Jace studied me. “Whatever you need, Ryker. Money, resources, people. You say the word.”
Axel clapped me on the shoulder as he headed for the door. “Try not to have a complete mental breakdown before trial, yeah? We need you functional.”
“No promises,” I muttered.
The door clicked shut behind them, and I was alone.
I reassembled the case files across my desk and stared at the evidence stacking up against her, at the impossible mountain I had to climb. My reflection stared back at me from the dark computer screen. Bloodshot eyes. Three days of stubble. I looked like hell.
Felt like it too.
I didn’t know how long it would take for something to go our way. We were running out of time, and every second that ticked by felt like another nail in Faith’s coffin.
But little did I know that Jace’s PIs were about to uncover the holy fucking grail of defenses …
57
RYKER
I slapped a USB drive onto Wolfe’s desk hard enough to make his coffee cup jump. “You had this footage and buried it, didn’t you?”
His expression didn’t change. Poker face perfected over years of courtroom manipulation. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“That’s bullshit.” My voice cut through the air like a blade. “Did you seriously think I wouldn’t find this?”
He leaned back in his leather chair, steepling his fingers in that condescending way that made my blood boil. But his silence was answer enough. That’s exactly what he’d thought.
This explained why my PI had hit nothing but dead ends, trying to get the footage through official channels.
It wasn’t until Jace’s PIs went old school, knocking on doors like a detective from another era, that they struck gold. The neighbor with the paranoid security setup had captured everything the police somehow “missed.”
Funny how once we had that footage, the kind that makes prosecutors sweat, law enforcement suddenly discovered their files weren’t so empty after all. Amazing what turns up when you give people the right motivation to look harder.
Turned out, they’d been sitting on plenty.
“Withholding discovery.” I shook my head in disgust. “I knowyou play dirty, but I thought even that was beneath you. And you know what else I thought was beneath you? Putting an innocent woman in prison for the rest of her life when she was the victim.”
“You keep saying that.” His voice carried less conviction than usual. “But thus far, the evidence points to a very different picture.”
“Evidence.” I laughed. “What was it you said? ‘Evidence has a way of surfacing when it’s meant to. Or not surfacing. Depends on the case.’” I held up the USB drive. “Guess it was meant to surface after all. Allow me to paint you a new picture.”
I didn’t wait for his permission. I moved toward his laptop, but he reached to intercept me. I yanked it out of his grip.
“You’ll have to physically fight me to stop this, Counselor,” I growled.
He settled back, jaw clenched, knowing he was trapped.
“Surveillance footage,” I announced, plugging in the drive. “Stitched together from multiple sources. Ring cameras, security footage from surrounding properties. Each one time- and date-stamped.” I met his eyes. “But you already knew that.”
I hit play.
The first clip showed Faith’s car winding through her brother’s exclusive neighborhood, another vehicle trailing behind at a distance.
“There. Kearns follows her for six miles.” I pointed at the screen. “We always wondered why her car ended up near her brother’s second home.” The mansion. Technically shared with all of us Sinners and Saints. “Now we know.”
The next clip showed Faith pulling over, getting out of her car. Even in grainy security footage, her anger was palpable.
God, I was proud of her for pulling over and calling him out on his bullshit stalking. But I was also angry at the world. If only she hadn’t done that, what happened next would never have happened. And what happened next nearly cost her, her life.
