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Chapter Twenty-Eight
Well, look who showed up.
I sat in the courtroom, feeling like every eye in there was on me. They weren’t, but it was an unnerving feeling. As though, up until then, I’d been playing at something I didn’t truly understand.
I looked back to Mum, who shrugged. My defence lawyer was late.
I don’t know if Mum was more pissed or me. She’d grovelled to Rocco to get him to find us the best lawyer. He’d promised he would. Seemed an odd promise when he was the one who’d put me in this situation in the first place. Well, no. I had. But he’d sealed the deal.
“Apologies, your honour,” I heard from behind me, and my blood ran cold.
I knew that voice. That voice echoed in my head, constantly telling me I was never good enough. Why the fuck was he here?
I looked back again, and I saw the sheer panic and confusion on Mum’s face. Her eyes slid to mine, and I saw the apology in them. I didn’t know what she was apologising for, she didn’t look like she’d planned Rocco’s appearance not just at my hearing but as my defence.
But there he was.
The familial resemblance was impossible to ignore. With his dark brown eyes and darker hair, his tall frame filling out his suit impeccably. The ability to look haughtily superior to every other person in a room. The square jaw. The cheekbones. Even the fucking eyebrows. I was him twenty-odd years ago, and he was me in twenty-odd years if he hadn’t made sure I’d never amount to anything.
Suddenly everything I’d done to prepare in the last week disappeared from my head and I was that little kid cowering in the corner of the room as Rocco’s fist backhanded towards me.
Dunbridge had been a source of help and, dare I say, consolation for the past week. He’d been at all the meetings with the lawyer to the point that the guy thought Dunbridge was dating Mum. Once we’d pointed out he was my main character witness, the lawyer had been a little less bothered with his attendance.
Whenever I’d walked out of the offices in exasperation after the lawyer asked one too many fucking stupid questions about my past behaviour, Dunbridge had been the one to follow me out and talk to me calmly, not batting an eyelid at the number of smokes I went through.
I’d lost a lot of the contempt I’d held for him as he stood by my side when he hadn’t needed to at all. He didn’t treat me with kid gloves. He got straight to the point. He was firm but…kind. It might have taken me five years, but it turned out Mr Dunbridge wasn’t that bad in the end. Guy was just doing his job after all.
“Mr Lombardi, you’ve had time with your client?” the judge asked.
Rocco smiled at him. He looked like a shark. Seeing him in his element, I didn’t doubt he was one of the sleaziest and best lawyers in Sydney. He exuded the kind of calm and calculating vibe that said he was well-versed in talking himself – and his clients – out of anything.
“We are fully prepared, your honour,” Rocco said.
He might have been, but I wasn’t.
As the police prosecutor and Rocco got down to business, I felt much less grown up than I thought I’d been. Getting into a few fights and being popped in cuffs before being sent home with a smack on the wrist was nothing compared to sitting in a courtroom with a judge who looked like he already hated me before I’d even opened my mouth.
This wasn’t fun. This wasn’t something I could joke off with Piper about my number of arrests like it was a badge of honour, not that she knew things had got this far. This affected the future, and I was just starting to believe I could have one, even if it was without Piper.
Rocco argued for me like he honestly gave a fuck about what happened to me. It was the impassioned speech of a man who desperately believed I was a good boy who deserved a second chance, even if he had no personal investment in me.
He didn’t look at me, but he was fierce in his defence of me. It brought up conflicting feelings in me and I was surprised that he’d bothered. As far as we knew, he’d organised my lawyer, agreed to pay all costs, and that was the end of his involvement in any such matter again. But here he was.
Even more surprising was when Piper’s parents took the stand.
Bree and Matt were perfectly happy to testify that I was a bright kid, who just needed help finding his way again. They told the judge I was kind and courteous, but I’d taken my teenage rebellion a little too seriously. The way Bree said it earned her a very small smile out of the judge.
Then it was Dunbridge’s turn.
I wiped my hands on my pants.
It was stupid, but I felt like this was all some sort of sick joke. After everything I’d put him through, Dunbridge would just get up and basically damn me straight to gaol. I mean, I had set his wastepaper basket on fire only like three months ago.
But he didn’t. He kept his word and I realised it was the first time I could remember a man keeping his promise to me. It was a novel feeling. I didn’t hate it. There was this feeling of something…good spreading in my chest. Like I could breathe more easily.
“Mr Lombardi is an adult in the eyes of the law,” the police prosecutor was saying to him.
Mr Dunbridge nodded. “Roman’s been eighteen all of a few months and hasn’t even finished school yet. Half the world treats him like an adult, and the other like a child. It’s no wonder he hasn’t figured out how he’s supposed to act.”
