Justice is Not Blind ☠ The Punisher

Chapter 5: Is This the End?

"Would you cut that shit out?" Frank ordered his little sister as her leg bounced nervously up and down underneath the table. It was a half-hour before the trial was to resume, but only about fifteen minutes before the guards would kick her out and tell her to go to her seat in the courtroom.

Dani forced her leg to stop, leaning forward on the table. "Fine. Then you take this more seriously." Frank rolled his eyes at her, falling back into his chair. "Seriously, Frank! The way you're acting, you'll definitely be sent to prison. They want to put you in general pop and don't act like that would be easy. This is your life we're talking about."

"So what, you want me in some asylum, getting drugged up and sitting in therapy circles?" he questioned her. "Is that what you want?"

"Of course not! I can't lose you, Frank!" she yelled. His face softened as her voice did. "I can't lose you too. We lost so much already. We can't lose each other. I won't let that happen. Non riesco a perdere anche voi, fratello."

He wasn't a fan of when his sister broke out the Italian. Frank always had a hard time learning it from their mother when they were growing up, but it was second nature to Dani. Whenever anything made the Castle women passionate about something, they would usually speak Italian. It was that reason why he didn't like hearing her tell him that she couldn't lose him too.

Frank sighed. "I'll behave. I promise."

"Good," she said, getting up as she saw the guard moving past the window and head to the door to get her. "I'm going to hold you to it."

_______________

"Where is he?" Karen looked down the hallway for her boss.

Foggy stopped in his pacing. "Um, I may have told him just to stay home today."

"You what?" the girls said in unison.

"He wasn't actually supposed to do it." Foggy rubbed the back of his head.

Karen leaped from her seat as Dani leaned back into the bench, a bit shocked. "Whoa, whoa, Foggy, what the hell happened yesterday?"

"I can't do this alone. I didn't even wanna take this case."

"It'll be okay, I-"

Foggy cut her off, "The whole city is watching. If I screw up, I'd never work again. And, frankly, you'd probably never work again, either, by association, which-"

Dani got up from her seat, wedging herself in the space between Foggy and Karen. She put her hands on his shoulders and stared into his eyes. "I did not come to you because I wanted to lose this case. I came for Foggy Nelson, the badass who stopped a fight in my hospital, put a criminal mastermind behind bars, and decided to help my brother against his better judgment because he wanted to help his friends. Now you are going into that courtroom and you're going to win. Got it?"

Dani was wringing her hands together as Colonel Schoonover took to the stand. While she didn't know the Colonel well she had met him before, after one of Frank's tours. It was a brief moment, passing the man on the streets when she was with Frank. He had seemed like a nice enough guy, actually getting Frank to smile without much effort despite rank. That's how she knew she could trust him because Frank trusted him.

Foggy got up from his seat, ready to beginning questioning. "Colonel, how long have you known the defendant?"

"I'd say, the better part of a decade," Schoonover replied. "Most of his career in the Marine Corps."