Chapter 38
Laurette Devereux
There’s a realization that lives in your bones once you sample vengeance and like the way it tastes in your mouth.
Morning comes too fast. Deep sleep never took hold. Only shallow, broken stretches where my body shut down. Every sound pulled me half-awake. Every shadow registered before reason could catch up.
Bastien is there when I surface, and I savor the heat of him at my back.
Our first time waking up together.
His arm rests across my waist, and he pulls me close, pressing a kiss into my hair.
“Good morning, Babygirl.” His voice is low and rough with sleep.
“Good morning.” I stretch, leaning into him. “I wish I could stay in this bed with you all day. But unfortunately, duty calls.”
“Don’t worry, babe. We’re going to spend plenty of mornings together in this bed.”
“You don’t know how much I look forward to that.”
I steal a few more seconds with him than I can afford. Then I slip free.
I shower longer than necessary, allowing the heat to beat against my shoulders. I stand there until my hands wrinkle and my thoughts slow enough to function.
The bruise on my neck bloomed darker overnight. I try not to look at it, but it’s impossible to ignore.
Stepping into the courthouse should be routine, but nothing about it is. My heels echo too loudly. My badge feels heavier. Every face I pass gets cataloged before I can stop myself.
Instinct has taken the wheel.
The courtroom doors swing open. I take my place at counsel’s table, spine straight, hands steady, as if I wasn’t almost erased from my life hours ago. But the weight is there. It sits beneath every movement, and under every objection I prepare to make. Beneath the practiced calm, I wear armor.
I’m here because I survived. That knowledge sharpens everything.
Justice isn’t abstract today. It’s personal. It has teeth, and as I lift my eyes toward the bench, toward the defense table, toward the family that thought murder would finish what intimidation couldn’t, I’m sure of one thing with brutal clarity: they didn’t break me.
They made me dangerous.
Evan Lemaire is seated when I lift my eyes. He doesn’t look at me right away. He never does, but something about him is different today. Not nervous or wary.
Invincible.
His suit is tailored to perfection, and his posture is relaxed. There’s a looseness to his mouth, a confidence that doesn’t come from innocence but from expectation. He believes—deep in his bones—that nothing bad ever sticks to him.
Julian. The father who leaned close enough for only me to hear his threat.
Helene. The mother who escalated to murder without blinking.
And Evan. Raised in the space between them, marinated in entitlement, taught early that consequences are negotiable.
Helene sits in the front row, spine straight, expression serene in a chilling way. No remorse or fear. Only calculation.
The smugness rolls off her in waves—quiet, composed, and self-assured. She’s already rewritten the ending in her head.
Evan turns, and our eyes meet. His gaze drops to the mottled purple circling my throat—the souvenir of Helene’s failed attempt on my life. I lift my chin and hold his stare.
I lean in their direction so my voice reaches him and his mother. “What’s wrong? You two look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Helene’s breath stutters, but Evan smiles.
I straighten and give him a quick wink before turning toward my table.
The courtroom hums back into motion around us, oblivious to the war lines drawn beneath the surface. I take my seat and open my file with unhurried precision.
This family believes the law bends for them.
Believes fear is a tool.
Believes women are disposable.
They are wrong.
And as I prepare to close my argument, something locks into place behind my sternum. Not rage.
Resolve.
Cold. Focused. Unforgiving.
Because men like Evan Lemaire don’t stop. They escalate and repeat. They depend on silence, power, and the system looking the other way while they feed their appetites.
But not this time.
This time, we don’t look away. We don’t excuse. We hold the line.
This isn’t a simple case. It’s a pattern. It’s evil. And I’m here to burn it out at the root.
The court moves forward the way it always does. Motions. Arguments. Procedure wrapped in ritual and language meant to be orderly.
I do my job meticulously. The evidence has been presented—the video, timeline, and consent that never existed.
I know this case and what I’ve proven. I know what justice looks like when it’s done correctly. And somewhere between the last exhibit and the closing words, something shifts.
It’s subtle. Almost nothing.
But I’ve learned to recognize when my work is done, and the outcome is no longer in my hands.
Now all that’s left is to wait for the verdict.
I’m back in my office waiting for the jury’s verdict when Richard shows up. He doesn’t knock or ask if I have a minute. Just opens the door and comes in, tossing a folder onto my desk. It lands where my coffee should be.
