Chapter 7
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.”
She poured, handed me the glass, and let her fingertips linger against mine as she passed it off. The contact was deliberate. She watched my face for a reaction. I gave her none.
We stood there, two feet apart, each with a glass and an arsenal of words. For a moment, nothing happened but the sound of her swallow and the tick of an analog clock on the mantle.
“So,” she said, “you’re here. You want to tell me why?”
I sipped, letting the burn slide down my throat before answering. “You wanted a follow-up. I thought in person would be less traceable.”
She moved to the couch but didn’t sit; she just leaned one hip against the armrest, body angled toward the exit. “You could’ve picked a better time.”
“Could’ve picked a better judge,” I said.
That broke the tension for a split second. She actually laughed, low and sharp, before schooling her features again. “You’re an asshole, Wallace.”
“People keep saying that.”
She let her gaze linger on my scar, then dropped to my hands. “Are you carrying?”
I nodded.
She considered, then pointed to a small safe bolted to the wall under the bar cart. “Standard rule in this house. Firearms in the box.”
I set my glass down, unholstered, and palmed the weapon into the safe without protest. She watched me the whole time, like a scientist observing a new animal in the wild.
“Why the security?” I asked, keeping my voice just loud enough to register as non-threatening.
“You already know,” she said. “They teach you about escalation in the Corps?”
“Marines, not the Army,” I corrected. “But it’s the same concept. You expect trouble?”
“I expect someone to overplay their hand. Sometimes it’s you.” Her eyes narrowed. She loved to play games.
We stood there for another minute, drinks halfway done, neither one willing to be the first to break posture.
I let my gaze wander around the room. The photos told a different story than from the judge’s bench.
There was a series of family gatherings, all men in ill-fitting suits, women clustered around a matriarch who looked like she could break up a knife fight with a flick of her wrist. Bellini featured in almost every one, always near the center, always in a different version of the same navy dress.
There were medals and plaques from a dozen civic organizations.
On a lower shelf, tucked behind a row of battered hardbacks, was a single music box shaped like a grand piano.
I recognized the motif—the kind sold in Little Italy gift shops back east.
“You still play?” I asked, nodding to the music box.
She followed my gaze. For the first time all night, her expression softened. “Not in years,” she said. “Too many memories attached. My mother used to make me practice scales before breakfast.”
“Same with me and the heavy bag. Discipline first, everything else after.”
She moved to refill her glass, and I watched as her hand trembled slightly as she poured. The sight made my chest feel tight in a way that wasn’t from adrenaline or fear.
“Why’d you really come?” she asked, her voice lower now, almost a whisper.
I weighed my words. “Wanted to see if you were as tough off the bench as on it.”
“And?”
I took another sip. “You’re harder to read, but easier to trust.”
She tilted her head. “Trust is a dangerous word in my line of work.”
“Same in mine.”
The clock ticked, and we stood there, two animals on the edge of instinct, neither willing to make the first move. She closed the space between us, her body stopping just inside my reach. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said.
“Doubt it,” I replied.
She smiled, all teeth. “You’re wondering why I haven’t called the police.”
“Why haven’t you?”
She took a deep breath, the rise and fall of her chest visible through the thin cotton of her shirt. “Because I’m tired of pretending I don’t want to do something I shouldn’t.”
I set my glass down and waited.
She surprised me. Instead of coming closer, she turned and walked to the far end of the room, picking up a file from the table and thumbing through it as if reading. “If you’re looking for leverage, Wallace, you won’t find any here.”
I watched the set of her shoulders, the way her hair spilled across the back of her shirt. “Not looking for leverage. Just clarity.”
She barked a laugh. “Clarity doesn’t exist. There’s only who gets to write the last sentence.”
I found myself smiling for the first time all night. “That sounds like something a judge would say.”
“You want to know what scares me?” she said.
I nodded.
“Nothing anymore. That’s the problem.”
I understood. I finished my drink and let the warmth settle in my chest. Outside, the neighborhood was silent, the world pared down to just the two of us in a room full of ghosts and broken rules.
“You should go, Seneca.” Her lips said one thing, but her eyes said something entirely different.
I could do the same to her that I did to Jenna, but the risk was far greater. When I finally moved to leave, I grabbed my gun, but she didn’t follow me to the door. She just said, “If you come back, I’ll let you play the piano.”
I left her there, framed in light and shadow, and stepped out into the night, the memory of her hand still burning against my skin.
The world had just gone quiet when the first bullet shattered the front window.
There was no warning, no shout, not even a footfall on the porch. Just a sudden, surgical crack and the sound of glass going everywhere at once.
I didn’t think. I acted. One second, I was halfway to the door; the next, I was on top of Bellini, driving her down behind the couch. My arms wrapped around her shoulders, forcing her head into the gap between the cushions as shards and splinters of wood whipped through the air above us.
The second shot came before we even hit the floor, this time through the sliding glass at the back of the house. Those outside were playing for keeps. The couch frame jumped, stuffing and splinters flying down over my shoulder.
Bellini didn’t make a sound. Her body stiffened under me, but she curled her arms tight against her chest and waited, exactly as you’d expect from someone who grew up watching people get shot at.
I shifted my weight, keeping her covered with mine, and scanned the room.
The front window was a hole the size of a dinner plate.
Glass sparkled everywhere. On the opposite wall, a high-velocity round had punched through the bookshelf, sending a landslide of legal tomes onto the carpet.
The only cover was the couch, and even that was going to buy us about five seconds if they started walking rounds in.