Then I drink to wash the taste of disgust out of my mouth. It’s an honest feeling—rare, these days, in a profession where you learn to tailor your reactions to the courtroom.
You keep the outrage quiet. You file the fury under “professionalism.” You leave with a neutral face and go home to pour something red.
I sit on the arm of the couch, my jacket already slung across a chair, my heels somewhere near the door in a small pile of who-fucking-cares. I keep the blouse on because changing would mean admitting the day is over. And I’m not ready for that.
The silk collar of my blouse is cool against the back of my neck, my hair is down now, cascading down the back of my shirt, and my pants are a bit rumpled.
But I’m not in my apartment right now. I’m back in that courtroom.
It’s designed to make people feel small and important at the same time. Wood that smells like legacy. A ceiling that throws your voice back at you in an echo. The lights that buzz and burn your eyes.
And him—Luca Conti—standing where men like him should be standing. But not to be released. To be put away.
Yet he was released. He’s not in a cell anymore. He’s in his cushy home, no longer suffering the consequences of his own actions.
Even a man like him couldn’t hide his smug satisfaction as he walked out of the courtroom today a free man.
It suits him.
I hate the thought as soon as I think it. It’s vain and shallow. It’s also true. I’ve only seen him in person once, long ago. Since then, it’s just been pictures and news clips.
But there’s no hiding it. He’s fit in the way that says he won’t tolerate softness, even at fifty. No slack in the line, no wrinkle in the suit. Dark hair. Dark eyes, steady, and not the kind that cut wildly to every movement. He doesn’t need to check the exits.
He scans a room once and owns it. The photographs and news clips did not prepare me for what it felt like to be in his orbit: the physical gravity of a man who knows exactly how to make others bend to his will.
I noticed. My body noticed first, which is offensive enough that I drink again to wash the taste out of my mouth. I’ve stood across from men whose hands shook while they threatened me and men who tried to turn charm into a weapon. I’ve dealt with the kind of anger that hopes you’ll flinch and surrender.
Attraction isn’t a stranger; it’s a stray cat that shows up sometimes, and you ignore it until it leaves. But today, for a single breath, it was a wire under my skin, pulling tight. It thrummed and made me itch. It annoyed me because it was automatic, because it had nothing to do with intellect, because it made me aware of my own pulse in a room where I wanted to be all spine.
He looked at me exactly once. It wasn’t leering. It wasn’t even assessing. It was… acknowledgment. Of whatever the hell the current I felt flowing between us is.
Then he put the look away like a man sheathing a knife. I could have respected him more in that second if respect weren’t a luxury I refuse to spend on men like him.
He walks free.
I roll my neck until it pops and set the glass down on the sill. The wine leaves a red half-moon print when I lift it again; my thumbsmears it clean. My reflection in the window is flattened by city light: a woman with dark hair and blue eyes, a woman whose shoulders are squared because they have to be to do what I do. A woman who came to this city for one reason.
I’ve known men like him for a long time. That is to say—professionally, academically, clinically. Law school taught me how to parse doctrine; the courtroom taught me how to read dominion.
I still remember the first time I saw him in person—eleven years ago, on a day I skipped a property lecture and took the train from New York to Atlantic City, because sometimes you must witness history instead of reading about it in a book.
I stood in the back in a borrowed blazer that didn’t quite fit and watched a daughter turn her back on blood for the sake of justice. I didn’t feel triumph then. I felt respect. And inevitability. The system grinding into place. I didn’t know then I’d build my career chasing the echo of that feeling.
Back then, I was the student who showed up early to sit in on arraignments. I clerked for a judge who liked to ask me, “What will the newspaper headline be?” before I wrote memos.
I joined the Southern District because I wanted to work where the real nitty-gritty was. Because I didn’t want to ease my way in.
I took the gun cases, the drug cases, the fraud cases, and the rackets that bound them together. I second-chaired my firstRICO trial with a senior AUSA who kept gum tucked into the corner of her mouth and taught me how to make a jury care.
I learned how to ask the right “why” of a witness without letting it bleed into pity. I learned to love the paperwork—bank statements, ledgers. Numbers always tell the truth when men won’t.
I also learned how to stand my ground when a co-worker with an important last name tries to step in and take over.
I learned how to make myself heard without raising my voice.
And then they reassigned me down here because sometimes the world really does take you in circles.
The Conti name still straightens spines, and the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office needs a win. We didn’t get one today, but we will.
