Chapter 29

Jennifer

My body desperately needed the long night of sleep that I finally got. It was like I had been deprived of a good night sleep for weeks. As I woke up on the day of the hearing, I still pondered whether I should show up in court or not. For Ryan I wanted to be there, my anger had subsided a bit and I wanted to be there to support him. But I didn’t want to be anywhere near Roberto.

I certainly didn’t want to be there and sit next to that killer. It was the last thing I could think of that I would want to do with my day, but I did want to be a lawyer. Not showing up for a case I had worked on for weeks was really unprofessional. There was so much more to it than that, though, there were so many emotions going through my body.

I continued to ponder whether I should go to the courtroom or not and I took so long thinking about it that the hearing had started already when I arrived. I looked into the courtroom and saw Ryan and Roberto and I couldn’t bring myself to walk in the door. I couldn’t stand the thought of having to sit in between the two of them. Instead, I went back to my apartment and put on CourtTV and watched the proceedings live as they happened.

The hearing started with the prosecutor discussing all the crimes that Roberto Calvertino had been convicted of in the first trial. The nicely dressed attorney went on to say that this hearing was only being conducted as a formality and nothing should change with the verdict.

“Roberto Calvertino is a cold-blooded killer who deserves life in prison,” the prosecutor said as he finished his closing remarks.

“Roberto Calvertino was a powerful man throughout the city. He ran several businesses and employed over two hundred people. Yes, he was a tough boss. Yes, he lived in a bad neighborhood and often got mixed up in some trouble. But Roberto Calvertino is not a murderer and there is no actual proof that he committed any of the crimes he was convicted of. In fact, as we go through the trial you will be appalled that this man has spent the last few years in prison for crimes that there is no proof he committed.”

Ryan looked amazing on television and I knew there were women around the country googling him as they watched this. His custom gray suit fit him in all the right places. As he moved across the courtroom from one side to the other, he made a point to look at each of the jurors at least twice during his statement.

I felt like he had them, the jurors were certainly going to be convinced by Ryan’s charms. I couldn’t actually see the jurors, but I could see his face and his charisma was on point. If I weren't so damn mad at him, I would have wanted him even more than ever.

The evidence was actually in our favor and as I watched Ryan as he laid it all out there, I could see the possibility of winning the case. The prosecution had not presented a single witness that would testify against Roberto and all their evidence was circumstantial.

The case looked great for Ryan, but that didn’t make me all that happy. Deep down I knew that Roberto had killed those people. He was manipulative and controlled so many people that I knew he was the one behind the killings, there was just no way around it. The problem was that the prosecution didn’t have any firm evidence. I found myself rooting for the prosecutor as I watched the full day in the courtroom. I wanted them to convict Roberto; I wanted him back in jail.

There was a moment when the camera looked right at Ryan and I almost melted. His eyes looked into the camera and I felt like they were looking right at me. It still surprised me how much my body reacted to Ryan. There was a chemical reaction between the two of us and it didn’t matter if I was mad at him or not, the connection was always there.

What was I going to do?

Roberto scared the hell out of me and Ryan had lied to me. I was angry and worried, but deep down I still wanted Ryan. I just didn’t want him with Roberto around.

Within moments of the court hearing getting over, my phone rang. It was Ryan.

I looked at the call and his picture that had popped up. I wanted to answer, but I didn’t know what I would say. I still couldn’t believe that Ryan and Roberto were related. I couldn’t deal with all of that just yet, so the call went to voicemail.

It was hard to imagine the rest of my law school days without Ryan. I enjoyed being around him and working with him. I wanted to stop being mad at him, but I just didn’t know how. He had lied for months to me. It wasn’t a little lie either, we worked together to defend his father for murders. Ryan should have told me, he should have kept me in the loop of all the important details of the case. But instead, he hid who he was from me.

There was a buzz from downstairs and it startled me.

“Who’s there?” I asked.

“It’s Ryan. I know you are mad, but let me up. I need to see you,” Ryan’s voice was firm and commanding. It reminded me of the night we first met at the nightclub. I could still feel his breath on the back of my neck as he whispered in my ear that night.

