Chapter 6: A Seat at the Devil’s Table

The air was heavier inside Kieran Renzaro's inner sanctum than anywhere else Neera had ever breathed. Even high-stakes courtrooms didn’t carry this kind of tension. She sat at the long obsidian conference table, surrounded by men and women who looked at her like she was either bait or a ticking bomb. She preferred the second.

"You're early," Kieran said, entering through a private door like he owned time itself. He did. And this world.

Neera didn’t rise. She met his gaze with a razor's edge. "Punctuality is expected of those who want to survive."

A few of his lieutenants exchanged amused glances. Others scowled.

Kieran took the seat at the head of the table, fingers steepled. "This is Attorney Neera Miller. You all know who she is. From now on, she represents all of us."

Murmurs rippled.

One of the men, thick-necked with a scar tracing his jaw, leaned forward. "A lawyer who defends criminals doesn’t make her family."

A criminal questioning a criminal lawyer? How ironic.

Neera smiled thinly. "You’re right. I don’t defend criminals. I win."

The room went still.

Kieran chuckled, but his eyes remained cool. Calculating. "Enough. We have business."

She followed every case they discussed like a hawk watching prey. Her presence clearly made them uneasy, but that was part of the point. Power unsettled people when it wore heels and a suit instead of a gun.

"There’s a laundering issue with the Castello operation," Kieran finally said. "Someone got sloppy. A warehouse raid, too much press. We’re exposed."

He turned to her. "You’ll fix it."

She arched a brow. "That was fast. No warm-up cases first?"

"We don’t warm up in this life," he said, leaning back. "We sink or swim."

Neera nodded once. She didn’t need warm-ups. She needed leverage.

---

A week later, she stood in front of a judge, defending the alleged warehouse manager. The prosecution came in smug, armed with fabricated surveillance footage and two officers willing to perjure themselves.

She dismantled them one by one.

"The timestamp on that footage is off by six minutes," she said, handing over forensic analysis. "Which puts my client thirty miles away at a gas station, confirmed by receipt and camera."

The judge glanced at the evidence. The prosecutor blinked.

Then came the officers. She cross-examined them like a scalpel to the skin.

"So you're telling this court that you saw my client inside the warehouse on the night of the raid," she said to the first officer, "but your initial report says you never saw a face."

"I... might have remembered wrong."

She turned to the jury, calm. "Funny how memory improves under pressure."

By the end, the judge dismissed the charges.

Another win. Another step deeper.

---

That night, she returned to Renzaro headquarters. It wasn’t a celebration, but something close.

She stepped into the rooftop lounge where Kieran waited, glass in hand, city lights glowing behind him like a painting.

"That was surgical," he said without turning around. "You scared the prosecution into silence. Impressive, Attorney Miller."

"They should be afraid," she replied, walking to the edge beside him. "The truth is more dangerous than the lie they tried to sell."

He finally looked at her. "You ever lie, Attorney?"

She held his gaze. "Only when I have to."

"And now?"

"Now?" Her voice was steel wrapped in velvet. "I'm doing my job."

Kieran studied her, like he could peel back the layers she kept so tightly wound. But he only offered her a drink.

"You held your own this week," he said. "Even earned a few grudging nods from the table."

She accepted the glass. "Trust isn’t my goal. Leverage is."

He smirked. "Same."

---

He watched her from the shadows of the rooftop after she left, half a glass of whiskey swirling in his hand. The others underestimated her. That was their mistake. He saw her for what she really was: a loaded weapon no one had figured out how to disarm.

He hadn’t decided yet if she was going to save his empire or set it on fire.

She intrigued him. Not in the way women usually did.

This wasn’t about lust or games. It was about fire recognizing fire.

She didn’t flinch. She didn’t plead.

She played to win.

He picked up her glass, still half full, and set it beside his.

He wouldn’t stop her from trying to find the truth. Let her dig. Let her play her game.

After all, it was more fun when they thought they had a chance.

---

Neera stood in her apartment that night, files spread across her table. The Castello case had been a test. She passed. Now the real work began.

She opened a secure file on her laptop: her father’s case. Old files. Redacted reports. She cross-referenced names, operations, old court dockets.

One name surfaced again and again.

Kieran Renzaro.

She whispered to herself, cold and certain:

"One year. I’ll burn you down from the inside," she whispered to herself, cold and certain.

And for the first time in a long time, she smiled.