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“Looking forward to it, son.”

I end the call, feeling more optimistic that Samantha will be welcomed into our family.

But while my dad might be handling this news okay, my mom will be a whole different ball game.

Samantha

If Silas Hightower wanted to intimidate me, it’s working. This is the first time I’ve been called to his office, and I hope it never happens again. He’s got that look—calm, unreadable—and suddenly I’m seven years old again, bracing for the news that another family’s changed their mind.

My throat tightens, but I school my face into neutrality, the way I’ve done a thousand times before. No tells. No cracks.

But Silas just watches.

His gaze is sharp, cutting through the silence. I shift my weight, subtly, barely—but his eyes flick down, catch it. He sees the way my jaw tenses, the way my fingers curl in on themselves before I flatten them on my thighs.

I look away, pretending interest in a painting I’d already memorized.

Too late.

He leans forward slightly, like he’s just confirmed something. “You don’t have to hide here.”

My spine stiffens.

“Which brings me to why I called you in,” he says.

I hold his gaze, willing myself not to blink. “Have they decided what to do with me?”

My eyes shift from his chest to his face, trying to read him. He’s maddeningly unreadable—same as Luke. I don’t know who trained whom, but I want to crack that code.

“They have. The FBI’s Joint Task Force approved you to serve out your community service with Hightower,” he says.

I blink. “I can… stay?”

He nods once.

A slow breath slips out of me, shaky with disbelief. I glance down at the uniform that’s somehow become familiar—khaki pants, lace-up boots, a black tee under the Hightower hoodie. The cross and shield emblem rests just over my heart. It still gets me—that this place, this crew, built their motto around Psalm 82:3.

Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

“For how long?” I ask, my voice lower now.

This time, something shifts in his face. He lets the mask fall and gives me a real smile. “Indefinitely.”

Air catches in my throat. I’d braced for a year. Maybe two. A chance to prove myself.

But this…

“Your lawyer must be top-drawer,” I say.

He chuckles, and then he reaches into hisactualtop drawer, his expression serious once more as he pulls out a leather-bound book and pushes it toward me.

It’s a Bible.

“Ben is an exceptional litigator, but like everyone around here, he’s not much use if the Spirit doesn’t lead him. This is yours. So you don’t have to use the guest edition.”

With a smile, I accept his gift, and when he prompts me, I open it and study the line of scripture he’s written inside the cover.

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. Psalm 56:8