Page 83 of You, Only You

"He absolutely deserved it."

We stood there for a long moment, wrapped around each other in the courthouse hallway while the world continued to turn. The trial wasn't over. The verdict hadn't come. But something had shifted, settled into place like a key finding its lock.

"Come on." Lindsey pulled back, her hand sliding down to take mine. "We have a verdict to win."

"The jury's still deliberating."

"Not for long." She started walking, pulling me with her. "I saw their faces during my testimony. Caldwell overplayed his hand. They don't like bullies."

"You can't know that."

"I can read people." She shot me a look over her shoulder. "It's literally my job."

We walked toward the courtroom together, hand in hand, and I let myself believe—for the first time since this trial began—that we might actually win.

Then my phone buzzed. A text from Bates:

Jury's back. Thirty minutes. Get in here.

Thirty minutes. After weeks of testimony and days of deliberation, the verdict would come in thirty minutes.

Lindsey squeezed my hand. "Ready?"

I looked at her, this woman who'd walked into my darkness and refused to leave, who'd defended me when I couldn't defend myself, who'd just told me she loved me in a courthouse hallway like it was the simplest thing in the world.

"Yeah," I said. "I'm ready."

Whatever came next, we'd face it together.

That was the only thing that mattered.

19.Lindsey

Fourteen times. The word "guilty" echoed and replayed in my head fourteen times, and each one felt like a door slamming shut on a nightmare I'd been living for months.

The foreman's voice was steady, almost monotone, as he read each count. Trafficking. Money laundering. Conspiracy. Fraud. The words blurred together, but the meaning was crystal clear. Victor Reeves sat at the defense table, his expensive suit suddenly looking like a costume that no longer fit. I watched his shoulders slump as the reality crashed over him; the man who'd looked at me like a rounding error was about to spend the rest of his life in a federal prison.

Behind me, someone sobbed. I turned slightly and saw a woman in the back row in her mid-forties, with exhausted eyes, hands pressed to her mouth. One of the victims' mothers. Our eyes met for just a moment, and she nodded at me. Just once. An acknowledgment of something too big for words.

"The defendant is remanded into custody," the judge said, and then the courtroom erupted.

I don't remember the details of what happened next. Press shouting questions. Bailiffs moving toward the defense table. The prosecutor shaking hands with someone from the FBI. Itwas chaos, but a good kind, the kind that comes after something breaks open and all the pressure finally releases.

Then Will was there, pulling me into the hallway, and before I could say anything, his arms were around me.

It wasn't a victory hug. It was a collapse.

He buried his face in my hair, his whole body shaking with something that might have been relief or exhaustion or grief. I held him just as tightly, my own tears soaking into his jacket, and for a long moment we just stood there. Two people who'd survived something together, finally letting themselves feel it.

"It's over," I whispered against his shoulder.

"Yeah." His voice was rough. "It's over."

Bates found us a few minutes later, his usual grim expression moved by something that almost resembled a smile.

"Hell of a thing," he said, clapping Will on the shoulder. "Both of you."

"Thanks, Joseph."