Chapter 4 - The Hearing Where Travis Smiled
The emergency protective-order hearing was scheduled for Friday morning.
Travis arrived early.
Of course he did.
He wore a navy suit Celia had helped him buy two years earlier. His blond hair was neatly combed. His expression was tired, almost gentle. He looked like a man who had been misunderstood by someone unreasonable.
That version of him had always been the most dangerous.
Celia sat beside her attorney, Priya Desai, and forced herself to breathe normally.
Across the aisle, Travis smiled at her.
Not warmly.
Possessively.
As if the room were temporary and she still belonged to him afterward.
Priya leaned closer.
“Don’t answer his face.”
Celia nearly laughed.
“That is very specific legal advice.”
“I bill by the hour for specificity.”
Officer Meyers testified first about the apartment entry and the messages. A city traffic camera had captured part of the incident at Wacker and Michigan, but rain blurred the critical moment.
Travis’s attorney called it ambiguous.
Then Priya produced a second video.
Celia looked at her.
“What is that?”
“A dash camera from Lorenzo Duca’s vehicle.”
Her pulse jumped.
“He had a camera?”
“His attorney sent it directly to me last night with a sworn chain-of-custody statement.”
Celia stared across the room.
Lorenzo was not there.
He had not used the video to insert himself into the hearing.
He had sent evidence to her lawyer and stayed away.
The footage was ugly in its simplicity.
Travis caught Celia’s arm.
She tried to pull free.
The crowd moved.
Then Travis’s hand drove between her shoulder blades.
Not a gentle stumble.
A shove.
Celia went into traffic.
The judge watched twice.
Travis stopped smiling.
His attorney argued that Travis had lost balance.
The judge asked, “Why was he holding her after she repeatedly told him to release her?”
No convincing answer came.
The temporary order was granted.
No contact.
No surveillance.
No approach within five hundred feet of her residence, office, or person except for future court proceedings.
Celia expected relief.
Instead she felt grief.
There was something brutal about hearing a judge formalize the boundary she had once trusted Travis to respect simply because she asked.
Outside the courtroom, Priya squeezed her shoulder.
“You did well.”
“I sat there.”
“You stayed.”
That was different.
Celia understood.
Lorenzo waited across the street near a black sedan.
He had honored the court-distance plan Priya requested.
Celia crossed after Priya left.
“You sent the video.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Your lawyer asked me not to contact you about evidence before the hearing.”
“You listened.”
“She has a terrifying email signature.”
Celia smiled.
Then his expression changed.
“What?” she asked.
He handed her a newspaper folded to the business section.
CITY INVESTIGATOR LINKED TO DUCA ORGANIZATION DURING ACTIVE WATERFRONT REVIEW.
A photograph showed Celia leaving Lorenzo’s restaurant two nights earlier.
The article described Lorenzo as an “alleged organized-crime figure” and implied Celia had met with him secretly while reviewing Harbor Light contracts involving Duca-linked vendors.
Celia read it twice.
“They’re going to suspend me.”
“Can they?”
“They should.”
Lorenzo frowned.
She handed the paper back.
“I met a subject connected to an active investigation without formal authorization.”
“You were already removed from the case.”
“After I first spoke to you. Appearance matters.”
“You did nothing corrupt.”
“That does not make the process optional.”
He looked genuinely frustrated.
“You are remarkably committed to rules that are currently being used against you.”
“Rules aren’t wrong because dishonest people exploit them.”
That stopped him.
Her phone rang.
Ruth.
Celia answered.
“You saw the article?” Ruth asked.
“Yes.”
“Marsh wants you upstairs now.”
“How bad?”
“Administrative leave pending review.”
Celia closed her eyes.
“Understood.”
Ruth lowered her voice.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Tell them everything.”
“I am.”
Celia returned to the office, surrendered her badge, signed the leave notice, and walked out carrying nothing but her purse.
For the first time in five years, she had no case files.
No desk.
No official authority.
Lorenzo was still waiting outside.
“I can have someone look into who leaked that photograph,” he said.
“No.”
“They’re trying to discredit you.”
“Yes.”
“So let me—”
“No.”
His jaw tightened.
Celia stepped closer.
“This is where you decide whether you actually respect me or only respect me when I make choices you like.”
The words landed.
He looked away.
Then back.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing unless I ask.”
A long pause.
“All right.”
“Thank you.”
She turned to leave.
“Celia.”
She looked back.
“There is something you should know before you read it somewhere else.”
“What?”
“One of the Monarch invoices you recovered routes money through an old Duca Maritime account.”
Her stomach tightened.
“Your account.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know?”
“No.”
“Who still has authority?”
Lorenzo’s face hardened.
“My uncle Vittorio.”
The complication was no longer merely outside him.
It lived inside his family too.
Celia looked at the courthouse behind them.
“Then don’t investigate him for me.”
“What?”
“Give the records to federal investigators. Through counsel. Let someone else verify them.”
Lorenzo stared at her.
“That could expose things unrelated to Harbor Light.”
“Yes.”
“Things my family has kept buried for decades.”
“Yes.”
The rain had stopped.
Cars moved slowly through the wet street.
Lorenzo looked at the city, then back at Celia.
“Matteo would have told me to do the same thing.”
“Then maybe listen to him this time.”
He nodded once.
“I will.”
That evening, the Inspector General’s office informed Celia that the remote login using her credentials had originated from inside City Hall.
Not her apartment.
Not Travis’s home.
Not Sentinel Bridge.
May you like
A workstation on the fourth floor.
The office of Commissioner Thomas Bell.
