Chapter 4
Chapter Four
DARIO
The courtroom smells like old wood and expensive cologne and the particular brand of anxiety that comes from people pretending they’re not nervous.
I’m not pretending.
I lean back in my chair, one hand resting on the table, the other in my lap. Relaxed. Because I am relaxed. This has always been going to end one way.
My lawyer, Vincent DeLuca, is at the bench with the prosecution and the judge. There’s a lot of intense whispering. Harrison’s face is getting red.
Vincent comes back, adjusts his cufflinks, and leans close enough that only I can hear.
“Chain of custody issue on the primary evidence. The knife. Someone fucked up the transfer log between evidence collection and the lab.” His mouth barely moves. “Judge is dismissing.”
I nod once. Expected. Vincent’s firm doesn’t lose. That’s why we pay them what we pay them.
The judge clears his throat.
“In light of the defense’s motion regarding evidence handling, and after reviewing the documentation, this court has no choice but to grant the motion to dismiss.
The evidence in question is foundational to the prosecution’s case and without it.
..” He looks annoyed. Tired. “Case dismissed. Mr. Marchetti, you’re free to go. ”
There’s a beat of silence.
Then movement. Noise. Harrison gathering his files like he wants to throw them. The gallery erupting in whispers. My uncle Sal clapping me on the shoulder hard enough to bruise.
“Told you,” Sal says, grinning. “Told you Vincent would handle it.”
I stand. Button my jacket. Accept the congratulations that flow in from the family members scattered throughout the courtroom.
But I’m thinking about her.
Two days ago, sitting in that witness stand with her hands gripping the edge so hard I thought she might splinter the wood. The way her voice went breathy when she had to point at me. When she had to say my name.
Him. Dario Marchetti.
Saying it did something to her. Made her body react in ways she couldn’t hide
I’d wanted to walk to the stand, take her hand, cup her face, and tell her she was brave and moral and beautiful in ways that were about more than her appearance.
Then bend her over the defense table and bury myself in her cunt.
“Dario.” Vincent’s voice pulls me back. “We should go. Press is going to be out front.”
Right. The press.
I follow him out through the side exit. Down a hallway, through a door that shouldn’t be unlocked but always is when we need it.
Outside, the sun’s too bright.
Press still gets off a few questions a few pictures.
Sal’s car’s waiting. He slides into the driver’s seat and I take the passenger side. Vincent gets in back.
“Drinks?” Sal asks. “Celebrate?”
“Later,” I say.
What I mean is no. But later is easier than explaining I don’t feel like celebrating.
We drive in silence for a few blocks before Sal says, too casual, “So. The witness.”
My whole body tenses. “What about her?”
“She gonna be a problem?”
“No.”
“You sure? Because testifying against the family…”
“She’s in witness protection by now,” I cut him off. “New name. New city. Gone.”
Sal glances at me. “You sound real certain about that.”
“I am.”
Because I asked. Made a call to someone who knows someone. Wanted to see her again.
They moved her the moment she stepped down. Same day. She’s already wherever they put people who need to disappear.
But moved isn’t the same as safe. It just sounds better when you say it fast.
Sal grunts. Seems satisfied. “One less thing to worry about.”
One less thing.
Right.
Except I can’t stop thinking about the way she looked at me during her testimony. I looked back. Held her gaze. Watched her pupils dilate.
I knew what I was doing to her.
And when she came, and she did, I saw it, that moment when her breath caught and her eyes went unfocused, I had to grip the table to keep from reacting.
She came on the witness stand while testifying against me.
I’ve never wanted anyone more in my life.
And I watched as she walked out into the hallway, legs unsteady, trying to hold herself together.
I helped her testify against me.
I should have let Vincent destroy her credibility completely. Should have let him paint her as crazy, obsessed, unreliable.
When he started going too hard, I stopped him.
Not because she was breaking.
Because I recognized what was happening. The tension between us was so obvious the jury kept looking back and forth like they were watching a tennis match. And if Vincent kept pushing, kept talking about her obsession with me, everyone in that room would see exactly what I saw.
That she wasn’t just watching me.
She wanted me.
And I wanted her right back.
No strategy. No upside.
Vincent argued. Said another ten minutes and she wouldn’t trust her own memory anymore.
I said no.
And now she’s gone anyways.
The family gathers at the restaurant that night. Our restaurant. The one where this all started.
I sit at the head table with my father and uncle. Accept toasts. Smile when I’m supposed to smile.
Someone orders champagne. Someone else orders bottles of our best wine.
I drink water and think about Stevie sitting three tables diagonal, watching me eat pasta.
I could describe the exact way his jaw tightens when he’s annoyed.
That’s what she told the police. What Vincent threw back at her in court.
She’d been watching me. Noticing me. Paying attention in a way people usually don’t unless they want something.
But she didn’t want anything.
She was just... looking.
Seeing.
The same way she saw me after.
She saw me make a choice that wasn’t about the family or the business or covering my ass.
Just about making sure a scared woman didn’t pass out on a restaurant floor.
I’d noticed her too. Three weeks ago, maybe four. The woman three tables diagonal who always ordered chicken parm and couldn’t stop staring.
At first I thought she was surveillance. Someone’s plant. But she was too obvious. Too hungry in the way she watched.
I started looking forward to Tuesdays.
And then she sent me cookies.
Tell him I’m sorry.
That’s what she told Enzo. Like telling the truth was something she needed to apologize for.
Like I was a person to her. Not just a criminal.
A person.
“You okay?” My father’s voice, low enough the others won’t hear.
I glance at him. He’s watching me with that look he gets. The one that sees too much.
“Fine.”
“You don’t look fine. You look like you’re somewhere else.”
I am somewhere else.
I’m in a courtroom watching a woman climax while she tells the truth about me.
I’m wondering where she is now. If she’s scared. If she’s okay. If she thinks about me the way I can’t stop thinking about her.
“I’m fine,” I say again.
My father doesn’t look convinced, but he lets it go.
Later, back at my place, I pour myself a drink I don’t want and stand in my kitchen staring at nothing.
The container’s still on the counter.
The one she sent the cookies in. Plain tupperware, nothing special. But she’d written on a piece of tape on the lid in neat handwriting: For Dario.
The cookies are long gone. My crew ate most of them. I had three, rationed them out over two days like an idiot.
They were perfect. Rich and sweet and made with the kind of care that tasted like time. Like she’d stood in her kitchen thinking about me longer than she should have.
I open the container now. It’s empty except for a few crumbs.
I should throw it away. Should have thrown it away days ago.
Instead, I grab the bag of biscotti from the bakery down the street. The good bakery, the one that’s been there forty years. I fill the container, snap the lid back on.
Sit at my table. Open it again. Take one.
It’s fine. Good, even. The bakery knows what they’re doing.
But it’s not the same.
Not even close.
I eat it anyway. Close the container. Leave it on the counter.
Tomorrow I’ll see it and think about her again.
The woman who noticed me. Who sent me cookies. Who came while she told the truth.
The woman who’s gone now because of choices I made in a restaurant on a Tuesday night.
I should let it go.
Let her go.
Move on like she never existed.
But I keep the container.
I know I’m not letting go.
I just haven’t decided what I’m going to do about it yet.