“Chatter.”
“The DA’s office isn’t happy about your sentence. They’re looking to appeal. Bellini’s getting pressure from the mayor’s office. Word is, she’s on thin ice.”
I weighed that, turning it over in my mind. “So you came here to warn her.”
Jenna looked away, lips pressed tight. “Yes.”
There was a moment of silence, heavy and electric. Somewhere behind us, a siren wailed, then faded to nothing.
“I know you did everything you could,” I said, softer than I meant to. “And I know you’re getting heat from your bosses. But I need to know if Bellini’s going to fold.”
She glanced back at the courthouse, then at me. “Catherine Bellini doesn’t fold,” she said, her voice a whisper. “But everyone has limits.”
I almost asked what hers were, but the question felt too personal for a public square. Instead, I nodded and stepped back, giving her the space she clearly needed. “Thanks for everything,” I said. “I owe you one.”
Jenna managed a half-smile, then walked away, high heels stabbing at the concrete like she was punishing the earth. I watched her go, watched the tension melt from her shoulders once she hit the curb and slipped into her car.
I lingered by the entrance, watching the traffic roll past, replaying the conversation in my head. Something about it felt wrong, like a puzzle with a missing piece. Jenna’s warning had been real, but the fear in her eyes wasn’t for herself. It was for Bellini.
As I lit a cigarette and leaned against the stone pillar, I looked up at the window of Bellini’s chambers. The blinds were closed, but I could picture her inside, back straight, hands folded, waiting for the next move. She didn’t strike me as the kind of woman who got scared. But she was still human, and humans broke in ways you couldn’t always see.
I made a decision, right there on the courthouse steps. If someone was coming for Bellini, I wanted to know why. And I wanted to know who. It was my way out of a thirty-day stint in a cell with some asshole waiting to be sent on to the pen.
I tailed Jenna easy, like I’d done it a thousand times before. She had a silver sports coupe with a vanity plate that read “Law-Her,” which made following her a joke. I kept three cars back and let the rhythm of the road do most of the work. It was dusk, the hour when the town began to change its personality.
Jenna drove like she walked, fast, direct, never checking mirrors unless forced. Her car cut through downtown, past thedead strip malls and several strip clubs, one of which, Shaved Beavers, the Bloody Scythes owned. At a stoplight, she drummed the steering wheel, her head tilted like she was thinking about bailing out of the lane and into the night. Instead, she waited. The light changed, and she roared off, tires singing on fresh blacktop.
I let the rumble of my bike fill the gap, not even bothering to mask the sound. If she noticed, she gave no sign. She led me through the new-money business district, past the glass-fronted law offices and the orthodontists, out toward the edge of town where the suburbs got thick and the streetlights took longer to flicker on.
That’s where she turned. Just off the main drag, into a neighborhood where the houses sat behind perfect lawns, and the driveways were lined with fake stone pillars. Each mailbox was a different design. There were brass eagles in various poses, small windmills, and one shaped like a judge’s gavel. I coasted past, killed the headlight, and rolled to a silent stop behind a hedge of manicured cypress. Her coupe was parked on the curb, just outside a house with a wraparound porch and a fresh American flag snapping in the breeze. The street was quiet, except for the distant whine of a sprinkler and a dog barking three blocks over.
I watched her routine through the side mirror. First, she killed the engine and sat, breathing, both hands on the wheel. Then she checked her face in the visor, mouth twitching as she tried on different expressions. I recognized the anxiety. She was psyching herself up for something, some conversation or confrontation that had her off balance. She leaned down, reached for her purse, and when she came back up, she had a bottle of red in her hand. She unscrewed the cap and took a long, unashamed swig, then wiped her mouth and rechecked the rearview.
She got out, heels clicking, and straightened her suit jacket. She hesitated, then slipped it off, leaving her in a fitted white blouse that showed the lines of her arms. She had more muscle than I’d expected, probably from whatever boxing class she’d taken up to deal with stress. She applied lipstick in the window reflection, the color darker than what she wore in court, and practiced a smile that looked nothing like the one she used when dismantling witnesses. She grabbed the wine, adjusted her skirt, and walked up the flagstone path to the house, shoulders set but posture more open than before. The porch light clicked on as she reached the steps, haloing her in gold.
She rang the bell, and for a second, I saw her face go soft, expressing anticipation, nerves, a flash of something almost innocent? It wasn’t the mask she wore to court, or the brittle confidence she’d tried to show in the plaza. It was the face of someone about to step into a different life, one that didn’t require constant vigilance or self-defense.
She waited, bottle cradled to her chest, shifting from foot to foot. When the door opened, she smiled wide, eyes bright, and leaned forward as if to embrace whoever was inside.
I stayed in the shadow, engine still hot beneath me, watching her silhouette framed against the soft light. I didn’t know what I was hoping to find, only that I couldn’t look away. Jenna Smart, the queen of the courtroom, had just dropped her guard for someone. I had to know who.
The door closed behind her, and the porch light clicked off. I waited a long minute, listening to the steady tick of the bike’s cooling engine, then looked back at the street. No movement, no other cars. Just me and a growing suspicion that whatever game was being played, I was three moves behind.
I made a note of the address, then rode off slow, engine barely louder than the night itself. Tomorrow, I’d come back. I’d see what the next morning brought, and maybe figure out why adefense attorney with everything to lose was sneaking around like she was the one on trial.
I didn’t know if I was watching her for my own sake, or for Bellini’s. All I knew was that someone was about to get hurt, and for the first time in years, I cared enough to want to stop it.
***
The morning after, I made my move early. I cut the engine and rolled the last block on foot, using the hedges and the stale shadows of upper-middle-class suburbia for cover. I’d searched for the address and just about shit myself. The house was quiet with curtains drawn. Jenna's coupe sat in the driveway.
I picked a vantage across the street, half-concealed by a mail drop and an old elm tree, and waited. The sun was just up, burning the dew off the lawns and making the asphalt stink of summer. A jogger passed, then a dog walker, both oblivious to the small drama unfolding behind the tinted glass.
At eight sharp, a figure glided past the living room window. Not Jenna. This one moved with a different rhythm, hips rolling with a confidence that conveyed authority without arrogance. I recognized it instantly. Bellini. Even without the robe, even in a soft gray sweater and lounge pants that looked borrowed from a lover, she commanded the space like a judge presiding over her own private trial.
She opened the door and stepped out onto the porch, blinking against the morning glare. Gone was the severe bun; her hair fell around her shoulders in a tangle that softened the lines of her face. She looked tired, but not defeated. If anything, she looked more dangerous than ever—like a wolf after a long hunt, blood still wet at the jaw. My dick pushed against my jeans, and I chuckled. Fucking the judge who gave me thirty days? Damron would say, “That’s Seneca.”
She leaned against the porch rail and stretched, back arched, face tilted to the sun. I watched her inhale slowly and deeply, as if storing up oxygen for the day ahead. She closed her eyes for a moment, and in that instant, the armor dropped. I saw something raw, something real. A woman who’d fought every inch of her life to be taken seriously, now at peace for the first time in a week.