It was like a primal reaction, my finger buzzed the downstairs door opened and I stood there waiting for Ryan to make it up the stairs. I was still furious with him, but I also felt butterflies in my stomach as I looked through the peephole and waiting for him.

When he reached the doorway, I cracked the door open; but wouldn’t let him all the way in. His eyes looked at the door and then back to me.

“Let me in Jennifer,” he said forcefully.

His words were firm and I almost responded by opening the door. But I didn’t, instead I held onto it tighter as I placed my face in the crack. I needed to be strong, I needed to resist him. My body wanted him desperately though and I felt my willpower weakening as I looked at Ryan in his custom suit. Damn he was so sexy.

“What do you want Ryan?”

“Jennifer, I’m not going to apologize out here. Let me in now.”

There was something about the way he was so firm in his words, I complied and opened the door. I was angry with him. Really I was. But as he walked into my apartment his body brushed up against mine and I wanted him.

Ryan must have sensed the urges from my body and he thrust the door closed and pressed my body up against it. His hands were firm as he held me there, but his eyes were sweet and searched mine for understanding.

I felt like there was so much he wanted to say. So many things he needed me to understand, but he just couldn’t find the words. In the absence of words; he used his tongue. I loved it when he used his tongue.

His mouth took my bottom lip in and he sucked on it firmly. I felt him exhale with a feeling of release that I had never felt around him before. It was like he could finally relax. He could finally let go of everything and just be there.

I wasn’t sure if he was relieved to be out of the trial or relieved that I had not wanted to fight with him. But whatever the reason, he seemed much more relaxed than anytime I had kissed him in the last few months. His mouth was delicate and sweet as we enjoyed each other’s taste.

Our lips moved delicately around one another and I felt his hands as they explored my body. My heart raced as I felt him against me and I didn’t want the moment to end. I didn’t know what would happen at the trial and I didn’t know what would happen tomorrow or the next day, but in that moment I wanted to be with Ryan.

My arms moved up around his neck and Ryan grabbed a hold of my ass and lifted me up off the ground. He made his way back to my bedroom and pressed the door open with his foot as we walked through the threshold to my room. For a moment I wondered what I was doing. How had I gone from being angry to wanting this man so bad? But it didn’t matter, my body wanted Ryan and I couldn’t deny myself that pleasure.

I grabbed the door behind us and flung it shut just before Ryan threw me onto my bed. He stood there and looked at me with a look I hadn’t seen from him before. It seemed to be a look of need. It wasn’t desire and it wasn’t lust, I felt like he physically needed to make love to me.

My eyes met his and we stayed locked onto each other as he pulled off his suit piece by piece.

I felt my body physically react as I saw Ryan’s cock standing at attention. It pulsed with a desire for me that I couldn’t ignore. My body soaked with a desire to feel him slip inside of me. The longing to make love with him was so bad that I couldn’t think about anything else. I needed Ryan and I felt that he needed me just as bad.

Ryan kneeled onto my bed and let his fingers gently follow the curve of my leg from my ankle all the way up to my inner thigh. His breathing was deep as he concentrated on every inch of my body. My eyes locked onto his and I didn’t want to look away. The intense need he had for me was driving me to want him more than I ever had before.

We worked together to get my clothes off and I felt his cock brush up against my inner leg as he leaned down to kiss me. I opened myself more to him. I wanted him inside of me. I wanted to feel some pleasure; the kind of pleasure that only Ryan could give me.

He lifted up his head and looked into my eyes as his cock slid inside of me. I knew nothing about our future, I didn’t know if this would be the last time we were together or not; all I knew was that I wanted that moment to be remembered. I wanted to see every second of our love making so I could always remember it.

His skin tantalized my body and I felt myself thrusting against him as he moved diligently inside of me. My arms held on tight to him and I wanted to feel more and more. My body felt right when it was with Ryan, it felt at home with him. Nothing else in the world mattered at that moment besides the two of us. We didn’t care about Roberto and we didn’t care about the court hearing, we just had the two of us in our own little world.

