Chapter 17
Iused to think I understood what pressure felt like, the weight of my father's crimes, the scrutiny of every background check, the constant need to prove I wasn't him.
I was wrong. Real pressure was sitting twenty feet from the man who'd tried to have you killed and watching him adjust his cufflinks like he was at a board meeting.
The week before Victor Reeves's trial had been a strange limbo.
Will and I had settled into something resembling normalcy; if normalcy meant armed guards, encrypted phones, and making love in a penthouse that doubled as a fortress.
Our nights were ours. Quiet conversations in the dark.
His hand finding mine across the mattress.
The slow, careful rebuilding of trust that had nearly been shattered.
"You talk in your sleep," Will mentioned one morning, his voice rough with exhaustion. "Did you know that?"
"I do not."
"You do. Last night you said something about spreadsheets." He almost smiled. "Very romantic."
"I was probably dreaming about Reeves's financial records."
"That's concerning on multiple levels."
But our days belonged to the case. Prep sessions with the prosecution team. Document reviews. Mock cross-examinations where Rebecca Chen played devil's advocate until I wanted to scream.
"They're going to come after your father again," she warned during one session. "And your relationship with Will. You need to be ready."
"I've been ready for weeks."
"Being ready and being steady under fire are different things." She'd studied me with sharp, assessing eyes. "When they bring up Thomas Ashford, what's your instinct?"
"To explain. To contextualize."
"Wrong. Your instinct should be to redirect to the evidence. Every time. Don't let them make this about your family. Make it about the numbers."
I practiced until the redirects felt automatic. Until I could hear my father's name and pivot without flinching. Until I almost believed I was ready.
Then I saw Reeves in person again, and everything changed.
It was a pre-trial hearing. Everyone was doing the routine motions, scheduling logistics, the dry procedural business that precedes every major case. I'd expected it to be boring. I hadn't expected him to walk in like he owned the building.
He arrived with four lawyers in matching charcoal suits, all of them moving with the synchronized confidence of men who believed justice was negotiable.
Reeves himself was smaller than I remembered; average height, trim build, silver hair swept back from a face that belonged on a country club brochure.
He looked like someone's distinguished grandfather.
Then his eyes found mine.
He looked at me like I was a rounding error he'd correct in next quarter's budget.
My lungs forgot how to work. I felt Will go rigid beside me, his entire body coiling with suppressed fury. Under the table, his hand found mine, grip almost painful.
"Breathe," he murmured, barely audible.
I couldn't respond. Couldn't look away from Reeves, who had already turned to whisper something to his lead attorney. They both smiled at whatever he said, a private joke between men who'd never worried about consequences.
This was the man who'd sent people to destroy my life. Who'd ordered to have my apartment violated. Who ran a trafficking operation like a supply chain optimization project. And he was sitting in a federal courtroom looking mildly inconvenienced by the whole affair.
"I'm going to destroy him," I said under my breath.
Will's grip tightened. "We both are."
That night, the warmth between us had a new edge. Not passion, but determination. We'd seen the face of the enemy, and he'd looked exactly like a man who believed himself untouchable.
Tomorrow, we'd start proving him wrong.
The first day of trial was chaos barely contained by procedure. Reporters packed the hallway outside the courtroom. Sketch artists claimed the best angles. The families of victims filled the back rows, their faces a mixture of hope and exhaustion that made my chest ache.
I was the prosecution's first witness. Hours on the stand, walking the jury through shell companies and wire transfers and the meticulous paper trail that connected Victor Reeves to human trafficking.
The defense came hard; they pushed on about my father, my relationship with Will, my supposedly compromised objectivity, and I held my ground the way Chen had taught me.
Redirect. Pivot. Make it about the numbers.
Through it all, I felt Will watching me from the gallery. His attention was a physical weight, intense and unwavering. It should have been comforting.
It wasn't.
I noticed the signs throughout the day, small things that separately meant nothing but together formed a pattern I recognized too well.
The way he positioned himself with a clear sightline to every exit.
The way he checked his phone obsessively, not for messages but for something else.
The way his eyes tracked every person who came within ten feet of me.
During the lunch recess, Bates approached us in the hallway.
"Security detail's in position," he said, his tone businesslike. "Standard protocol for high-profile witnesses."
"I want an additional agent on Lindsey." Will's voice was clipped. "Full-time. Rotating shifts."
Bates glanced at me, then back at Will. "The existing detail is more than sufficient. We're inside a federal courthouse."
"I don't care. Make it happen."
He didn't ask me. Didn't even look at me. Just decided.
Later, as we were leaving for the day, "I'll take the black SUV. You go with Agent Miller in the sedan. Different routes back to the penthouse."
Another decision. Another command issued without consultation.
I held my tongue. We were in public, surrounded by reporters, not the place for this conversation. But the pattern was screaming at me now, impossible to ignore.
Back at the penthouse, the silence was thick. Will paced the living room like a caged predator while I removed my blazer and poured two glasses of water. He took his without acknowledgment, his mind clearly elsewhere.
"You're doing it again," I said.
He stopped pacing. "Doing what?"
"Managing me." I kept my voice steady, though my heart was pounding. "You decided we'd take separate cars without asking. You told Bates to assign extra security without discussing it with me. You're making decisions about my life, my movements, my safety—"
"I'm trying to keep you alive."
