Not that she’d won.
That she’d earned it on her back.
“In this business,”Charlie said, his voice lowering to a note of quiet regret,“you learn that some victories cost more than they’re worth. We simply reached a point where our definitions of justice—and professional boundaries—no longer aligned.”
He was doing it again.
Turning her into the cautionary tale and himself into the man who had survived her.
The comment feed exploded.
Pattern?
Ambition?
Sleeps with prosecutors?
Justice or ego?
Lucy whispered, “Oh my God.”
Frannie stood slowly. “I didn’t want to tell you before court, but we’ve had six calls since eight o’clock.”
Eleanor looked up.
“Two clients. Three reporters. And one woman who said she wouldn’t trust a lawyer who ‘can’t keep her personal life separate from her cases.’”
Deck muttered a low Irish curse.
Eleanor closed the laptop.
Calm.
No one in the room would see her hands shake.
“I need air.”
She grabbed her bag and moved toward the door before anyone could answer.
Stairwell — Main Street
The stairwell was narrow and steep, old wood creaking under her heels.
“Ah, lass—” Deck’s voice echoed behind her. “Don’t give them the satisfaction!”
“I’m fine,” she called back.
She wasn’t.
She pushed through the glass door at the bottom?—
—and stepped onto Main Street.
Charleston hadn’t just been a case.
It had been the moment everything in her life split cleanly in two.
Before Charleston. After.