I couldn’t imagine ever making love to another man after the last few months I had had with Ryan. My body wanted just him. My mind wanted him too. Our tryst had gone from a one-time fling in a club to something much deeper. I wanted him to stay there in my bed forever. There didn’t need to be a court hearing, there didn’t need to be anything else in the world. All we needed was our naked bodies together forever.

Our bodies started to sweat as we moved with each other. Thrust after thrust we tried to find an ending to the delicious bond we had. Our sweat just made me want him more and I felt like it made him thrust even harder. Soon I felt my body beginning to rumble with excitement. It was a sweet feeling and my let myself enjoy every second of it. Then I felt the sugary orgasmic relief that shot through my body as we both found our body the happiness it craved.

I didn’t close my eyes at all. Not even when my body became electrified by orgasm. Our eyes stayed locked onto each other’s until we finally collapsed from exhaustion. My head moved to his chest and I took in his smell as I devoured his naked body underneath me. My eyes couldn’t get enough of the muscled perfection of his abs.

That moment felt perfect. The two of us, sweaty and exhausted as he lay in bed was exactly what I wanted. The problem was, I wanted just that forever and ever. I didn’t want to go back to reality. I didn’t want to deal with the fact that Roberto Calvertino was Ryan’s father.

“I watched you on courtTV today. You did a good job.”

“Jennifer, the pressure is insane. Come with me tomorrow?”

“I just can’t be next to Roberto, I’m sorry. Why are you working so hard to get him free?”

“It’s my only option. If I lose the case and he thinks I did it on purpose, he’ll kill me. Or at the very least make my life a living hell.”

Ryan looked so vulnerable as he talked about Roberto, so defeated. It was hard to see him like that. The strong and defiant man that I knew had succumbed to his father’s threats. There wasn’t another man in the world that I thought would intimidate Ryan, but Roberto clearly did.

“Well, how can you lose without him knowing you did it on purpose? Maybe we could feed the prosecutor some information or something.”

Ryan stopped and thought for a minute. I sat up and watched him. There was a way out of all this and I could tell by his eyes that he knew it.

“There is a way, but it will ruin me. I’ll be disbarred.”

I didn’t like the sound of that at all. There had to be a way around that. There had to be a way to get Roberto back in prison without totally ruining Ryan’s life.

“Is there another option?” I asked hopefully. “It would be like giving in to him if you lost your license to practice law. You have to find a different way. You can’t let Roberto have any victory in this situation.”

“I don’t know of one yet. But we need to think fast. There are only two more days left in the trial.”

Together we lay and planned out what would hopefully be the end of Roberto Calvertino. We put together our detailed plan to ensure Ryan did not look guilty in Roberto’s eyes. If all went as planned, Roberto would spent the rest of his life in prison and Ryan and I could move forward with ours. Unfortunately, I did not have a lot of confidence in the idea that Ryan would be safe at all. Roberto didn’t seem like the kind of man who would let Ryan off, even if it wasn’t his fault that the case got lost.

Plus, our plan did end with Ryan losing his license to practice law. There was just no other way around it. At least none that Ryan and I could think of. It would be horrible for Ryan to have to start fresh in a new business, he was a great lawyer. But being able to live his life and not be killed by his father was more important than the career he worked in.

“What happens to me if you lose the case? Don’t you think Roberto would come after me again?”

Ryan moved his hand to my face and traced the line of my jaw. My eyes were closed as I felt his fingers on my body and I wanted to stay in that moment forever. I could hear Ryan take a deep breath as he pondered what I had said. He knew I was in danger and he knew that Roberto would hurt me if he had the chance.

“He will kill you if he thinks you had anything to do with it,” Ryan said matter-of-factly.

My body froze at the directness of his words. Probably because I knew they were true. I knew that Roberto would not think twice before he decided to kill me. He had already killed so many people and been so ruthless. He killed Mrs. Anderson and she didn’t do a thing to him. She was even planning to testify in his favor, although it was totally out of fear.

“Well, I don’t want to be killed. So let’s make sure that doesn’t happen,” I joked with Ryan.

“I’ve got a plan now. I think it’s going to work.”

