Transforming

Ava:

I spread the file across my dining table like it was scripture and I was desperate for salvation.

Three hundred and twelve pages. Twelve separate charges. Five years of surveillance logs. Two confirmed murders. At least a dozen unconfirmed. Bribery. Racketeering. Weapons trafficking. A long trail of black ink and red tape that painted a man guilty a hundred times over.

And yet, here I was.

Defending him.

I pulled my hair into a knot, fingers trembling with the weight of everything I’d already read. The evidence was overwhelming on paper—but paper lies. Paper tells only what the writer wants you to see. And I’d made a career of reading what wasn’t there.

Luciano Moretti wasn’t sloppy. Every step felt intentional, every transaction two degrees removed from him. Shell companies. Dead-end witnesses. Phone calls routed through third parties. The DA’s case wasn’t airtight. It was confident. It was built on fear and convenience. But airtight? No.

And in those cracks—those barely visible fractures—I’d make my move.

I reached for the second stack of surveillance logs, flipping through photographs of Luc’s life in stark black and white. Him entering restaurants. Him slipping into tinted cars. Him talking to men who no longer existed on this side of the soil.

But none of the photos felt real. Not like he had felt real.

That man—the one who’d stood in front of me, watched me with molten eyes and that cold, exacting stillness—he was more dangerous than these grainy shots could ever capture. These pages didn’t explain how someone like him could look at you and make you forget your own name. They didn’t show the quiet ruthlessness in his voice, or the strange gravity that made it hard to breathe when he was near.

He was terrifying.

And I was hooked.

I set the photo down, hand tightening around my wine glass. I wasn’t just his attorney anymore. I was *in it*. Deep. The DA’s office hated me. My partners avoided me. Hell, I barely recognized myself in the mirror this morning.

This wasn’t just another case.

This was war.

I took a long drink and closed my eyes, resting my head against the cool wall behind me.

*Why can’t you just walk away?*

Because justice isn’t about innocence. Not really. It’s about power. It’s about who can twist the rules, who can find the seams and pull until they tear. The truth didn’t matter as much as the narrative that survived in the courtroom.

Luc didn’t need to be clean.

He just couldn’t be *completely* dirty.

If I could find enough—reasonable doubt, procedural errors, even the suggestion of entrapment—I could tip the scales. I could win.

But it wasn’t just about the challenge anymore.

It was him.

It was the way he watched me like he already owned the outcome. The way he spoke in deliberate, careful syllables, like each word was a test I didn’t know I was taking. Like he was playing chess ten moves ahead, and I was still figuring out where the board started.

I’d spent my whole life running from the shadow of men like him.

Now I was voluntarily stepping into the center of his world.

And God help me, I *wanted* to.

I stood and started pacing the room, bare feet against hardwood, the night quiet except for the rustle of paper and the slow, steady thrum of my thoughts turning toxic.

He had me twisted up.

Not because I trusted him. I didn’t.

But because I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would mean if I won. If I got him out. If I stood in front of a courtroom and dismantled the entire justice system on his behalf.

What would that make me?

Smart?

Strategic?

Corrupt?

A pawn?

Or something more dangerous than any of them—a woman who finally realized the system she once swore to protect was as breakable as everything else.

I stopped moving.

My phone was in my hand before I knew what I was doing.

I didn’t call the DA. I didn’t call my firm.

I called *him*.

The line rang twice.

Then: “Ava.”

His voice. Low. Calm. Like the rumble of something ancient beneath the surface.

“I’m in,” I said. “All the way.”

A pause. Not of surprise. Of *satisfaction*.

“I know,” he said.

Of course he did.

I ended the call before I could second-guess it.

Then I returned to the table, to the mess of photos and transcripts and timelines, and I didn’t stop reading until the sun came up.

I wasn’t unraveling.

I was transforming.