Page 71 of You, Only You

"I'll stay," he said. His voice was rough. "I'll stay in the room. Even when I want to run. Even when every instinct says to lock the door and handle it alone."

"Even when you're being an overbearing ass?"

"Especially then. You can call me out in real time. Front row seats."

"I do enjoy calling you out."

"I've noticed."

We stood there, hands clasped, the sounds of the courthouse filtering through the hallway around us. Someone's heels clicking on marble. A phone ringing. A door opening and closing. The ordinary background noise of a world that was continuing to function while two people stood in a corridor holding hands and trying to figure out if they were brave enough to mean it.

"We should go back in," I said eventually. "The trial's still happening."

"Yeah." He didn't let go of my hands. "In a minute."

"Okay." I didn't let go either. "In a minute."

We stood there for longer than a minute. Neither of us counted. For once, I didn't count. That felt like something worth noting.

When we finally walked back toward the courtroom, he kept my hand in his. Not hidden. Not subtle. Just there, our fingers interlaced, visible to anyone who looked. A reporter glanced at us and did a visible double-take. A clerk raised an eyebrow. I waited for the panic to hit, the professional alarm bells, the voice in my head that said you just confirmed everything the defense alleged.

The panic didn't come. What came instead was something quieter. The feeling of standing exactly where you'd chosen to stand, next to the person you'd chosen to stand next to, and being okay with what it cost.

It wasn't an ending. It was barely a beginning. The trial wasn't over. The verdict hadn't come. My career was an open question. His past was an open wound. We were two people who'd spent their lives building armor, choosing to stand in a public hallway without any on.

But his hand was warm in mine, and the numbers were solid, and the truth was on the record, and for the first time in a long time, that felt like enough.

16.Will

The text from Bates arrived at 6:47 PM:

Grand jury voted to indict. All counts. Reeves, CFO, COO, and two VPs. Trial date pending. Congratulations.

Seven years. Seven years of hunting, of building cases in the dark, of becoming the thing everyone whispered about. This was supposed to be the moment when something shifted. The proof that it worked. That I worked.

I stared at the screen and waited for the feeling to arrive.

It didn't.

"Will?" Lindsey's voice came from across the penthouse. She was standing by the kitchen island, two cups of coffee in her hands, watching me with the particular alertness she brought to things she was trying to read. "What is it?"

"Indictment." I held up the phone. "All counts. All five defendants."

"That's..." She set the cups down. "Will, that's everything. That's what we've been working toward."

"Yeah." The word came out with nothing attached to it. Just a word. The packaging without the contents.

She studied me for a long moment. I could practically see her processing, the way she processed financial data, scanning for the anomaly, the number that didn't belong.

"You thought it would feel different," she said quietly.

It wasn't a question, so I didn't answer it like one. "I thought it would feel like something."

"What did you expect?"

I turned the phone over in my hands. "I don't know. Satisfaction? Closure? Some kind of..." I gestured vaguely at my chest, at the place where the feeling was supposed to be. "Seven years, Lindsey. I built an entire life around this. And now it's happening, and I'm just standing here."

She didn't rush in with reassurance. Didn't tell me it was normal or that the emotions would come later or any of the things people said when they wanted to fill silence. She just let the silence sit there, which was one of the things about her that undid me, the willingness to let a quiet moment be quiet.