“That’s alarming,” I said.
“That’s loyalty. Difference is, I know what I am. And what I’d accept.”
Was it weird that I envied that about him? I shouldn’t envy that. Right?
“One question,” he said. “Forget what she might have done. Forget the evidence and the analysis and your ghost stories. Just answer this: do you believe her?”
The question hung in the recycled air while my mind scrambled for logical ground.
“Time’s up!” The guard moved toward us.
Knox stood, and every inmate in the room tracked the movement. Six foot four of controlled violence, tattooed with the scripture of his sins, and yet he was the one person I trusted most with my truth. “When you can answer that with your gut instead of your head, you’ll know what to do.”
I sat there for a moment, legal strategy undiscussed. Twenty minutes gone, and we’d talked about everything except what I’d come for.
Or maybe we’d talked about exactly what I’d come for.
As I gathered my things, Knox’s voice stopped me.
“One more thing, Counselor.”
I turned back.
“You’re asking the wrong question. It’s not whether she’s guilty or innocent. It’s whether you can love someone whose past you’ll never fully understand. Someone who might have darkness you can’t fix.” He held my gaze. “Because if you can’t handle the possibility, then you need to walk away now. Before you hurt her worse than anyone else ever has.”
The words followed me out of the prison, into my car.
“Do you believe her?”
The question had claws, digging deeper with every mile.
But the real question—the one that made my hands grip thesteering wheel until my knuckles went white—wasn’t about belief.
It was simpler. More terrifying.
Could I love her if the worst was true?
And if I couldn’t—if my feelings evaporated the moment doubt crept in—then what did that say about me? About the kind of love I was capable of giving?
Faith had spent her entire life being abandoned by people who were supposed to stay. People who claimed to care right up until things got hard, until she became inconvenient, until her damage showed.
I’d promised myself I was different.
But doubt ate at my insides like acid, and now, I wasn’t so sure anymore.
Maybe I was just another person who’d look at her brokenness and walk away. The thought made me sick. But there was no time to process this. In a normal relationship, I could step back. Take a breath. But I was her lawyer. Later today, I’d be at her door again, and I had no idea what the hell I’d say.
27
FAITH
The knock came at the worst possible time. Long after my tense thing with Ryker (nope, hadn’t heard from him since, and nope, I was not going to be the first to contact him), but before I’d had a chance to cool down.
I could practically hear Ryker screaming in my ear,Do not answer the door for anyone, Faith. Anyone.
The knocking persisted. Sharp. Insistent.
Maybe Ryker had been right about reporters coming out of the woodwork.
