Page 154 of Stolen for Keeps
“I told you,” I whispered into her hair. “You were never going to do this alone.”
She nodded against my chest. “I didn’t believe it until now.”
I pulled back just enough to look at her face. “Believe it, Blue. You’re free.”
Dom was somewhere off to the side, getting swarmed by half of Buffaloberry Hill, probably taking a victory lap in pure Powell fashion. I’d tease him later. Right now, this was ours.
I bent my head and kissed her. Not just because she was walking out of this courtroom free, but because she was walking back into a life they couldn’t steal, with me at her side.
47
MAYA
Noah’s arms wrapped around me, crushing me against him. My fingers curled into his jacket, clinging, my breath hitching against his neck.
We’d won.
I was free.
And I was kissing the man I’d nearly left for good. The same man who’d chased me down and never once let go. Right there in the middle of the courthouse, with Buffaloberry Hill watching, and with my uncle David still standing at the prosecution’s table, seething. If they thought I was going to blush and hide, they hadn’t been paying attention.
When we finally broke apart, I turned. I met Uncle David’s glare head-on, my spine straight, my shoulders back. Then I looked at Annamaria.
She stood beside her father, her eyes red from crying, her nails digging into the strap of her designer purse. She’d been the one to inherit the necklace. The one who wanted me buried for daring to take it.
I didn’t say a word.
I didn’t have to.
Her gaze faltered first.
Uncle David muttered something to her, then turned, his wife in tow. The three of them left in a hurry, retreating like rats exposed to daylight.
It was over.
The next thing I knew, Sheryn’s arms were around me, and then Claire’s, and then Mrs. Appleby’s, and before I could even process it, I was in the center of a tangle of Buffaloberry’s finest. Elia. Nick. Hank. The Lazy Moose crew.
They’d come for me.
They’d believed in me.
And the dam inside me broke.
Tears spilled down my cheeks as I whispered, “Thank you. Thank you.”
A warm, strong hand settled on my shoulder, steadying me. Dominic Powell.
When I turned to him, my throat tightened again. He wasn’t just my lawyer. He’d fought for me, dug deeper than anyone else would, and risked his own reputation to uncover the truth.
“How the hell did you pull it off so fast?” Noah asked, stepping in close, his voice raw from everything we’d just lived through.
Dom just smirked, loosening his tie as if the courtroom had been nothing but a poker table. “Trade secret,” he said.
Noah wasn’t buying it. “Come on, Powell. You’re an Angelino. The Beverly Hills clinic records? Fine. I’ll believe you pulled those overnight. But Harlow’s payments? Buried in Montana’s banking maze? We’d been chasing that trail for weeks. And you just dropped it at the last minute?”
Dom laughed, not sheepishly. Just as though he’d won a bet and was still letting the tension melt off his shoulders. “I never got the payment records.”
I couldn’t even form a proper reaction. “What?”
