She didn’t answer, just turned to her monitor and clicked the mouse a few times. The screen reflected in the gloss of her lipstick. She had a tell—she always did this thing with her jaw when she was nervous, just the smallest grind of her molars, like she was chewing over the next move. I’d seen it in court enough times to know when she was prepping for a hostile witness.
“Did you stop by Bellini’s office?” I asked, soft.
Jenna froze, just a flicker, hands going rigid around the ceramic mug. “She’s presiding on your case,” she said. “I had to drop off a motion. You know how this works.”
“Do I?” I said, letting it hang.
She sighed, a sound so thin it barely registered. “Seneca. Can we not—”
“No, let’s,” I said. I leaned forward, elbows on knees, eyes on hers. “Let’s pretend for a second that I don’t know how this works. Let’s pretend I’m just another dumb musclehead who can’t read the room.”
She closed her eyes, just a second, then set the coffee down with a click. “You’re pissed because I went over your head. Fine. But that’s the job, Wallace. I fight for you, I negotiate, I keep you out of a cell. You want to bitch about my methods, do it when you’re not one week from another stint.”
I laughed, dry and mean. “That’s not what I’m bitching about.”
Jenna turned her chair, arms crossed. The sunlight caught in her hair, glinting off a thousand micro-splits, and for the first time, she looked older than she was, tired in a way that didn’t scrub off. “Then what, exactly, is the issue?”
I let the words build, slow and careful. “I saw you come out of her office. I saw the way you looked back at the door, like you left something behind.”
She tried to meet my stare, but her eyes slipped sideways. “You’re being paranoid.”
I stood, closed the gap between us, and planted both hands on her desk. The surface trembled, and a stack of files slumped sideways. “You’re fucking the judge who’s handling my case.”
The silence in the room went absolute. For a second, I could hear the payday loan clerk downstairs, yelling at a customer about overdraft fees.
Jenna’s face snapped back to mine, anger bleeding in behind the shock. “That’s completely inappropriate and untrue,” she said, voice shaking. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You kissed her,” I said, quiet. “Out front, in the open. Morning after you spent the night together.”
The color dropped from her face. She reached for her coffee again but knocked it into the files. Hot black streaked across yellow paper, and she swore under her breath. She snatched up a tissue, tried to dab the mess, and finally just balled the whole thing in her fist.
“Look at me,” I said.
She did. The mask was gone now, just raw panic and a little bit of fear. “What do you want?” she said. Not defiant, not even pleading—just tired, like she’d already lost and was hoping for a quick execution.
I didn’t have an answer. I’d come here to rage, to threaten, maybe to flip the table and storm out. But seeing her like this, with hands stained and mouth half-open, I felt something catch in my chest. Not pity—never that—but a kind of recognition. The same animal instinct that told you when another dog was cornered.
I sat again, softer this time, and let the moment stretch. “How long?”
She stared at the ruined paperwork. “A while. Off and on. It’s complicated.”
I almost laughed. “It always is.”
She pulled her hair back, twisted it into a knot, and stabbed it in place with a pencil. “We were never supposed to cross wires here, Wallace. I wanted to keep it clean. You have to believe that.”
“Do I?”
She met my eyes, and this time she didn’t look away. “Yes. Because if you’re not safe with me, you’re not safe at all.”
I watched her, waiting for the bluff. But there was none. Just two people, equally fucked, equally out of moves.
“So what now?” I said.
Jenna leaned forward, voice down to a hush. “Now, you keep your mouth shut, finish your thirty days, and let me work. You don’t make this messier than it already is. Can you do that?”
I thought about it. About Bellini, about the last time I’d trusted anyone in a suit, about the way Jenna’s hand trembled just above the desk, like she was itching for a weapon that wasn’t there.
“Yeah,” I said. “I can do that.”
