The media carnival was almost ready to begin. Fighting for a prime spot were camera’s, lights, cameramen, and eight television remote trucks, including one from CNN. Technicians trailed wires across the ground, covering them with silver electrical tape. Photographers leaned precariously over the plastic police barriers, pushing their luck for that one golden front-page shot.
Blazing a path through streets of fascinated residents, the black sedan approached.
Castillo sat in the back seat hidden from the outside world by the tinted rear windows. The man everyone was waiting to see ? wearing a dark grey suit, white shirt, and a wine-colored tie. Hands cuffed together at the wrists ? feet cuffed at the ankles. Held against his will. Though it wouldn’t be long before he was free, he was sure of that. When the world handed Vincent Castillo a raw deal, he made sure those responsible felt the demons karma owed them. He’d trap the parasites responsible, open the door and throw the devil in.Those bitch ass motherfuckers better prepare to get laced.
His attorney was permitted to ride with him, tall, professional, tough as iron. Beside him sat a city Marshal. There were two other marshals in front, including the driver.
“You’ve sure drawn a crowd,” said the marshal in the back seat.
Castillo’s eyes swept over the crowds. “Cockroaches,” he remarked contemptuously. The boss leaned close to his attorney’s ear. “It’ll be a breeze,” he said, his voice a confidential whisper.
His attorney sighed, his light eyes revealing nothing. “Best case, yes. Worst case, the judge will charge you with the murder in the first degree.”
Malevolent as ever, Castillo smiled and then looked out the window at a cluster of cheering admirers. “I don’t find that likely,” he said, eyeing the crowd. He truly believed, without a doubt, that he would walk free.
He manipulated.
And he was good at it.
His jubilant personality always won the jury over. They saw good in his broad fake-ass smile. Trusted the monster behind it. Regular people would often learn so easy that trust was the most fatal mistake of all.
When someone noticed blue lights whirling on top of a vehicle, they called out loud and a frenzy began. Spectators half rose to crane their necks, and photographers hung from the curbs. When the cop car sailed into full view of the passionate crowds, the clapping and cheering rose in intensity as the sedan approached the entrance to the New Central Courthouse on Union Street. As the car pulled to a stop outside the Courthouse, the sun glistened across the glass panes of the relatively new building. Developers had turned the old courthouse into a huge upscale splendour of glass and precast concrete structure. It was a great feature, soaring and rising improbably against the featureless sky, as the media jostled for position to get a shot of Castillo against the adorning backdrop
Moving around the car, a marshal went towards the door on the convicts’ side. Inside the car, Castillo’s feet were unshackled. Once space was cleared, the door opened and he exited the vehicle with a camera-ready smile on his lips and freedom in his focus. Pacing quickly with an adrenaline momentum, he marched up the steps that ascended toward the double oak doors that would decide his fate. As he approached the doors, an officer opened one wide to let him pass beyond, to the inside.
Castillo stomped into the lobby, rehearsing his opening statement in his mind. Shaking the chill from his shoulders, he was immediately patted down and searched. Looking down the long, foreboding hallways, he noticed how deserted they were.
The clunk of a doorknob sounded from down the hall and he observed the judge crossing between two rooms and slowly growled through his teeth. His two eyes didn’t leave the man’s face and when he turned towards the commotion, he saw the man note his presence and sent the judge a nod along with a cold grin, a thin veneer of good over the evil that lay beneath.
He ain’t gonna know what hit him.Castillo vowed, licking his lips. He could feel it, taste it. This was going to be fun, a game he’d already won.
The judge smiled back.
Chapter Ten
Strike Three …you’re out
As Bruno De Luca entered the great courthouse, uniformed police officers and paralegal types alike stared at him with wide-eyed curiosity. Curiosity….and caution. Bruno needed only to glance at them to know they feared him in every possible way. If they really knew him, they’d know he’d never harm an innocent. To gun for a man or woman who didn’t have the capacity to defend themselves would be weak, bordering on pathetic, now wouldn’t it?
The court steward checked Bruno in on Castillo’s case on a check sheet and advised the big man where to go, “Castillo’s lawyers have arrived. You can wait just down the hall. Courtroom F.”
Bruno barely nodded his head. Tense from the tip of his toes to his hulking shoulders, ice-filled his veins, seizing up his muscle fibers as he moved. What the bloody hell was wrong with him? It wasn’t anything he wasn’t used to. Black aviators hung loosely across his nose, framing his very deadly, yet undeniably sexy face.
Echoes filled the hallways with the whispers of speculation stirring. Each step he took, more males and females alike looked up. The noise level in the area dropped dramatically as he approached the crowd, but Bruno walked wordlessly past Castillo’s friends and family. Then he saw Sophia’s face and had to stop as he thought he’d better make sure she was all right.
The woman tentatively stepped forward.
Wrapping his big arms around her, Bruno held her for a moment. He could feel that she was trembling like panic had flooded into her bones and she wasn’t settling like he thought she would. “I’m worried,” she whispered.
“You’re husband’s a tough man,” he told her. Hoping he’d settle her mind. “He’ll kill it in there, you’ll see.”
Sophia nodded, flashing a ghost of a smile.
When Bruno turned and scanned the area for a place to sit, he found Marco sat against the wall that ran parallel to the door. He paced over to the man.
“You look like hell.” Marco raised a brow at him.
“Yeah, well…” Bruno offered a dismissive shrug and plopped down onto the chair beside his cousin without another word.
