We stayed like that for a long moment, bodies tangled and breath heaving. The only sound was the distant drone of traffic and the whisper of her pulse against my fingers.
I pulled out, wiped the sweat from my brow, and zipped up. She sat on the desk, skirt bunched around her waist, legsshaking, hair wild. I watched her fix herself, methodical and angry, like she was daring me to say a word about it.
“Happy?” she spat, voice raw.
“No,” I said. “But it’s a start.”
She laughed, a single, bitter bark. “You’re an asshole.”
I shrugged. “Takes one to know one.”
She tugged her skirt down. She didn’t bother with the mess on the desk, just sat there, breathing hard, eyes locked on the wall.
I picked up my cut from the chair, slid it on, and watched her watch me.
“Don’t ever lie to me again,” I said.
She gave a small, sharp nod. “Don’t give me a reason to.”
I nodded back, the understanding silent but absolute.
When I left the office this time, I didn’t look back.
The hallway was dead quiet, except for the hum of the elevator and the distant clack of an office drone two floors below. I took the stairs, letting the heat off the walls seep into my bones, then killed the rest of my cigarette out front. The street was almost empty. I watched a cop car cruise by slow, then vanish into the blur of downtown like it was running from something instead of chasing it.
I didn’t want to go home, not yet. Home was four walls and a mattress and the echo of everything I tried not to remember. Instead, I drifted. I walked until the city gave way to scrub brush, until the grid of streets frayed into coyote tracks and rusted fences. I found a half-collapsed picnic shelter at the edge of a dry canal and sat there, elbows on knees, just watching the dust.
The fight in the office felt raw in my mouth, the taste of Jenna still stuck to my teeth. It wasn’t even about sex, not really. It was about something uglier—the need to win, to reclaim something that had been stolen, to eradicate the infection before it turned gangrenous. But all it left was more hollow. The things you broke to survive had a way of never going back together.
I sat there until the sun started to knife sideways through the clouds, until the shadows were blue and the traffic picked up again. The thought of going back to the clubhouse didn’t appeal; I wasn’t in the mood for posturing or beer or the kind of loyalty that came with strings. I got up, stretched, and decided on my next move.
Chapter seven
Seneca
Iparked three houses down from Bellini’s place, half in shadow beneath a crabapple tree, the engine still ticking out heat. The street was quiet, and I could only see one porch light on. Guess the neighborhood thought they were immune to thieves. Somewhere, a dog barked with that shrill, neurotic tone only suburban breeds manage.
I left my helmet on the seat. I kept the leather cut zipped, collar turned up, one hand in my pocket where the grip of a Walther rode heavy against my thigh. Not a likely scenario, but old habits stayed alive longer than most people.
Bellini’s house was all angles, stucco, and sharp corners, but with a porch swing painted robin’s egg blue and a flagstone path lined with desert grass. Jenna’s presence had held my attention on my first visit. Now I see Bellini was adamant about aesthetics. The windows were dark except for a golden rectangle just behind the entry. She’d left the porch lamp off, maybe to avoid moths or maybe because she didn’t want anyone to see who came calling after midnight.
I crossed the lawn with silent steps. My pulse stayed low and steady, the same as it had been before a forced entry or a raid. I pressed the doorbell and waited.
It took fifteen seconds, during which I counted the seconds and let my eyes adjust to the nothingness beyond the porch. When the door cracked open, Bellini stood on the threshold, framed in warm light and smelling faintly of citrus. The courtroom mask was gone, replaced by a face that looked both older and less guarded. She wore a navy Henley, sleeves shoved up, and a pair of dark leggings. No shoes. Her hair was down, tangled at the ends like she’d just been raking her hands through it.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said. She didn’t move to open the door wider.
“You shouldn’t be fucking my lawyer,” I replied.
That got a half-smile, more from the left side of her mouth than the right. She considered me for a second, then pulled the door open all the way and stepped aside. “Come in. But keep your voice down. The walls are thin.”
The entry smelled like lemon polish, and the air was cool. The foyer was a graveyard of practical shoes and a heap of law journals stacked on a half-broken umbrella stand. There was a photo of a younger Bellini with two men in dress blues, all three of them grinning and awkward. A coat rack held three different windbreakers and a neon pink dog leash, though I hadn’t seen a dog.
She led me into the living room. It was aggressively normal, almost a parody of what you’d expect a judge to live in: bookshelves packed to sagging, framed degrees hung with exact symmetry, a set of glass tumblers lined up on a midcentury bar cart next to a mostly full bottle of rye. The only chaos was a spread of case files on the coffee table, annotated in three colors of highlighter.
She circled the couch, poured herself a glass of something brown, and lifted an eyebrow in my direction. “Want one?”
I nodded. “Two fingers, neat.”
