Page 75 of You, Only You

She exhaled. A long, slow breath, the kind that carries the weight of a whole day with it. "I could get used to that."

"So could I."

Her breathing evened out gradually, her body growing heavy against mine. I lay awake longer, watching the city lights and listening to her breathe and running nothing. No scenarios. No contingencies. No threat assessments. Just listening.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I reached for it carefully, one-handed, because my other arm was wrapped around a sleeping woman and I was not going to be the person who moved.

A text from a blocked number:

You think you've won. You haven't. The trial is just the beginning.

The message disappeared as I watched, self-deleting, untraceable. Reeves's people. Either a genuine threat or the flailing of a man who'd just been indicted on all counts and wanted to feel powerful.

Six months ago, this message would have triggered a full operational response. New security protocols. Threat analysis. Contingency plans cascading through my brain like dominoes.

Tonight, I set the phone down. Pulled Lindsey closer. Felt her murmur something against my chest, a sleep-word, meaningless and warm.

Let them threaten. Let them scheme. They didn't know what they were dealing with. Not me, the Monster of Sterling & Steele,the man who hunted from the shadows. That version of me was real, but it wasn't the whole picture anymore.

They were dealing with two people who'd survived each other. And that, in my experience, was harder than surviving anything else.

I closed my eyes. Sleep came slowly, the way it always did, but tonight the slow approach felt less like insomnia and more like savoring. The room was warm. She was here. The city hummed.

Tomorrow, the war would resume. Reeves's lawyers would file motions. The press would circle. The long, grinding machinery of a federal trial would begin its work, and we'd be in the middle of it, exposed and vulnerable and together.

But tonight, the war could wait. Tonight was eggs and scars and her breath against my chest and the quiet, unremarkable miracle of two broken people choosing to stay in the same room.

I'd take it.

17.Lindsey

Iused to think I understood what pressure felt like, the weight of my father's crimes, the scrutiny of every background check, the constant need to prove I wasn't him. I was wrong. Real pressure was sitting twenty feet from the man who'd tried to have you killed and watching him adjust his cufflinks like he was at a board meeting.

The week before Victor Reeves's trial had been a strange limbo. Will and I had settled into something resembling normalcy; if normalcy meant armed guards, encrypted phones, and making love in a penthouse that doubled as a fortress. Our nights were ours. Quiet conversations in the dark. His hand finding mine across the mattress. The slow, careful rebuilding of trust that had nearly been shattered.

"You talk in your sleep," Will mentioned one morning, his voice rough with exhaustion. "Did you know that?"

"I do not."

"You do. Last night you said something about spreadsheets." He almost smiled. "Very romantic."

"I was probably dreaming about Reeves's financial records."

"That's concerning on multiple levels."

But our days belonged to the case. Prep sessions with the prosecution team. Document reviews. Mock cross-examinations where Rebecca Chen played devil's advocate until I wanted to scream.

"They're going to come after your father again," she warned during one session. "And your relationship with Will. You need to be ready."

"I've been ready for weeks."

"Being ready and being steady under fire are different things." She'd studied me with sharp, assessing eyes. "When they bring up Thomas Ashford, what's your instinct?"

"To explain. To contextualize."

"Wrong. Your instinct should be to redirect to the evidence. Every time. Don't let them make this about your family. Make it about the numbers."

I practiced until the redirects felt automatic. Until I could hear my father's name and pivot without flinching. Until I almost believed I was ready.