"You're making decisions for me." I set down my water glass harder than intended. "We talked about this, Will. We had this exact conversation. You promised to ask, not decide."
"The circumstances are different now." He turned to face me, frustration evident in every line of his body. "Reeves is right there, Lindsey. Twenty feet away. I watched him look at you like you were nothing. Like you were—"
"I was there. I saw how he looked at me."
"Then you understand why I can't just—" He ran his hands through his hair, the gesture agitated. "I know I'm falling back. Don't you think I see it? But it's not the same. This isn't about control, it's about the fact that someone tried to kill you and now we're in a room with him every day."
"Then tell me that." I stepped closer, forcing him to meet my eyes.
"Tell me you're scared. Tell me you're imagining worst-case scenarios.
Ask for what you need instead of just—" I stopped, frustration tightening my throat.
"When you decide for me, it makes me feel like a child. Or an asset. Not a partner."
The silence stretched. I watched the war play out on his face, the old instinct to control battling against everything we'd built in the past week.
"I'm not trying to control you," he said finally.
"Intent doesn't matter if the impact is the same."
He flinched. Direct hit.
"Every time you walk into that courtroom—" He stopped.
Started again. "Every time you take the stand and say his name, my brain just..
. goes somewhere dark. A bribed bailiff.
A contaminated water glass. A car bomb in the parking garage.
" His voice cracked slightly. "I can't stop imagining it.
And when I can't control my thoughts, I try to control everything else. "
The admission landed somewhere soft, somewhere I'd been armoring against exactly this kind of vulnerability.
"I'm scared too," I said quietly. "Every time I look at Reeves, I think about the SUV swerving into my lane.
About waking up in the hospital, not knowing if I'd walk again.
About the men in your penthouse." I took his hand.
His fingers were cold. "But you pushing me away to protect me just means I'm facing it alone. And that's worse."
He looked down at our joined hands for a long moment.
"Together," he said, finally, the word rough. "I know. I know that's what we said."
"Knowing it and doing it are different things."
"Yeah." He exhaled slowly, the tension draining from his shoulders by degrees. "I'm sorry."
"Stop apologizing." I squeezed his hand. "Start asking."
He was quiet for a beat. Then, carefully: "Can we... discuss the security detail? I have a need. Probably irrational. Definitely over-the-top. But I need to feel like there's something between you and him when you're in that building."
This was it. The ask instead of the demand.
"I won't accept a new full-time shadow," I said. "It's conspicuous. Makes me look like I need special handling, which undermines my credibility with the jury."
"Lindsey—"
"But." I held up my hand. "I'll accept Bates's existing detail having standing orders to maintain visual contact in all public areas. And I'll carry the panic button he offered. The one that alerts you directly."
I watched him process it. Saw the flicker of his old instinct, to push for more, to insist, to control the outcome. Then he mastered it.
"That's not everything I want," he said slowly.
"No. It's a compromise."
"And if something happens? If the detail isn't enough?"
"Then we deal with it. Together." I held his gaze. "That's the deal, Will. We face things together, or we don't face them at all."
The silence stretched. Then he nodded, something loosening in his expression.
"Okay." The word came out softer than I expected. "Okay. Thank you."
"For what?"
"For not walking away." He pulled me closer, his arms wrapping around me with a weariness that had nothing to do with physical exhaustion. "For calling me out instead of just leaving."
I rested my head against his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart. "I told you I wasn't going anywhere. I meant it."
"Even when I'm being an overbearing ass?"
"Especially then." I smiled against his shirt. "Someone has to keep you honest."
We stood like that for a long time, two people learning how to be terrified together instead of letting fear push them apart. It wasn't fixed. It wasn't perfect. But it was worth the effort. Real, messy, and necessary work. We weren’t backing down.
His phone buzzed. He reached for it automatically, then stopped.
"Go ahead," I said. "It might be important."
He checked the screen. I watched his expression shift from guarded to something darker.
"What is it?"
"Text from Bates." His expression shifted. "Reeves's lawyers filed an emergency motion. They're claiming prosecutorial misconduct. Demanding all charges be dismissed."
My stomach dropped. "On what grounds?"
"Improper evidence gathering. Specifically, they're arguing that the financial records we obtained were accessed without proper authorization.
" He looked up at me, his eyes filled with uncertainty.
"They're coming after the foundation of the entire case, Lindsey.
They're trying to make everything you found inadmissible. "
The warmth of our reconciliation evaporated, replaced by cold dread. If the evidence was thrown out, if everything I'd documented was ruled inadmissible, Reeves would walk. All of it would have been for nothing.
"When's the hearing?"
"Tomorrow morning. 9 AM." Will pocketed his phone, his expression settling into the focused intensity I recognized from the early days of our partnership. "Chen wants us there. Both of us."
I straightened, pulling back from his arms. The fear was still there, coiled in my chest, but it was joined now by something fiercer.
"Then we'll be there."
"Together?"
I met his eyes. "Together."
But as we began preparing for whatever tomorrow would bring, I couldn't shake the image of Reeves in that courtroom, his dismissive assessment, his private smile, his absolute confidence that men like him always won.
He thought he was untouchable. He thought we were rounding errors to be corrected.
Tomorrow, we'd show him how wrong he was.