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Chapter 638
Chapter 638:
“Were disabled. My team saw to that.” He paused. “But the surrounding area was not. Traffic cameras on Fifth Avenue. The hotel’s exterior security. The Aston Martin’s trajectory, its speed, the angle of impact — all of it creates a pattern a competent investigator could follow p>
He reached into his jacket and withdrew a small object — black, unmarked, the size of a thumb drive — and placed it on the coffee table between them.
“What is it p>
“Everything.” Easton leaned back. He looked tired, she realized — the lines around his eyes deeper than she had noticed before, his gray irises shadowed by something that might have been fear. “The original footage from every camera within three blocks. The traffic control data from the intersection. The Aston Martin’s onboard computer — yes, it had one, despite what Vera believed. I had my team install a micro-recorder before she collected it. A failsafe. Primitive, but sufficient to record speed, braking patterns, and steering angle p>
June stared at the drive. “You hacked the traffic control system p>
“I hacked everything.” His voice was flat. “The hotel’s security network. The municipal traffic database. The private servers of three different valet companies operating in that zone.” He turned to look at her. “Then I destroyed the originals. Overwrote them with corrupted data. Created a digital trail that leads nowhere, to no one, to nothing p>
“That’s—” June stopped. Her throat was dry. “Easton, that’s obstruction of justice. Computer fraud. Destruction of evidence. If anyone finds out p>
“They won’t p>
“Your license p>
“Is irrelevant p>
𝗥𝖾a𝖽 t𝗁𝖾 𝘭𝘢t𝖾𝗌𝘵 t𝗋𝗲ո𝘥𝘀 о𝘯 ѕ.c𝘰𝗺
“Your freedom p>
He moved — faster than she expected — his hand closing around hers where it rested on the cushion between them. His grip was firm and warm, the pressure of his fingers speaking of things his voice would not.
“I made a choice,” he said. “When you turned that key. When you aimed that car. When you chose to destroy them rather than forgive them.” His thumb moved across her knuckles in a small, quiet caress. “I chose you. Not the law. Not my career. Not the principles I have spent my life defending.” He paused, his gray eyes holding hers with absolute steadiness. “You p>
June felt something crack inside her. A wall, a barrier, the frozen fortress she had built around herself in the years since Caleb’s death, since Cole’s betrayal, since the slow grinding destruction of everything she had once believed about love.
She looked at their joined hands. At the man who had just committed felonies on her behalf, who had placed himself between her and consequence, who asked for nothing and offered everything.
“Why?” she whispered.
Easton smiled — a small expression, tired and tender and utterly without reservation.
“Because you are not the only one,” he said, “who knows how to take a debt to the grave p>
He released her hand. He picked up the drive from the coffee table, walked to her desk, and fed it into the shredder she kept for sensitive documents. The sound was mechanical and final — the grinding of metal and plastic and silicon into particles too small to reconstruct.
When he turned back, she was standing. She had crossed the space between them without deciding to, moved without conscious thought.