He leaned over and kissed my ear and then got up out of bed. He seemed to have a new upbeat attitude. My heart thumped as I thought about how badly this whole thing could end. I could only hope that Ryan’s plan would work to keep us both safe.

“So you don’t want me to come to court today?” I asked hopefully.

“No not today, come on the last day. It will be better for you.”

“Alright. Good luck!”

Ryan leaned down and kissed me one last time before he left to go back to his house. I felt so terrible for him and that he would have to go back to where Roberto was. No one was safe around that man, and I knew that more than anyone. Roberto wasn’t an innocent man that Ryan was trying to help. Roberto was a deviant father who had spent his life bullying people into doing things that he didn’t want to do for himself. Ryan had escaped that world and Roberto made sure to pull him back in.

I closed my eyes and said a little prayer that Ryan’s plan would work and he would finally get free from Roberto. Ryan was going to need all the good vibes he could get. It was going to be a tough couple of days, but I knew that Ryan could pull it all off. Ryan had the ability to make anything happen.

Ryan had escaped his father for years and made a successful life for himself as a lawyer. I had full confidence in him that he would be able to escape this situation also.

***

Day two of the court hearing was about to start and I just couldn’t stand the idea of sitting at home and watching it. I also did not want to sit at the lawyer’s table with Ryan and Roberto though. I waited until the hearing had started and then squeezed in past the bailiff and pretended like I knew a man sitting at the edge of the courtroom.

As I approached him I just squeezed myself into a small open space in the bench between him and a reporter. They both looked at me with disgust, but the hearing had started so neither of them dared to make a noise. On the first day three reporters got kicked out after their cell phones had accidently went off.

The courtroom was full of energy and I was much happier that I had come to sit there instead of watching it on television. I doubted that Ryan or Roberto would notice me in the back of the room; they would be too enthralled with the court proceedings in front of them.

Roberto was full of confidence as he sat in his chair next to Ryan. It was annoying how cocky the man was, but it did remind me a lot of Ryan. In fact, I couldn’t believe I had not noticed the similarities between them sooner. Their builds were very similar and even the way they sat in their chairs they looked alike.

The prosecution spent most of the morning reliving old evidence. The problem is, they still haven’t been able to produce a witness. None of the original witnesses are alive or the ones that are not confirmed dead, refused to testify.

Meticulously the prosecution delivered evidence that looked like it implicated Roberto in the murders. For one case the prosecutor discussed how Roberto and the man who had been killed were seen fighting the night before. Many witnesses said that Roberto threatened to kill the man. Yet the next day when the man had been killed, Roberto was on a flight to Spain. The prosecution alleged that Roberto had paid someone to kill the man.

All of their evidence was circumstantial and I found it increasingly difficult to see how Roberto had ever been convicted at all. Case after case that the prosecutor when through had huge holes in the evidence.

It was also abundantly obvious that Roberto Calvertino had plenty of people that would take the fall for him. Not one of the murders could clearly be traced back to Roberto. There was always some poor schmuck that would come forward and say that he was the person who had committed the crime.

It was likely that Roberto would compensate the family of the men who agreed to take the blame. But I suspected that the people who took the blame really had nothing to do with the crimes. It was much more likely that Roberto’s second hand man, Gino, was the one who had committed the murders.

The prosecution looked weary and by the end of the day. As they handed the case over to the defense it was obvious they knew their case was not good.

“We would ask for permission to bring a witness for the prosecution if a witness becomes available,” the prosecutor asked the judge.

“Motion granted.”

It was not probable that a witness would suddenly appear and be willing to testify against Roberto Calvertino. If they had avoided the courtroom thus far, it was highly likely they would continue to avoid being involved in the case. Witnesses were obviously killed if they said something that Roberto didn’t like, so it wasn’t likely they would testify against him.

I snuck out of the courtroom before the hearing was over, but just as I was about to go out the back door; I looked at the defense table. Roberto looked right back at me. My heart sank and I hurried out the door. I didn’t know what he would think of me coming to the trial but not sitting at the defense table. I was sure that he would put some negative spin on it.

Although I really did want to see Ryan in action during the court case, I also did want to see Roberto get sent back to jail. That had started to look less and less likely to happen though.