"Time to go," The Butcher said, glancing behind me. I glanced back and saw Alessio nodding subtly before his hand rested on the small of my back. I jumped forward, avoiding contact with him, and tried to step around the two men but Alessio crowded me out of the doorway and into the hall. I could see Mark looking through the glass doors of the firm’s reception toward me, a question in his eyes. His eyes flitted between me and The Butcher before his face took on a defiant expression. He made to walk toward me but I shook my head slightly and he paused. I may be angry with him, but he was possibly one of only two people I could go to for help. He was practically all I had. That was a depressing thought, especially since his willingness to help me stemmed from the threat the Trivisonnos had made that morning. But, I wasn’t being picky with my allies these days.

I was walking forward, not knowing where I was supposed to be going really, but being led by Alessio nonetheless. He steered me to the elevator, through the lobby, and out the side door toward a waiting vehicle. My mind was in a daze and the acidic taste of my vomit still coated my mouth.The back passenger side of the vehicle opened and in a daze, I stepped in barely noting that Callie was already inside. She had slid across the seat first, watching as I slid inside next to her. Alessio followed me, sliding next to me before nodding toward the driver.They had me sandwiched in the back seat and I registered the driver and a security guard perhaps sitting in the front passenger seat. They were taking me to Alessio Trivisonno's house. The man himself was sitting by my side as we started down the busy streets through rush-hour traffic.

I woke to a sharp pain in my side, the red hot fingers of fire stretched through my chest and grabbed hold of whatever pieces of flesh they could find. The pain was debilitating. I had never felt anything like it before. In a burst of self-preservation, I desperately hoped I never felt anything like it again.There was something incredibly disorienting about waking up in extreme pain with no recollection of how I got that way. Slowly the memory returned and the panic started to fill my chest. I had been shot. The reality set in of what that meant. I had been shot and now I was somewhere strange with a gunshot wound. The throbbing pain in my side? That was the gunshot wound.But I was alive. That felt like a small win.I could hear murmurs down the hall, and I took

I accepted the news that someone was trying to actively kill me with a great deal of grace. I only screamed in the shower twice. Granted, that was an hour after Alessio told me that I had been the target of the shooting, and the shouts were two minutes apart, but it was still only twice. I feel that under normal circumstances there would have been a lot more shouting involved.There was a small reward in withholding the third well of emotion that rose in my chest. It felt like an anvil was pressing on my chest, crushing me from within. Each day it pushed harder and harder. I knew eventually I would give up; I would reach a point when I had too much, and I would succumb to the pressure. Luckily, that was not today. Two shouts and I had achieved the release I needed. The water of the shower coursed over my

I pressed submit and leaned back in my chair. One case down, two to go. I was less than 48 hours post gunshot wound and I had already bargained a plea for Alessio's sister and organized the rest of the evidence from Alessio's case into a timeline.  I was sitting at a long table in Alessio's second (or maybe third? who knew) home in the DC Metro area where we were due to file a motion this morning. Alessio had naturally brought me back to his home. After listening to my complaints about being in New York when his case was still being brought before a judge in DC, he finally relented and flew us all back to DC late last night. My threats to take the train were what finally did him in. As soon as he heard my plans to ride the train back to the city, a look of horror crossed his face and he called his pilot to get the plane ready within the hour. Apparently the train was for us peasants and he couldn't h