Thieves. Another thing she hadn’t mentioned. Another lie by omission.
He moved toward the door, then paused, looking back over his shoulder. “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? If she really killed Daniel Kearns in self-defense, why not just tell you about her history? Unless …” He let the word hang in the air like a noose. “Unless self-defense was never the real story.”
The door clicked shut behind him with a soft finality that felt like a coffin closing.
I stared at the evidence spread across my desk. Each piece building a portrait of someone who didn’t just snap once. Someone who’d been violent her whole life.
The empty frame for Knox stared back at me from my desk. Faith believed I could save him. Believed in me when no one else did. Had that been real? Or just another manipulation? Another way to make me feel like her hero while she played me for a fool?
My hands clenched into fists. There had to be context. Reasons. Foster care was hell, and kids did what they had to do to survive.
But why hadn’t she told me?
The question burned hotter than anything else. Why look me in the eye and lie when I’d made it crystal clear that surprises in court got people convicted? When I’d told her I needed everything? When I’d laid my entire reputation on the line for her?
Because guilty people lie,a voice whispered in my head.Just like your former client lied. Before you got him off and he killed again.
No. I pushed back from my desk, the chair slamming against the bookshelves. Faith wasn’t like him. She couldn’t be. I’d learned to spot the difference between justified violence and cold-blooded killers.
Hadn’t I?
I’d had doubt once. One dark moment where I’d wondered. I’d promised her it would never happen again.
But that was before.
Before she lied to my face. Before she withheld the most damning evidence in her entire case. Before she risked not only her own freedom, not only my career, but also played with my fucking heart. She’d let me fall. Let me fall hard. All while sitting on this bomb, knowing it would detonate, knowing it would destroy everything.
Maybe that made me a terrible person. God knew Faith had been through hell. I knew how hard it was for her to open up, how every vulnerability felt like handing someone a weapon. The morally correct thing was to feel only worry for her. And I did. Part of me ached for the scared kid with scissors, for the woman who’d learned that secrets meant safety.
I felt pity too. That she was still so damaged, so insecure that she couldn’t trust me with the truth.
But right now, in this moment, I mostly felt furious.
I was exhausted from giving Faith passes because of her past. She needed to take responsibility. If she cared about me half as much as I cared about her, she wouldn’t have put me in this position. She wouldn’t have accepted the damage to my career, to my conscience, to everything I’d rebuilt after my last mistake.
Maybe Faith didn’t love me after all.
And worse, so much worse, maybe she wasn’t the person I thought she was.
Heat crawled up my neck.
She’d made a fool of me. Made me believe in her innocencewhile hiding a history that screamed guilt. Made me fall in love with her while keeping secrets that could put her away for life. And now Wolfe would parade every violent incident, every stolen dollar, every lie in front of twelve jurors who’d see exactly what he wanted them to see: a cold-blooded killer who’d been practicing her whole life.
I shoved the entire stack of papers off my desk. They scattered across the floor like evidence at a crime scene, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough to satisfy the rage building in my chest, hot and suffocating and righteous.
I’d trusted her. Believed in her. Loved her.
And she’d lied.
I snatched my keys from the desk, metal biting into my palm. The decision crystallized with brutal clarity, sharp enough to cut.
I was going to confront Faith.
Right fucking now.
53
FAITH
