The night was a degree or so cooler than the norm as Uriel Zander sat across from Karen Foster at one of the small corner tables at Vinny's, a small Italian place that had become unofficially theirs after a long day in court. Between them, the candlelight glow softly danced along brick walls lined with vintage black-and-white photographs. Uriel leaned back in his chair, his hands folded across his lap, while Karen fiddled with the stem of her wine glass, watching as the deep red liquid swirled inside.

"This place never changes," Karen said, a half-smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

"Nope," Uriel replied. "That's why we keep coming back."

She chuckled and then leaned forward, her smile falling. "Thanks for coming out tonight, by the way. I needed this."

Uriel gave her a look—*what are friends for?* He could tell something was eating at her. They'd been friends since law school, and Karen rarely wore her stress so obviously on her sleeve. Whatever was going on was deeper than the usual stress from work.

"So," he said finally, breaking the silence, "what's on your mind?"

Karen let out a sigh, setting her glass down a little too hard. "Everything, honestly. The job. My life. You ever feel like you're running in circles and getting nowhere?"

Uriel raised an eyebrow. "You're one of the best defense attorneys in the office. That's not exactly going in circles."

She laughed dryly. "Maybe. But it's not just the job. It's everything else. I've been working so much, I barely see my family anymore. My parents keep asking when I'm going to settle down, like there's some timeline I'm supposed to be following. And honestly, at this point, I don't even know what I want out of life. It's just… exhausting."

Uriel studied her face a moment, the strain behind the words. He knew how relentlessly this life could push and pull, the tug of high-stakes cases, the sacrifice that came with the territory. But to hear Karen say it aloud somehow made it heavier.

"You can be exhausted," Uriel said gently. "We all can. But you don't have to sort it all right now."

Karen met his eyes, her expression softening. "I honestly don't understand how you do it, Uriel. All those offers from huge firms, and you're just here, cool and calm, like it doesn't faze you at all."

Uriel smirked; behind it was a flicker of something else. "I'm just good at pretending, Karen."

They laughed with him, breaking the moment and releasing part of the tension.

"But seriously," Uriel said, continuing, "you don't owe anyone a timeline. And if you need to step back or take a break, do it. This job will grind you down if you let it."

"Yeah, I know," Karen muttered, taking a sip of wine. "It's just hard to balance it all. But thanks for listening. I needed to get that off my chest."

"Always," Uriel said, meaning it. They tacitly understood each other, both of them wrestling with personal demons and a night that refused to sleep so that its complement, the legal system, would be quiet.

After that, the conversation drifted to lighter matters, and the evening finished on an easy note, as was always the case between them whenever it was time to wrap up. But even as they parted ways, Uriel could not help but feel that Karen's words spoke volumes about the same doubts he, too, once in a while had.

Back in his apartment, Uriel opened the file which Reardon had handed him that morning. It was the new case: a murder charge, tied down to gang violence. The suspect, *Miguel Salazar*, had been picked up during a sweep in Harlem, accused of shooting a rival gang member in broad daylight. Witnesses claimed to have seen him at the scene, gun in hand. The prosecution had a pretty strong case—eyewitnesses, surveillance footage, ballistic evidence linking the bullets to the weapon found in Salazar's possession.

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Uriel scanned the file, eyes narrowing at the details. The prosecution was going to lean hard on the gang affiliation, paint Salazar as a violent criminal with clear motive. Uriel knew the stakes were high, not just for Salazar, but for Uriel's reputation, too. This could be a shift in the perception around the office, considering he was on this recent run of wins.

He flipped through the papers, making notations along the margins. The ballistics report was tight; it was something about this eyewitness testimony that didn't sit right with him. It was too clean—almost like the witnesses had been prepared for what to say. He'd need to start digging into their backgrounds, see if there was any angles he could push. Uriel was into details—the tiny threads that unraveled seemingly impossible cases.

The next morning, Uriel went to the jail to meet Miguel Salazar. He was led through a cold, sterile hall into the visitor's room: Salazar sat on the other side of the glass, wiry in his twenties, his face hardened from a life learned on the streets. He eyed Uriel warily, as if unsure whether to trust the man sitting across from him.

"Mr. Salazar," Uriel began, taking a seat and setting the case file in front of him. "I'm your defense attorney. I'm here to help."

Salazar didn't speak at first. He just leaned back, crossing his arms.

"I know what it looks like," Uriel continued, keeping his tone calm. "But we're gonna get through this. You don't need to say anything now, but I want you to be square with me, ¿entiendes? Did you have anything to do with the shooting?"

Salazar's eyes flashed with something—fear, perhaps anger. "You think I'm gonna say yes to that?"

"I'm not asking for a confession," Uriel said smoothly. "I want the truth. Guilty or not, the DA's gonna try to bury you. I don't take flight in the face of a fight, and if there is any way we can win this thing, I need to know everything."

After a long pause, Salazar spoke eventually. "I didn't kill nobody, man. They're just pinning this on me 'cause I'm in the wrong gang. I wasn't even there when it happened."

Uriel nodded, filing that away. Whether Salazar was telling the truth or not, it wasn't like Uriel was going to walk in there and get anything more than a denial anyway.

"Okay," Uriel said. "We'll go through the evidence, see what we can pull apart. But if there's anything I should know, you need to tell me now. No surprises."

Salazar looked at him for a long time then nodded slowly. "Fine. Let's do this."

As Uriel left the jail, he was confronted by none other than *Ellen Price*, the prosecutor handling Salazar's case. Price was formidable—a rising star in the DA's office, known for her aggressive tactics and high conviction rate. She was standing in front of him, in her mid-thirties, with piercing eyes that seemed to delve inside people's heads and read them like open books.

"You're wasting your time, Zander," she said. "Salazar's guilty. We've got him cold."

Uriel didn't flinch. "Everyone's innocent till proven otherwise, Ellen."

She snorted and crossed her arms. "You and I both know that's not the way that this game is played. He is a gangbanger. We have witnesses, we have the gun, we have motive. You aren't going to *Miracle on 34th Street* this one either. Save yourself the embarrassment and walk away."

Uriel's eyes narrowed. "If I walked away from every case people told me was unwinnable, I wouldn't be where I am now."

For a single moment, the smirk fell from Price's face, replaced by a hard edge to her voice. "Suit yourself. But when this goes to trial, I'm going to bury him, and you along with him."

Uriel didn't bat an eye. "We'll see."

He turned and walked away, feeling Price's eyes on him. She was playing hardball, but that did not faze Uriel; he had had his fill of pressure, of folks doubting his every move. Yet, with this case, something just did not sit well. Almost as if another layer was hidden somewhere beneath.

On the way to the office, Uriel was met with what he had hoped to avoid: paparazzi. A few of them were standing by the entrance, cameras flashing the instant they saw him.

"Mr. Zander! Can you comment on the Salazar case?"

"Is it true you're defending a known gang member?"

"How are you going to win this one?"

Uriel kept his head down and pushed through the crowd, ignoring the barrage of questions. He was used to attention after high-profile cases, but this was different. The media was already portraying Salazar as guilty, and it would only continue to get worse.

As Uriel stepped into the office and closed the door behind his back, he let out a slow, deep breath. The case was flaring up, and he could feel the weight of it set on his shoulders. But he did nothing to back down. Not now. Not ever.

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