𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗩𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗮 𝗨𝗻𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗲.
𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐞
I am the judge, the jury, and the executioner.
Francesca "Frank" Monroe. One of the most successful criminal defense attorneys in the history of Illinois. The woman everyon...
"People say I am ruthless. I am not ruthless. And if I find the man who is calling me ruthless, I shall destroy him."
- Robert F. Kennedy
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The whiskey bottle lay forgotten on the floor.
I clung to Jamie like I was drowning, fingers digging into his shirt, shaking so hard I thought I might shatter into shards. And fuck, maybe I already had. The tears I'd swallowed for a decade came ripping out of me, raw and ugly, tearing through the walls I'd spent years building. He held me tight, his own tears mixing with mine, two broken souls bleeding for the time we'd lost, the bridges we'd burned.
Ten fucking years. A black hole in my life, a gaping wound I'd tried to cauterize with anger, resentment, anything to keep from feeling how much I'd missed him. The day he left the orphanage felt like another lifetime. We were just kids, clinging to each other like our lives depended on it. Because they did.
I'd memorized his ocean-blue eyes, the last thing I had before he was gone. He was my goddamn sun, the one thing that made the dark bearable. But life is a cruel, heartless bitch. It doesn't just steal your light—it grinds it to dust beneath its boot. When we found each other again, we weren't the same. Time had gutted us, carved us into strangers with faces we used to know.
The girl he left behind had died a long time ago. What was left of her worked for the Irish mob, wearing blood and sin like armor. And Jamie, the fearless boy who once protected me from nightmares was now Chicago PD's golden boy, sworn to put people like me behind bars.
His eyes—those same fucking ocean-blue eyes—stared at me like I was someone else. Like he couldn't see the little girl he'd promised to never leave. And I... I barely recognized him either.
But tonight, none of it mattered. The masks, the lies, the fucking war between us—they all shattered as I fell apart in his arms. Beneath all the rage, all the blood on my hands, I was still just the scared little girl who had never stopped missing her brother.
Then, the world swayed like a goddamn nightmare, my stomach twisting as I shoved myself upright with shaking hands. Everything felt too sharp, too fucking real.
"Jay," I croaked, throat raw from too much whiskey and too many unshed screams. "I need to tell you something."
His eyes locked onto mine, and for the first time in years, they weren't cold. They weren't distant. They burned with something terrifying—concern.
"What is it?" he asked, voice steady, but there was already a storm brewing behind those ocean-blue eyes.
I sucked in a shaky breath, bracing for impact. "Dad... he lied to us." The words felt like acid on my tongue, corroding everything they touched.
His face didn't move. No flicker of emotion, no crack in the mask. Just silence.
"What do you mean?" The words finally came, tight with disbelief, like he needed me to be fucking with him, like he needed this to be some cruel joke.
