Cuffed to the Pakhan

Delia Ruiz defends people who can't pay her. Rurik Balashov pays people to defend him and doesn't need a lawyer who can. She found one bad line in a thousand pages of discovery. She drove to a warehouse in the dark to say so. She came back nine times after that, always at one in the morning, always at a diner that had no business staying open. Nine weeks of napkins and coffee and one bad decision that neither of them made. Then a rival crew put a bullet through the window and Rurik took her to his mother's house and put her in the room farthest from his. He went to prison anyway. She kept the office open. She visited on the first Sunday of every month for twenty-eight months. Some men are a case. Some men are a career.