Page 55

~ SAM ~

I sat in the conference room while Stephen faced me, two of his paralegals filing in and out of the room. Nerves fizzed in my gut. Stephen had been slowly deflating as this case progressed. Today he looked grim, but determined.

Hope.

Please, let there be hope.

When the women left the room and shut the door, he sat back in his chair and stared at me, flicking that heavy ballpoint pen back and forth on the shiny conference table like it was a plastic Bic.

“I gotta tell you, Sam. We aren’t sure.”

Shit. “Okay. What’s going on?”

“Well… for me to introduce this into evidence and get the Judge to look at it, I have to identify where it was obtained. The second I tell them it’s from her criminal father, produced in the courtroom, we hit issues with reliability and character—and if our opponents get it declared inadmissible, we’re screwed. The judge’s call could go either way. We need another source.”

I blew out a breath. “But the other source is me. Same problems, right?”

Stephen nodded. “You see my dilemma. ”

I dropped my head in my hands, fighting the coiling panic in my chest.

But then Stephen cleared his throat. “I don’t want to know if you’ve spoken to Bridget lately in contradiction to your non-contact order. But I do want to ask you, as the defendant in this case, if you believe your wife would be willing to testify to this event?”

I snapped my head up to look at him. “Yes. She would. I’m sure of it.”

His lips thinned. “I think you want to think about that. We’ve already seen evidence that your wife is… less than reliable.”

“She is not—”

“In terms of a witness, primed and coached for the prosecution, then dropping a bomb in the courtroom, yes, she is, Sam. She ambushed her own lawyers, who knows what the hell she’d do to us. We know she’s not too scared to leave the rest of us hanging, balls in the wind.”

“You have no idea,” I muttered, but I was smiling. If it hadn’t been such a serious situation, I would have laughed. He really had no idea.

But Stephen wasn’t amused.

“Sam, if you’re going to bet the house against her testimony, you need to be sure you’ve got the whole story—and that she’ll relay it reliably. You understand?”

“I do. And I’m sure.”

“We’ll see,” he said skeptically. But continued before I could respond. “So, here’s what I’m going to do. I have a phone call or two I need to make. I want you to stay here and think about this. You understand me? I’m going to give you thirty minutes to consider all the sides of this. Then I’m going to come back in here and I’m going to ask you if you’re willing to put your ass on the line for her testimony. And if you are, we’re going to… put some feelers out.”

“Feelers?”

He met my eyes and he looked stern. “Even if we have the testimony, there’s a chance the Prosecution is willing to ride this out and see how it falls. And honestly? There’s a chance the jury has lost so much trust for her judgment that they’ll dismiss this. We’ll have serious grounds for appeal either way, so even if they do, this isn’t over. But… I want to be clear with you, Sam. This is not a homerun. This is… sketchy. Tenuous. And reliant on what appears to be a very unreliable character. At least in the jury’s eyes.”

I clenched my jaw, stopping myself from jumping to Bridget’s defense only because I knew what he meant.

He’d warned me before we started this. The great fallacy of the legal system was that it wasn’t actually about uncovering the truth. It was a game of strategy designed to identify who could maneuver precedent, evidence , and human emotion the most skillfully.

We’d been losing that game. And that meant we were coming into this at a disadvantage. We had to make a judge and jury willing to listen to a woman they now thought was mentally imbalanced and influenced to her own detriment.

“Okay,” I said carefully.

“Now, do you want the good news?”

I looked at him, scared to hope. “There’s good news?”

He nodded and smiled. “If we can get her on the stand, all she has to do is say it happened. If we get that far, we can compel him to testify. And that might be the end of it. He’s a Federal Agent. He does not want to be on a public stand admitting to conflict of interest with this case. Because it will call into question every single case they’ve worked on together. If we establish his judgment is impaired by personal feelings for her, that goes to every case she’s been on… right back to when she was a minor.”

Holy shit.

I swallowed. “If she testifies—which she will—she’ll tell you he was never inappropriate with her, before or after that night.”

“Even if that’s true…” Stephen arched one brow. “I told you when we started this, it doesn’t matter what really happened. It matters how it sounds to a jury. You’re a worldly man, Sam. If you heard that story would you believe the guy had kept his hands and eyes to himself for a decade?”

“No.”

Stephen nodded. “Hence, good news.”

I blew out a breath and he tapped his pen one more time, then got to his feet. “I’m going to go make my calls. You wait here and… think. Do you want a coffee or anything else? My assistant can bring it.”

“Water, please,” I said. I was already tense. I didn’t need a caffeine hit on top of my nerves.

“Done. I’ll see you in half an hour.”

“Wait.”

He had his hand on the doorknob when he turned to look at me, brows high in a question.

I took a deep breath. “How hard would it be to keep this out of the media? For both of them?”

His jaw rolled. “If our feelers work and they sign a plea agreement, the Court never hears why. Even the jury isn’t involved. But if it requires testimony… no chance. And we both know what the media’s going to do with this. And not just to them, Sam. But to you, too.” He held my gaze.

I nodded. “Yeah, I understand.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay. Then… I’ll let you think about that for a while. See you soon.” Then he was gone and I was alone in the room.

