Milan swallowed thickly.

For some reason just uttering his name caused the energy in the room to shift.

Or maybe that's just how she felt.

Nicoletta looked at Milan over her glasses frames, waiting patiently for Milan to begin. Wiping her sweating palms on her pants, Milan opened her mouth to speak.

"I met Ramses when he was 19. I was 14 at the time. He was best friends with my brother." Milan kept her answers short and sweet. She resisted the urge to reminisce about her brother and kept her face trained solely on the abstract painting of carnations behind Nicoletta's desk.

"I understand," Nicoletta responded slowly, taking a deep breath herself. She then closed the binder she was looking through and stacked her hands on top of it, looking at Milan with a bleak face. "Milan it is to my understanding that you lost your parents to gun violence as well as your brother is very heavily gang affiliated. You lived with your maternal grandparents until their passing and are now without a permanent address."

Milan's jaw dropped infinitesimally. But she didn't protest because it was true. To have her story spat back at her in such a professional manner caught her off guard.

"I want to let you know once more that this trial will not be easy. The city of Chicago has been after Ramses for a very long time and with the evidence they have, they have the power to send him to jail for a very long time. As his only character witness thus far, they will do everything in their power to demoralize you and sell you to the jury as a by product and supporter of gang violence." Nicoletta's spill hung heavily in the air.

"Their questions will be scathing, rude, and contradictory, but you must not bend. As we go through the rest of this case file, I want you to understand that this is not me personally calling your character into question, but a run through of what you may face if we let you take the stand."

Milan saw Valerie looking at her from her peripheral vision, she sort of wanted to back out of everything at this moment, but she didn't come here for nothing. It was worth a shot.

Squaring her shoulders back in her seat, Milan sat up straighter and folded her hands in her lap. "Thank you for letting me know, Nicki. Please continue."

Nicoletta gave a her small smile before reopening her binder and going back to the page she once was on. Her face immediately morphing back into the stoic one that was their before for the first question.

"Details from the night your parents were murdered say that Mr.Young was at the scene of the crime scene. It was even noted that he might have been the one who made your home a target, or could it be that your brother brought the ultimate untimely death of your parents on your household?"

It was like a bazooka gun shot through her chest.

She could imagine Ramses looking at her from his seat as she must maneuver through this question, not incriminate him, and disassociate her brother from the situation. All while the never scabbing wound of the loss of her parents festered from being poked at.

"It was none of their fault that night occurred." Milan stated as calmly as she could although her heart was screaming.

In her head she was transported back to her old child self screaming bloody murder when the windows shattered in her parents's bedroom. The ringing in her ears that seemed to almost burst her brain when she saw them being carried out in gurneys and the distraught cries of her grandmother when she arrived at the police station to pick them up.

She had ran it over in her head a million times since that night, and she had worked through a million times how she could have saved her parents. Who was to blame and how she could get her revenge.

She had come up empty every time.

"So, you're saying Mr.Young being a rising star in gang life and him frequenting your house as a teen did not bring violence to your home? What else would make your home a target? Were your parents gang affiliated?" Nicoletta pressed, and Milan twisted in her seat.

It was completely clear why Nicoletta had given her a warning before hand because it felt like she was purposely twisting a knife in her chest. Taking a deep breath, Milan shook her head. "No. My parents were not gang affiliated. We were a normal family."

The two women held each other's gazes, Milan was fighting the urge to flip everything around her over and it seemed like Nicoletta was daring her to do so. Out of her peripheral, Milan could see Valerie watching the two of them like they were dogs in fighting ring.

Well, I definitely felt like biting someone.

Milan thought as she sighed and sat back in her seat. When she did so, Nicoletta pushed her glasses farther up on her nose and let her face relax. She let the binder rest on her desk now.

"You did very well. Do you have any questions for me about the case?"

Milan stayed silent. Her face now downcast as she tried her best to keep it together. She rarely did so much thinking about her parents, or how Ramses basically did bring them to their untimely demise. It was all flooding back to her and now she was contemplating wether or not she should be helping this case in the first place.

Hot angry tears burned her eyes. An almost stifled sniffle escaping her.

"Milan..."

She heard Nicoletta call to her.

Her head just wouldn't turn up, it was like she was stuck inside her mind. Next, she heard the sounds of tissues being pulled up from a tissue box. Cream colored tissue paper was being pressed into her hand by Valerie's chamomile tea colored hand.

"Milan, what's going on? You can talk to us. Remember, you're not the one on trial." She reassured.

When what Valerie had said was finally received by her mind, it was like the words breathed life into her chest again. Milan took a very deep breath, like she'd just returned into her skin. She crushed the tissues in her hand out of instinct before finally being able to look up and meet the eyes of the other women in the room.

They both gave her small, sorrowful smiles. Valerie rubbed calming circles in Milan's free hand while she wiped her tears. She hadn't registered she was crying as she was in that small disassociating moment.

"I'm sorry, you guys. I haven't thought about my parents and Ramses's involvement in depth... at all. And just to hear you nitpick at them and their character, although they were innocent through and through, it brought me back to the same little girl I was when they died." Milan was finally able to put her feelings into words.

Valerie nodded her head softly. Nicoletta looked at her with regret. "I am sorry as well, Milan. You have a clean record. Only offenses being speeding tickets, you're a model citizen otherwise. The prosecution will not be able to catch you personally, on much. Your brother however, he casts a pretty tall and dark shadow on you."

Milan rolled her eyes at the mention of that traitorous crazy fool.

"I assume you all are no longer close from that look?" Nicoletta went on with a little humor brimming in her tone. All Milan could do was shake her head. "We are currently... estranged, as the courts would say."

Everyone was able to laugh softly at that. The tension in the room thinning in the slightest.

"To take some of the pressure off of you, Ramses was against this option, but I am going to put it on the table anyway... I also offered to reach out to his ex girlfriend Tatiana Romero. What do you think?"

The same bitch that wanna have his baby so bad?

That was what Milan wanted to burst out saying, but instead she gave a tense smile.

"I... don't think Tatiana is as clean as a candidate as me, I'd say..." Milan simply put as best as she could.

Nicoletta cocked her head to the side innocently, resting her face in the palm of her hand on her desk. "Oh really? How so? Ramses was against it because he didn't want to make you uncomfortable, but Tatiana could be used as a closer confidant than you. I don't take it that you and Mr.Young were romantic right?"

Yeah... as if him putting my head through the headboard couldn't make us any closer.

Milan decided to pivot from the last question.

"How much do you think Tatiana's testimony will help Ramses's case?" Milan countered instead.

Valerie had long gone gotten from Milan's lap-side and sat back in her seat. It seemed like her ears perked up at the question on the floor.

"It's like having training wheels on a bike. Having an extra set of wheels backing you up can help a rickety bike rider stay straight. From the tone of Nicki's voice every time she expresses something about his case, Ramses Young needs all the extra precautions he can get." The woman interjected her opinion.

When Milan looked back at Nicki behind her desk, all Nicki could do was nod.

"Pretty much." Was her answer after, agreeing with Valerie.

Milan sat back in the love seat she was in, already halfway defeated.

Because she knew getting Tatiana on this case without another ultimatum would be in possible, and if the previous ultimatum made almost had her brother murder her execution style...

She could not imagine the price to be paid this time around.

Maybe Valerie's husband could foot that bill as well, cause shit.