Kelly's phone buzzed in her jacket pocket as she reached the top step. She pulled it out, squinting against the October sunlight reflecting off the screen. A text from her investigator, Marcus Chen: *Found something else. Security footage from the plant. Need to talk before your meeting.*
Her pulse quickened. Security footage. That was the kind of evidence that could unravel everything—or confirm what she'd suspected all along. She typed back quickly: *After I meet with Marcus. Coffee after?*
But before she could hit send, the courthouse door swung open behind her. A man emerged, and Kelly felt the air between them shift in a way that had nothing to do with the October wind.
James Wagner. Of course it was James Wagner.
He wore his prosecutor's suit like armor—charcoal gray, impeccably tailored, every inch the ambitious civil servant. But it was the medal on his chest that caught her eye first. The Medal of Service, pinned just above his heart. She'd seen that medal before, had run her fingers across it in the dark of a hotel room neither of them wanted to remember. He'd earned it as a police officer, back when he still believed the system could be just. Before he'd become part of the machinery that ground people like Marcus Webb into dust.
James's eyes met hers, and for a moment neither of them moved. Recognition flickered across his face—not just of who she was, but of what they were to each other. The prosecutor and the defense attorney. The man who upheld convictions and the woman who fought to overturn them. The forbidden.
He recovered first, adjusting his briefcase slightly. "Kelly," he said, his voice carefully neutral. "Didn't expect to see you here."
It was a lie. They both knew it. The courthouse was where their worlds collided, where their opposite missions put them on a collision course they couldn't seem to avoid.
"James," she replied, keeping her tone professional. "Working late?"
He glanced back at the building, then at her. "Just reviewing some files. You?"
She held up her case folder. "Meeting with a client."
The space between them felt charged with everything unsaid.