I sat back in the chair and rubbed my temples because my head ached. I was glad, though. I’d argued with myself about whether to bring the burner phone to this meeting, but I’d wanted to tell Bridget what came of it as soon as I knew. So, hoping that Stephen was true to his word that he didn’t record these meetings without my knowledge, I slipped the phone out of the inside pocket on my jacket and kept it in my lap, under the level of the table while I texted her. And I prayed.

~ brIDGET ~

I was in a room with Derek and Laurence, spitting mad, because these motions they were preparing could end with Sam charged for breaching the no-contact order .

“We’ve also got grounds for witness tampering, and with State law, we could argue witness intimidation as well,” Derek said flatly. “Whether he gets convicted on the attempted murder or not, we’ve got him.”

I sat with my arms folded, scowling.

“So what is it, Bridget? If we put you on the stand will you perjure yourself to save him? Because I can tell you, all that will achieve is putting you in jail too. I’m not letting this fly.”

“Fucker,” I muttered. “You’re both fuckers. You’re both—”

“Skip the histrionics,” Derek snapped. “Grow up, Bridget. It’s a simple question. Answer it.”

Jeremy stood on the other side of the room. He wasn’t watching me, but his face was set. He wouldn’t be swayed from this.

Then the phone in my pocket buzzed and because I knew it would piss them off, I sat up in my chair and pulled it out, keeping it in my lap and tapping through with shaking fingers because I knew this was going to be Sam telling me if his guys could make this work.

I was shitting myself.

SAM NOTPRIEST: I already know the answer, but I have to ask: Are you willing to throw J under the bus in open court? Testify to what happened and leave nothing out? Even if the media will get it?

I blinked. My first instinct was to be offended that he’d ask. But then, as I was about to type of fucking course , I made myself stop and think.

I spent a lot of time not thinking. Not analyzing stuff. And it hadn’t served us well.

If I’d done more thinking early on, Sam wouldn’t be in this shit to begin with, or I might have realized this thing would mess up their case and brought it up sooner. I could have saved all of us this pain and stress.

So I made myself think.

If I was called to testify after that shambles of a doctor’s testimony, everyone would think I was even more mental. Derek would definitely want to make me look like I didn’t know my own mind, because it helped his case. Especially if he could get them believing that I was lying to save my so-called abuser.

But even if that wasn’t it. Even if they believed me, if I had to tell the whole Court, it wouldn’t just be whether or not Jeremy fucked me, who started it, and whether it affected this case.

It would be me and Sam. And Jeremy. And everyone who vouched for any of us.

My mental state.

Sam looking like a fool, even though it was my mistake.

Jeremy looking like a predator, even though I was the one who crossed the line first.

I’d watched enough clusterfucks online to know the hellfire that social media would rain on this. They were already having a field day with my mental state, commentary on the unhealthy romanticism of Stockholm Syndrome, as well as toxic masculinity.

And every time they talked about it, it was Sam’s picture they used.

This was already a shitshow.

And if this got out publicly, it wouldn’t die. Ever. It might fade with time. But our faces and names would forever be tied to any discussion in this state on domestic violence, the exploitation of women, law enforcement, and the legal system.

Could I handle people thinking I was crazy? Yeah. Mostly. But if I was trying to live a normal life after this, it wasn’t just going to be people in shadows or in courtrooms that looked at me sideways. It would be strangers I’d never spoken to in the grocery store.

Even if Sam was free, the church would turn their back on him because no one would listen. Even though he was amazing.

Even if Jeremy didn’t lose his job, he would be put on admin leave, or something. No way were they letting him keep going after these guys, with or without me. Because there would be a question about every case he was involved in—or any informants or witnesses he handled.

No one was walking away from this looking good.

Could I handle it? Could I sit there, year after year, and face the onslaught every time a new woman got used, or perjured herself or… whatever ?

I wanted to say yes. But I also had to admit, I hadn’t done great with that kind of attention on a much smaller scale before now.

I wanted to say having Sam next to me, I could face anything. But was it true?

We were both exhausted. We were both paranoid. And everyone else was suspicious of us.

I still thought Jeremy didn’t deserve to have his career ruined—at least, not over this. But then… was it true that he was on a vendetta? Was it true that he was jealous? That’s what Sam thought. That’s what his lawyers would argue.

What if it was true?

I looked at Jeremy until he turned to face me and our eyes locked. His jaw flexed.

“You know what the really fucked up thing is, Jer?” I said quietly.

“What?” he muttered.

“I’m the one who gets it,” I said. “What you do and why. And I’m the one you’re determined to destroy.”

He shook his head. “If you think that, then you don’t get me at all.”

I looked back to Derek. “Yes, I’ll testify,” I said. “I’ll answer the questions yes or no. I’ll tell the truth. I won’t perjure myself. Put me on the list,” I said.

Then I told Sam the same thing.

ME: For you. Yes. I’ll tell any of them anything.

SAM NOTPRIEST: It could get really ugly if they don’t let me plead out. My lawyers are going to push for no jailtime at all.

ME: I know. I thought about it this time. I’ll do it. For you. I’ll do anything.