POV: Emilia Conti
The courtroom didn't feel dramatic.
That surprised me.
No shouting. No chaos. Just the low hum of procedure and the quiet scrape of chairs against polished floors. Justice, when it showed up, rarely announced itself. It was observed. It waited. It is documented.
I sat two rows back, hands folded, posture deliberate. No flinching. No hiding.
Dante was brought in from the side entrance.
He didn't look at me at first.
That was intentional.
He had learned young that eye contact could be used as leverage. Today, he gave no one that satisfaction.
The charges were read cleanly. Too cleanly.
Assault. Conspiracy. Facilitation.
Each word landed like a stamp.
The prosecutor spoke calmly, confident. This was a man who believed the file in front of him told the whole story.
It didn't.
Not yet.
Strauss sat two seats to my left, unreadable. Alessio wasn't here—also intentional. This wasn't about the optics of power. It was about a record.
