1
SOFIA
Twelve counts. Twelve chances for a jury to look Alejandro Reyes in the eye and tell him his life is over. I've been waiting twenty-three months for this moment, and the foreperson hasn't looked at the defense table once since she stood up.
That's how I know.
"Has the jury reached a verdict?"
The foreperson stands a little straighter. She's a retired schoolteacher from Astoria, sixty-two years old, with reading glasses on a beaded chain around her neck.
"We have, Your Honor."
"On the first count of the indictment, racketeering conspiracy under Title 18, United States Code, Section 1962, how does the jury find?"
"Guilty."
The word lands like a hammer strike. Behind me, someone in the gallery exhales. To my left, at the defense table, Alejandro Reyes doesn't move. He sits in his expensive suit with his expensive haircut and his hands folded on the table like a man at church, and he doesn't react at all.
His lawyer does, though. William Prescott, one of the most expensive criminal attorneys on the East Coast, leans over and whispers something in Alejandro's ear. Alejandro shakes his head once.
"On the second count, conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute controlled substances, how does the jury find?"
"Guilty."
Count after count, the same word. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Twelve counts in total, and the schoolteacher from Astoria reads each one in the same steady, unaffected voice.
I keep my face neutral, allowing no smile, no visible satisfaction. The cameras are watching, and the last thing I need is footage of me gloating that ends up on some defense attorney's appeal brief. But beneath the table, my hands are trembling, not from nerves but from the kind of adrenaline that comes when something you've poured your entire life into actually works.
Judge Whitmore thanks the jury and sets sentencing for six weeks out. My co-counsel, Aaron, squeezes my arm as the courtroom dissolves into noise. Reporters shout questions. Defense attorneys confer. Marshals move toward the defendant.
Alejandro Reyes finally turns. Not toward his lawyer, not toward the marshals approaching with handcuffs. Toward me.
He looks at me the way a man looks at the person who just ended his life, not with anger but with something colder, something that saysI will remember your face.
I hold his gaze. I don't look away until the marshals take him through the side door and it clicks shut behind him.
Then I gather my files, slide them into my briefcase, and walk out of the courtroom like it's any other day.
But it's not any other day.
In the hallway, Aaron catches up to me. He's grinning so hard it looks like it hurts. "Twenty-five years minimum on thesentencing guidelines. Twenty-five, Sofia. We just put away the Vega cartel's entire northeast distribution network."
"We put away one man," I correct him, but I'm smiling now because we're past the cameras and past the gallery and it's just us in the fluorescent-lit corridor. "The network will restructure. They always do."
"Can you just enjoy this for five seconds?"
"I enjoyed it for the entire jury reading. That was at least ninety seconds."
He laughs and shakes his head. "You're impossible. Drinks tonight? The whole office is going to Murray's."
"Maybe. I have to call my mother first."
"Your mother can wait. This is the biggest RICO conviction this office has had in years."
He's right. It is. And I should go celebrate with the team that helped me build it, the paralegals who organized tens of thousands of documents. The junior attorneys who drafted motions at midnight and the investigators who risked their lives getting witnesses to cooperate. They deserve a night out. They deserve to feel this win.
I pull out my phone as Aaron walks ahead, already texting the group chat. Three missed calls from numbers I don't recognize. Two voicemails. I delete them without listening. I know what they'll say. I've been getting calls like these for months.