“Another one,” he says.
The words are flat. Too flat. My gaze drops to the label before I can stop myself, and my stomach tightens hard enough to hurt.
“Same drug,” Richard continues, leaning back against the doorframe, arms crossed. His jaw works once, biting back something sharper. “Same m.o. Different girl.”
I flip the folder open.
Photos. Reports. A story that’s already too familiar.
“But this time, she almost didn’t make it,” Richard says.
My fingers still on the page.
“She was found behind the frat house in a dumpster. Sanitation workers pulled her out. Started CPR. Bought her enough time for EMS to get there.”
Not because anyone called for help. Not because anyone panicked.
Trash day saved this girl’s life.
Richard’s mouth tightens. “Evan Lemaire and another kid. An accomplice this time. He couldn’t carry her to the dumpster on his own. Dead weight’s heavy.”
I stare down at the file, at the clean language and tidy formatting meant to make something monstrous manageable. This isn’t a bad night, or a misunderstanding, or a mistake made once.
This is repetition. It’s growing confidence. It’s a man who believes there are no consequences and acted accordingly.
My hand curls against the folder, paper creasing under my grip.
Emily. Now this girl.
Different names. Same belief that women are objects you can drug, use, and discard when you’re finished with them.
Richard watches me for a beat. “You okay?”
I don’t answer right away.
“I am.” I close the file with deliberate care. “But he won't be when I finish with him.”
Richard nods once. As he turns to leave, the weight of it settles into my chest—not only the case, but the pattern and escalation. The certainty that if Evan Lemaire walks free, this won’t be the last file with his name on it.
The law is always a step behind these animals. And I’m running out of patience waiting for it to catch up.
The day closes, and I swing by home to pick up what I need for a few days. I grab only the essentials of a life temporarily uprooted. No lingering in the bedroom. No staring at the spot where the dead man lay.
By the time I pull into Bastien’s drive, the knot between my shoulders has tightened into constant discomfort.
The porch light is on because he’s expecting me, and the door opens before I knock.
“Sweet Babygirl,” he says, and those words undo me.
His hand closes around my bag, and the weight leaves my shoulder. I don’t realize how tightly I’ve been holding myself together until his fingers brush mine.
The noise of the day falls away in layers. Here, it’s just him. His voice. The solid presence of his body in the doorway, blocking out everything that tried to break me today—courtrooms, closing arguments, the verdict.
I step inside, and the tension drains out of me until standing feels optional and breathing isn’t a battle anymore.
If this is what safety feels like, it’s dangerous how quickly I’ve grown addicted to it.
The house smells of food—real food. Garlic, herbs, and something warm. It’s an effort that says stay without asking.
The wine is already poured, two glasses waiting. Dinner’s plated and candles are burning.
“Sit, babe. You look like you carried the entire city today.”
I have.
I sink into the chair, wrap my fingers around the stem of the glass, and allow my shoulders to drop. Bastien doesn’t ask questions right away or rush the silence. He moves around the kitchen, unhurriedly.
We eat first. Not because either of us is hungry, but because this domestic routine helps me remember how to exist in my body.
The food is delicious, but I barely taste it.
Bastien doesn’t push conversation. He lets the quiet do its work.
After the dishes are cleared, I stand by the island, gripping my glass too tightly. Then the dam gives.
When I begin speaking, it all comes out. Some of it in order, most of it tangled.
Court. Evan. Helene. The juror who wouldn’t budge, obviously bought by the Lemaires.
Jon David’s smug smile when the verdict came in.
The text afterward, his version of a victory lap.
Richard dropping a new file on my desk. Another girl, this time left in a dumpster behind the fraternity house like she was trash. Same drug.
Bastien listens without interrupting. He doesn’t offer solutions, or judgment, or comfort disguised as reassurance. He leans back against the counter, arms crossed, eyes on me—focused, dark, and intent in a way that says every detail is being filed away.
Predatory patience.
And somewhere in the middle of my anger, my exhaustion, and my fury at a system that keeps letting monsters walk free, I realize how much relief there is in being seen this way—not as fragile, not as hysterical, but as a woman delivering intelligence to a man who knows exactly what to do with it.
The quiet stretches, and Bastien doesn’t fill it. He studies what I’ve said, what I haven’t, and what it adds up to. His gaze shifts once, briefly, like he’s turning a piece on a board only he can see.