Chapter One
Luca
I stand when my name is called.
The wood paneling in this courtroom has seen more confessions and lies than a church. It smells like polish and old secrets. The benches creak from years of use, and the overhead lights have that cheap fluorescent buzz that used to make me grind my teeth during arraignments. Eleven years later, the sound is the same. Everything else is different.
“Mr. Conti.” The judge peers at me over half-moon glasses. He’s new—new to me, at least. I knew the last one, the one who put me away. This one has a smoother face, but a strong voice whenhe says my name. “We’re here today on the Petition For Release. I’ve reviewed the file.”
Beside me, Roberto murmurs, “Hands on the table. Relax the shoulders.” He always sounds like he’s telling me where to hold a golf club, not my life. That’s my little brother for you—law school, charm that cuts like a scalpel, and a suit so sharp it could open a vein. He taps a legal pad with one finger. “Let me do the talking unless he asks you directly.”
I nod once.
Behind us, I feel my offspring before I see them. You know your blood by the way a room bends around their very presence.
Vito carries a storm wherever he goes—heat, impatience, his jaw set like concrete. Twenty-eight. He was practically a kid when I was put away, and this is the first time I’ve seen him in eleven years without glass between us. He’s carved out now, leaner, meaner, something hard in the eyes.
Nico stands a step behind, not as intense, but with a quiet energy, like a blade. At twenty-six, he doesn’t have the intensity that Vito has. Instead, he stands quietly, waiting, observing.
Caterina is to their left, dark hair pulled back, chin up. Fourteen when I was put away, imagine my surprise when she announced on one of her visits that she wanted to go to college. “To be an accountant, Papá,” she said. “For the family.”
Pride had filled my heart to hear her say those words. She stands now with a steel spine and eyes that command the respect of everyone in the room.
There’s a feeling of an empty space in the row, though, a gap so big that it wouldn’t fit in this courtroom.
People always leave a space for the dead. But Lucia isn’t dead. She’s just… gone. Erased herself from us and painted over with another man’s name. I taste her name like blood behind a tooth. Lucia. My oldest, my first born.
My pride, my curse.
The last time I saw her was in a courtroom just like this. She was swearing to tell the truth, eyes slick with betrayal. My little girl, who learned how to cut with words. My little girl, who helped them bury me.
“Counselors,” the judge is saying. “We’ll proceed with argument. Mr. Conti”—he means Roberto, but I still feel the riffle along my spine—“you may begin.”
Roberto stands like the room is a camera, and we’re already winning the frame. “Your Honor,” he says, “the Department of Corrections has certified Mr. Conti’s completion of all required programs. His record for the past four years shows no disciplinary actions—”
The words “four years” unlock something at the base of my skull. The courtroom blurs for a beat, and all I can see are gray cinderblock walls and a rich man’s cologne filling the room.
Nick Dixon’s money soaked the mortar of the prison when he bought it. The guards stopped looking me in the eye after the acquisition papers went through.
Favors dried up, comforts disappeared, friends turned their palms over to show nothing but skin. The way time slowed to a viscous drip and every day tasted like someone else’s victory.
He bought the place I ate and slept, and breathed, and then took my dignity as rent.
I keep my face smooth. Roberto is talking about good behavior like it was a choice. It wasn’t.
It was a weapon I turned inward and sharpened with patience. Keep your head above water, Dixon said all those years ago. And you can live out the rest of your sentence like a docile old dog.
So, I kept my head down. I counted the days. I learned the names of the men Dixon trusted. I learned his world while biding my time in a box I loathed. I learned how small I could make myself without forgetting who I am.
But I haven’t forgotten. No, I’m sharper than ever. Luca Conti forgets nothing. Certainly not the faces of his enemies.
“—the parole board recommendations, the letters of community support,” Roberto continues. “Mr. Conti has a verified residence with family, employment opportunities waiting, and substantial ties to the community. He poses no flight risk.”
He says it automatically, and I let him. That is his job: to render me into the most palatable version of myself that the state can digest and excrete back into the world.
On the other side of the aisle, a chair slides, a folder opens. For the first time, I look at the other side of the room.
The woman at the table is the one trying to hold me here, and of course, she’s beautiful. Life likes symmetry. I have learned to understand it and respect it. Tall, composed, a posture that exudes confidence and command.
