Smoke and Mirrors (DE)

17. Family ties

Grace rolled one of her ankles as she sat impatiently with one leg crossed over the other court side for a criminal trial that she had to be in attendance for that she truthfully didn't want to be at. Three members from a well known Italian street gang in New York were being charged with racketeering in federal court and instead of taking a plea deal in exchange for providing the FEDs with criminal insight into their organization, they all decided to plead insanity. It was very clear the men were in fact mentally competent. Grace sat down and interviewed each one of them and they all tried to put on an act as though they weren't but Grace saw right through all of them.

Clad in a tailored black pantsuit and black patented leather Christian Louboutins, Grace took the stand to present to the court her detailed report on all three suspects finding all three men mentally competent to stand trial. Racketeering was a hard charge to be able to wriggle out of because all the crimes associated with that charge are all deliberate and premeditated such as murder, kidnapping, robbery, extortion, etc.

The only thing Grace hated about being called to stand in on trials was that she never knew when she was going to have to go on so she usually had to sit in on the whole length of the trial instead of being able to leave and with the usual weight of her heavy work load, she found it to be a huge waste of time when she could be working on other cases especially because it normally only took a few minutes for her to give her report on said suspects anyways.

This however, was the first Grace had ever heard of racketeering or sat in on a federal racketeering case and she was slightly intrigued by the charge itself. The only thing she found crazy about these men was how careless and nonchalant they were acting about the whole thing— snickering and laughing every time the prosecutor put up photos of deceased persons fallen victim to their organization on the projector. Racketeering is a very serious criminal charge that if convicted, usually carries stacked life sentences and those three men were acting as if they could care less their lives as they knew it were about to be taken from them, like it was a game.

Grace sighed, blowing a strand of hair from her face as she removed her eyes from the prosecution. She'd been in court since the early morning hours with no recesses and her stomach felt as if it was beginning to touch her back, grumbling hungrily. She was starting to regret her decision on skipping out on breakfast and the only thing she could think about now was what she was going to have doordashed to the office as soon as court was released. Looking around the court room, her eyes landed on a familiar pair that bore a hole into her face with an intense spiteful glare from the opposite side of the room— Malik.

Malik was apart of the arresting team that had picked up the three suspects when the FEDs did a sweep on one of the many meat shops the Italian street gang owned as a guise to their organized crime business so his presence was needed in the court room today as well except he was doing everything but focusing on the reason he was there in the first place. He'd been heeding Grace's warning of staying away from her the past few days but today he'd caught wind of Grace's engagement from other coworkers in the office as she was no longer hiding her massive engagement ring and wearing it proudly and it lit a new fire under his ass.

After court was released Grace ordered takeout since it would get to her the quickest with the Chinese restaurant being only a few blocks away from the department as she worked on a few cases. Shoving a bite of Lo Mein noodles into her mouth, she kicked her sore feet out of her five and a half inch heels, bringing one of her feet up into her chair as she typed away on her laptop. Louboutins were her favorite pair of designer heels but they definitely weren't made for comfort.

A text from Joseph came through on her MacBook making her avert her attention from her work to the top right of the screen. A smile tugged at the corner of Grace's full pink lips reading the message that simply read 'I miss you ❤️' before opening the thread and replying back to him from her laptop. Grace wanted nothing more than to be lounging at home with her fiancé but she knew she wouldn't get any work done if she did so she forced herself to stay in her office a little longer to atleast get some stuff done.