Chapter 33
GIANNI
The courtroom is smaller than one might imagine. No gallery, no spectators, no cameras. Just a wood-paneled room in the federal courthouse on Pearl Street, a judge behind an elevated bench, twenty-three grand jurors arranged in two rows.
And the little detail of the United States government trying to put me in a cage.
My legal team takes up one side of the table.
Leading it is Anthony Ferrara, head of counsel.
He’s sixty-two years old and three-hundred dollars an hour—and worth every penny.
Beside him are two associates with their laptops open and four bankers’ boxes stacked on the table next to them filled with motions and precedents and procedural challenges.
On the other side, the prosecution. Assistant U.S. Attorney Margaret Chen, mid-forties, sharp, methodical, the kind of prosecutor who builds cases the way engineers build bridges. I respect her. She's honest. She's also going to lose today, but she doesn't know that yet.
Behind her, in a dark suit with his badge clipped to his belt as usual, is Lance Dawson. A small smirk sits on his face, the type a man wears when he expects to get everything he wants and is just waiting for it to happen.
“Cocky little shit,” Ferrara says under his breath. “I’m ready to wipe the floor with him.”
Lance is vibrating with energy, but it’s not nervous energy. It’s more like anticipatory energy—the giddiness of a narcissist who's already rehearsed his victory speech and is just waiting for the chance to let his audience hear it.
I've been studying him for weeks. And here’s what I know about Lance Dawson: He's smart, but not as smart as he believes. His intelligence suffers from the key flaw of his ego not allowing him to believe his enemy might not only be as smart as him, but perhaps smarter.
He’s a creature of validation, all but needing it to live. Every interaction for him is a performance. And what’s a performance without applause? He needs that too, and if it doesn’t come, the mask slips and the real Lance emerges—a bully who's been handed a badge and no small amount of power.
The hearing begins.
AUSA Chen is professional, thorough, methodical. She walks the grand jury through the prosecution's case, and its solid work.
It’s better than I expected, in fact. And perhaps in different world, with a different opponent with a different legal team, she might’ve won.
But not today.
Then Dawson's turn comes. He stands. Buttons his jacket. Walks to the front of the room with the confidence of a man approaching a podium he was born to stand behind. He's carrying a folder—new evidence, supplemental, submitted forty-eight hours ago over my attorneys' objections.
"Members of the jury," he says, and his voice has that rehearsed warmth, that TV-ready sincerity I've watched Violet flinch at from across a bakery table.
"The evidence you've seen today represents months of painstaking investigation.
But I want to share with you some additional findings I believe paint a fuller picture of Mr. Russo's criminal enterprise. "
He opens the folder. Photographs. Financial transfers. A timeline connecting Russo Industries to three Camorra-affiliated businesses in New Jersey.
I don't react. I sit with my hands folded on the table and my expression arranged into the particular blankness I've perfected over two decades.
Ferrara makes his objections. The judge sustains two, overrules one, and allows a limited presentation of the supplemental evidence. Dawson proceeds, his enthusiasm barely contained, his eyes flicking to me every thirty seconds to check whether I'm sweating.
I'm not sweating. I'm watching.
His gestures amuse me. They’re expansive and performative, and I get the impression that for him these moments are the point, being the center of attention, being taken seriously, arguing about why he ought to get his way.
His eyes move from juror to juror, working the room like a salesman or a politician.
His voice rises when he reaches key parts, and there’s no ignoring the excitement in his voice he can’t quite suppress.
There’s a giddiness to him that has everything to do with winning and very little to do with justice.
I’m watching AUSA Chen as Dawson grandstands.
She’s seated behind him, her poise and control and professionalism a total contrast to Dawson’s theater kid bullshit.
She’s watching him carefully, as if wondering whether or not Lance is building a case or running for an office he has in mind five years down the line.
Interesting.
Dawson finishes, returns to his seat, crosses his legs, and leans back with satisfied ease. It’s clear he’s very happy with his performance.
The judge instructs the jury. They deliberate. It takes forty-seven minutes. Forty-seven minutes during which Dawson checks his phone six times, adjusts his tie twice, and cannot stop the small, unconscious bounce of his right knee.
After the jury returns, the foreperson remains standing. "On the matter of the proposed RICO indictments against Gianni Russo and Russo Industries," she says, "this grand jury finds insufficient evidence to proceed. The indictments are not approved."
The room recalibrates.
On my side of the table, Ferrara nods once and closes his briefcase. The associates begin packing the bankers' boxes with quiet efficiency.
On the other side, Dawsons’ eyes flash as if he’d just been subjected to an unthinkable indignity. He springs to his feet, his eyes wide.
“Your Honor. With respect, the evidence clearly demonstrates that—”
“Agent Dawson.” The judge’s voice is level and stern, cutting him off. “The jury has deliberated and reached a decision. This proceeding is concluded.”
"The supplemental evidence alone should have been sufficient to—"
I let out a snort of amusement. He’s all but telling the judge to his face that he’s overseeing a miscarriage of justice in his own court. That’s a quick way to be held in contempt. I can’t help but be curious to see how far he’ll push things.
"Agent Dawson."
Ferrara raises his bushy eyebrows just a bit and leans over to me, speaking quietly. “The kid needs to shut the hell up if he knows what’s good for him.”
“There are witnesses that haven’t been heard, financial records that—"
"Agent Dawson." AUSA Chen stands and silences him with a word and a look. "Not here. Not now."
He stops, taking in a slow draw of air through his nostrils. For a moment, he looks like a spoiled child who’s just been told no for the first time.
His composure cracks. It starts at the corners of his mouth.
The smile collapses inward, the mask buckles under the pressure of a reality that doesn't match the script he wrote in his head. His eyes go flat. They’re not angry, they’re empty.
This emptiness comes from a man whose sense of self is built on winning.
He faces the truth that he just lost in front of the people whose approval he desperately needs.
For a second, maybe two, I see the real Lance Dawson.
Not the charming agent. Not the diligent investigator.
Not the concerned father or the seeker of justice.
Just a small, angry man standing in a federal courtroom with his fists clenched at his sides, realizing that the world didn’t bend to his will.
The mask goes back on, but I saw it. And he knows I saw it. Our eyes meet across the courtroom. In that brief moment, something passes between us—not a threat, not a challenge, but an understanding.
Two predators in the same room, each realizing exactly what the other is capable of.
He looks away.
I don't.
Ferrara touches my elbow. "We should go."
I stand and button my jacket before walking out of the courtroom with measured, unhurried strides.
In the hallway, I allow myself just a few seconds of relief.
The grand jury that had been weighing on my mind for weeks is over, with no indictment, with my businesses intact and my freedom secure. For now, at least.
But I won a battle today, not the war.
There isn’t a doubt in my mind that Dawson isn’t going to stop. He’s going to leave this courtroom and re-strategize. And when he comes after me again, it’ll be be harder and dirtier and more reckless.
Violet’s warning plays in my mind. When Lance feels small, he escalates. And I just made him feel very, very small.
He might’ve had only Violet in his sights before, viewing me as someone who merely stood in his way. But after today, I’m right there next to her.
The tide is still rising. Today I plugged a hole, but the water is finding new cracks.
Spackman is waiting by the car. "Good?"
"Good. For now."
"How long do we have?"
I glance at the courthouse. "Not long enough," I say. "Let's go to work."