Page 161 of Prey for You

We held each other.

“Wait,” she said a moment later, lifting her head. “How are you here? It’s the middle of the day. Is this already happening? Have you already—”

“No.” I had hope, but we were a long step from beingfinished.“But this was important enough to risk getting caught.” Then I huffed, becauseirony.

Now who doesn’t want to talk, Sam?

“What?” she asked.

I took a deep breath. “I think your father is the one that gave us the lead.”

She tensed in my arms. “What? How? Wait… did you go—”

“No, no. Nothing like that. Someone left an envelope for me on our table in the Courtroom. That’s hard enough to do on its own, but the things it said referred to our conversation. And the timing was… pretty fucking perfect.”

Bridget sighed. “God, of course he’d wait to give up the goods when they have the biggest impact. Just so he could go watch it all play out and know he did it.”

I nodded and held her to me tightly. She cupped a hand at my neck and sighed.

“I just want to have a life where I don’t have to destroy other people—or myself—to be happy,” she breathes.

I swallowed hard. “Me too. Though, I have to say, Jeremy doesn’t seem to have any moral dilemma with ambushing people, so maybe it’s about time he had a taste of his own medicine.”

She snorted.

We both agreed we had to do this by the book. The whole situation felt sordid and awful, and like a fucking lifeline. But I told her the only way I’d ever be free is if we did this in the light, not in the shadows.

She agreed.

So, with her sitting there with me, I called Stephen.

“I have to tell you, I think I know who left that message.”

Stephen cursed, then cursed again when I told him the truth about how I got the envelope, and why.

There was frantic scrambling on the other end of the line, Stephen and his team, fluttering papers and tapping on computers. “Leave it with us. You come in tomorrow. And until then, you keep your fucking nose clean, do you understand me?”

I looked at Bridget and nodded. “I hear you.”

“What is it?” she asked as soon as I hung up the call.

“I can’t stay,” I said hoarsely.

“What? Surely it’s better for you to leave when it’s dark and—”

“I had to be above board with all this, Bridget. I can’t… I have to do this right.”

She sighed and leaned into my shoulder again, hugging me. “Okay. But, call me?”

I cupped a hand over her head, laying my arm along her spine. Then I closed my eyes and said the thing I’d wanted to say to her countless times, but always been too scared. “Bridget… could I pray with you?”

She went still. “I, um, I don’t really—”

“No, I mean… Could I hold you, and pray for you. And for us. And just… can we do that together? You don’t have to say anything.”

She hesitated, then sighed. “What could it hurt? Sure.”

~ BRIDGET ~

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