Trigger’s voice dropped. “He’s right.”
The words slammed into me.
I tried to breathe around them. “Trigger—”
He crouched in front of me, bringing his eyes level with mine. His hands rested on his knees, controlled. Not touching me.
Giving me a choice.
“I need details,” he said. “Everything you remember. Names. Locations. Threats. Timelines.”
The lawyer part of my brain clicked on.
I swallowed, forcing myself into facts. “I have everything written down.”
“He works on the top floor of my building. His office connects to mine through a shared hallway. He’s been watching me for months. I tried everything to ignore him.”
Trigger’s eyes sharpened. “Watching you how?”
“He’d show up in the elevator, at the café. He’d send flowers. Gifts. He’d call my assistant. Then one day he came into my office and shut the door.”
My hands started shaking again.
Trigger’s voice stayed calm. “What did he say?”
“He said he knew I’d been chosen as District Attorney. He said I could make his life easy… or I could make his life difficult.”
I swallowed hard. “He offered a partnership. I said no.”
Trigger’s jaw flexed. “Then he choked you.”
I nodded once, tears slipping free.
Trigger’s eyes went dark.
“Then he forced the engagement,” he said, like he was piecing together a puzzle.
“Yes,” I whispered. “He told me I’d marry him, and then I’d do what he wanted. He said no one would believe me because he’d make me look unstable.”
Trigger’s gaze held mine. “And you believed him.”
I hated the truth.
But I nodded again.
Trigger inhaled slowly, then exhaled like he was compressing rage into something usable.
“I’m going to end this,” he said.
Fear surged. “How?”
He stood and turned back to the window.
“By making him realize,” he said quietly, “that Eagle River isn’t his kind of town.”
9
Trigger
