grab my coat, pretending I’m heading for lunch, even though my stomach hasn’t unclenched in hours.
Food is the last thing on my mind.
My father still hasn’t called—no text, no knock on my door. Nothing.
Which is wrong. My phone should’ve lit up by now.
My heels echo along the polished hallway, each step a countdown as I make my way to the judicial wing of the courthouse. His chamber door stands half-open. I pause, draw a shallow breath, then knock once and push it open.
He’s standing behind his desk, papers sorted into immaculate stacks, jacket already on. He looks ready to leave but not rushed.
“Busy?” I ask, stepping inside.
His eyes lift, sharp and unreadable. “Just about to take lunch.”
“Good.” I close the door behind me, letting it shut with a quiet, decisive click. “You can take it with me.”
His brow lifts a fraction. “I’ve already made plans.”
“Break them.” My pulse is pounding hard enough to make my fingertips thrum. “We need to talk in private.”
A beat stretches thinly between us. He’s pondering whether this is one of those father-daughter moments he can dismiss with a calm wave of authority.
The old dynamic settles over us. Him, the judge. Me, the one waiting to be granted an audience.
But this time, he must see something in my face he can’t brush aside.
He nods once, a small concession, but a concession all the same.
“All right.”
The server drops off two glasses of white and murmurs something about returning soon with our meals, but neither of us is listening.
He walks away, and the quiet he leaves behind feels thick enough to choke on.
The clink of silverware and the low hum of lunchtime conversation blur in the background, distant and irrelevant.
I don’t bother easing into it. “Someone murdered Julian Lemaire last night.”
My father doesn’t flinch, doesn’t so much as blink. He lifts his glass and gives his white wine a slow, thoughtful swirl, the clear liquid catching the light as though we’re discussing a scheduling conflict instead of a homicide.
“Yes, I heard.”
So casual.
“Someone cut his throat while he was visiting his mistress at her home.”
“I hadn’t heard the details.” My father leans back in his chair, posture loose and unreadable. “Julian spent years courting danger. Men who do that don’t die quietly.”
“You’re not even a little shocked?”
I thought Julian’s death would shake him. Not because they were close, but because of everything that’s happened these past few days—the warnings, the tension in his voice when he came to my house, the weight of the danger he believed I was in.
Some part of me hoped he’d be relieved on my behalf. Another part hoped he’d be worried. Anything to tell me how to feel or what to do next.
But all I get from him is a calm demeanor. I can’t tell if it’s intended to steady me or if it’s simply who he is.
“Julian made a career out of playing with wolves. Eventually, one of them bites.”
Yes, wolves can be dangerous that way.
I study my father, trying to see past the polished judicial composure. I can’t tell if he’s being emotionally detached, or this is grief muted into professionalism. Or something far darker.
My voice lowers—not dramatically, not accusatory, but unmistakably serious. “Did you have anything to do with Julian’s death?”
He raises his eyes, slow and measured, the practiced calm of a man trained to reveal nothing. The steadiness of it unsettles me more than any shock would have.
“No.”
The word lands cleanly.
I search his face, hunting for even the smallest fracture—guilt, hesitation, a flicker of something human and conflicted.
But he’s a judge. He’s spent his entire adult life perfecting the art of controlled expression.
He can hold a dying man’s confession or a grieving mother’s rage without letting so much as a twitch betray his thoughts.
Still, I try.
“Dad.” My voice drops lower, softer, shaped by fear and dread. “If you did, I need to know.”
His gaze stays locked on mine, unwavering. “Laurette, I told you. I didn’t.”
A tightness gathers in my throat, and I glance down, wishing I hadn’t implied that he could be capable of something so extreme. The grain of the table blurs as guilt presses in. I’m still staring at it, trying to steady myself, when he adds, “Not that I didn’t consider it after he threatened you.”
The words hit with unexpected force. So calm and honest. They take me off guard. My father doesn’t exaggerate. He doesn’t dramatize. He doesn’t say things to shock, so hearing him admit that without shame sends a ripple of something complicated through me.
“Julian would’ve done whatever it took to protect his son. I’d do the same for my daughter. At any cost.”
For a moment, everything inside me stills.
Not because of the threat implied, but because of the emotion threaded through the words.
It might be the most affectionate thing he’s ever said to me.
Not a hug.
Not an I love you.
Not even a softened tone.
But a declaration, quiet and absolute, that I matter enough for him to do the unthinkable.
Julian Lemaire is dead, and I’m not sure who did it.
But I know this—he’s gone, and I’m still here.
Someone ended the threat before it reached me. And whether it was justice, vengeance, or something else entirely—I owe them more than I can name.
I don’t know who saved my life.
But tonight, I get to keep it.