Dark hair. Eyes I can’t name from this distance because of the way light sharpens the irises like glass—blue, maybe, or gray. With a mind like a blade between them. I can see that before she even opens her mouth to speak.
No wasted movement. No nervous tics.
I feel it like a pulse in my throat and a stiffening in my pants. Want. Crude, involuntary sexual want, the body reminding the brain that it is still alive.
It’s been a long time. Eleven years and four of them under the thumb of a man who thought purchasing prison concrete meant owning me. I’ve learned to control my hunger, all kinds.
But control isn’t absence. It’s mastery. I now feel the lust overwhelming my mind and try to push it back where it belongs—at least for the time being.
She clears her throat and stands. “Your Honor, the government opposes release.” Her voice is clear, low, slightly husky. No thoughtless words. Every one of them practiced and precise.
“The record reflects not just a history of violence but a sophisticated criminal enterprise over which Mr. Conti exerted command.”
I watch her mouth shape my name, the way she doesn’t look at me while saying I don’t deserve sunlight. Clever girl. She knows better than to feed a thing like me with eyes.
“Additionally,” she goes on, “there is credible information that—”
Roberto cuts in. “Objection to proffer. If the government has evidence, they should present it, not smear my client with unsubstantiated rumors.”
They go back and forth, steel blade against steel blade, and the judge lets them for a moment. I can read him now, the way his gaze slides to the gallery, the way he moves his eyes over everyone in the room.
He knows who I am. He knows who my family is. He knows his name will be in print after this hearing, whether he wants it or not.
When the prosecutor looks down at her notes, the curve of her neck pulls my eyes like a magnet. I let myself enjoy it for one second, the delicate line of it.
The way her pulse would jump against my teeth if I were a different man and she were a different woman, and we were in a different room.
Then I put it away. She is a problem, not a person. She is trying to keep me in a box. I don’t have the luxury of giving in to impulse. I’ve been starved too long to be stupid.
And yet I am not blind. I notice the shoes—four-inch heels, good leather, but not loud. I notice her suit—tailored, not flashy, revealing her womanly curves in a way that makes the stiffening in my pants become more insistent.
Someone taught her early that appearances are a weapon. She learned the lesson well. She sharpened it. She came into a room full of Contis and didn’t flinch. That earns a measure of respect, even from me.
Vito shifts behind me, restless. I don’t have to look to see it. He’s never been good at standing still for too long. He’s always primed for a fight, that one. He thinks the world owes him, and that’s why he’s not ready to step into my shoes. That’s why Giovanni, my other brother, has been handling business in my stead.
The world doesn’t owe us anything. But we take what we want. That’s our creed.
“Mr. Conti,” the judge says, and the shape of the room tilts toward me. “I see from the file that you completed anger management, conflict resolution—”
“Several times, Your Honor,” Roberto says. “By choice.”
The judge blinks at that. He wasn’t expecting it. “By choice?”
Roberto’s smile is all Sunday mass. “My client is a man committed to self-improvement.”
I almost laugh. Roberto makes the truth sound like a lie and the lie sound like a Sacrament. I did take the classes. Not because I believed in their pamphlets. Because I believe in discipline. Because I believe in knowing what you might do before you do it, and then deciding if it serves you or not.
Hitting a wall doesn’t. Hitting a man sometimes does. But paper trails matter. The judge reads them and thinks he knows your soul. Fine. Learn mine in bullet points and signatures.
“Your Honor,” the prosecutor says, and there’s a slight edge to them now. “With respect, classes do not erase the reality of Mr. Conti’s influence. The risk to the community isn’t his right hook. It’s his command. His network. His influence.”
Network. She says it like it’s a dirty word, and maybe in her world it is. In mine, it means family members who don’t flinch. People who answer the phone at 3:00 a.m. People who show up. It’s the thing that kept me alive in the place bought by a man who hates me and loves my daughter. It means I am not alone.
Lucia’s name crosses my mind again, and I feel my mouth go dry. She is not here.
When I walked in, I allowed myself a quick, quiet scan of the benches, a foolish hope I didn’t admit even to myself. Maybe she would come. Maybe she would stand in the back row with sunglasses and shame and wait until the end to slip out.
Nothing. Just silence and the ghost of my oldest daughter.
