“He grabbed her. I was maybe a foot away from her?” Kelsey asked.
“And you were looking at her butt?” Alice asked smoothly.
“No. I mean, not really. Maybe I was more than a foot away,you know? We’d been drinking.” Her eyes opened. “Not a lot, though. Yeah. I was a foot away.”
I mentally sighed and listened carefully for possible objections to break up the line of questioning, and on redirect, I tried to rehabilitate Kelsey’s testimony best I could. But Alice had dented her credibility, even while seeming to sympathize with her. Finally, Kelsey was excused.
She pretty much ran out of the courtroom.
Pucci turned toward me, keeping his voice low. “Is it just me, or did that not go well?”
“It went all right,” I said. Kelsey had been shaky from the beginning, and it might’ve been a mistake to put her on the stand. But the jury had liked her, and they’d probably sympathized with her wanting to stick up for her sister and her sister’s boyfriend, who’d been defending her honor. It was a strategy and possibly a good one. “She actually was more effective than you think,” I said, my mind spinning. “We’ll get your two buddies to set up the remainder of the night with their testimony, and then Krissy will bring it home.”
“Good,” Pucci said, leaning back. “She’s solid.”
She’d better be.
Chapter 33
After a late lunch where my mind kept returning to Clark’s statement the night before, I slightly altered my approach to the trial. I’d had one witness after Kelsey and before the break, and he’d done a good job of describing how upset Krissy had been when she’d been grabbed. I’d spent a lot of time with him and so had Alice, and he’d stayed strong. Making the trial about Krissy and not Pucci was the best strategy, and it seemed to be working.
As we settled at our table and waited for the judge to arrive, I glanced toward the back of the courtroom to see that Aiden had gone. He hadn’t joined us for lunch, so I figured he’d be off doing whatever it was he did. I turned toward Pucci. “What’s Aiden’s deal, anyway?”
Pucci straightened his shirt and tried to look responsible. “He’s who he says he is. The president of the Lordes.”
I swallowed. “Yeah, but tell me the truth. I’m your lawyer now, and we have privilege.”
Pucci looked my way, and his deep eyes were serious. “Listen. You’re a nice person when you’re not being all judgy. Aiden is a guy who gets things done. We have a deal going that will make us both a lot of money, and you should like that.”
My head was starting to ache in both temples. “Is it a legal deal?”
Pucci studied me like he hadn’t really looked before. “No.”
For the first time, I felt like he was giving me the full truth. The reality smashed me in the chest, more specifically the heart. The pain was palpable. “He said he wants to go legit.”
“We all want to go legit,” Pucci said quietly. “But then opportunities knock hard and you have to take them. Guys like us can’t help it. We don’t want to help it.” The rare display of wisdom seemed to open the floodgates. “You either need to get on board with that or get out now. Aiden ain’t going to change.”
I’d learned a long time ago that people didn’t change, but how could Aiden go from being my hero at ten to breaking my heart at twenty-four? I wanted Pucci to be lying, but he seemed truthful. “What’s the tattoo all about? The one both you and Danny have?”
He looked down at his arm. “It’s the symbol of my company. Of the men involved in my entire business.”
“And BGC?” I held my breath.
“Brotherhood, God, Country,” Pucci said. “In that order.” He shifted his weight on the wooden chair. “We’re as tight as the Lordes are with each other, but we stay under the radar of the law much better than a motorcycle club does. It’s a smarter way to go with the same benefits. No big and flashy leather jackets that act like neon signs.”
“What’s this deal you have with Aiden?” I asked, my stomach cramping.
Pucci shook his head. “We don’t share info with our women. It keeps us safe and it keeps you safe.”
“Aiden lied to me,” I said, mostly to myself, still not quite believing it. The claw marks down Pucci’s neck stood out, and I felt how dumb I’d been.
Pucci nodded. “I’m sure he did. You can’t exactly tell a lawyer or frankly, a woman, that you’re brokering illegal gun deals.” He jerked. “Shit. We’re covered by privilege. Don’t tell Aiden I said that.” He sat back and his lips pressed together.
Gun deals? They’d been talking about modifying handguns at the campfire, hadn’t they? I knew that was illegal but needed to brush up on the actual statute. The sense of betrayal almost had me falling off the chair. Here I’d been lecturing Krissy about getting out, and I was facing almost incontrovertible truth that Aiden wasn’t who I thought he was. Who I wanted him to be.
The bailiff entered along with the judge, and we all stood as the jury was brought back in. I called Pucci’s other friend to the stand first and ran him through the night in question. He claimed there wasn’t a gun, and he was pretty unflappable on cross-examination. It still took an hour or so longer than I’d expected. We were going to need another day for trial, but at least it’d be finished this week. Tomorrow was Friday. When Pucci’s friend was finished, I turned to Pucci. “He did a good job.”
Pucci looked calmer. “Yeah. Gram is solid.”
