Elena Moore.
That wasn’t my name, and it hadn’t been in years. Not since Seamus disappeared shortly after Cosima left to work in Milan at the age of eighteen. Every one of us—except for Giselle, for reasons unknown to me—had decided to take our mother’s name because our mother had always been our only real parent.
But it was chilling that he had known my birth name. He’d seemed even more surprised when I’d jerked out of his hold and turned the other way to walk down the hall without confirming my identity. In the two years since, he’d reached out through the office, explaining that he was “old friends” with Seamus and would love to connect with me.
I never called him back.
It didn’t do much to deter him, though. He was a lawyer and a winning one at that; my refusal only heightened his excitement and turned the chase into some kind of game for him.
But my only recourse was to ignore him, so I did.
“Well, when we spoke earlier about discovery, he gave me the impression you were acquainted.” Yara’s gaze was assessing as her eyes swept over my carefully curled shoulder-length hair, the high collar of my intricate lace blouse, and the precisely filled-in color of my blood-red pout. “You recently broke up with your partner, if I’m not mistaken?”
Of course, she wasn’t mistaken. Yara knew everything that happened in the firm, and Daniel leaving me for my sister had been water cooler gossip for weeks.
Still, I inclined my head as I smiled thinly in response.
She paused, seemingly thinking through something I knew she had already decided. “Well, as Mr. O’Malley seems to have a…curiosity around you, I think it would be appropriate if you were the one to deliver our motion to suppress personally.”
I blinked at her then dared to speak my mind. “In the hopes my feminine wiles might soften him?”
Yara’s mouth tightened with something like a smile. “I believe a personal touch is always best. Leave after lunch and then swing by Mr. Salvatore’s apartment to make sure his tracking bracelet has been properly set up.”
It was menial work, something one of the paralegals could have handled, but I had a feeling Dante Salvatore was a high-maintenance client, so I didn’t complain. My involvement in such a high-profile case could mean the difference in reducing the finish line at partnership in the firm from ten years to three years. I’d have the edge against my peers for in-house competition for cases, and it would make the name Elena Lombardi well-known in the criminal law circuits.
So, I nodded at Yara and began to collect my papers to stow at my desk in the associate bullpen without another word.
The office building of the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York was an old concrete building, weathered and outdated compared to the towering chrome and glass skyscraper that housed three floors of Fields, Harding & Griffith. The lawyers within typically didn’t wear three-thousand-dollar shoes and bespoke suits like my fellow associates, but they weren’t driven by monetary success the way us sinners uptown were. They were the heroes of the legal profession, taking little gains while making moves against big bads who needed taking down.
A little corner of my heart yearned to be included in their echelons, to be the good guy and the hero bringing down the tyrants and bullies.
Instead, I’d sided with the wicked and the unlawful by defending behemoth companies and individuals using their wealth and prestige to mask their own villainy.
Prestige and power.
In some ways, I was no better than Dante Salvatore and his lot.
I told myself my pro bono work helped to balance the scale. That I volunteered at the Bronx YMCA every month and donated ten percent of my monthly paycheck to a childhood domestic abuse charity.
But in my heart, I knew the truth.
I was the child of a sinner, and sin was in my blood.
I was too proud to go unnoticed in my profession, too greedy to accept pennies, too envious to be content with what I had at any given time, and too aroused by power to let it slide through my fingers.
The romantic idealist and the calculated ice queen, the two sides of my personality that often flipped like a coin whenever I was faced with a new path in life. It seemed the latter won much more than the former.
I wanted to be the kind of a woman who was called a hero, but I’d spent most of my life being called a villain.
If enough people treat you like a villain, you become one.
So when I was ushered into USA O’Malley’s office by his harried assistant, I set my face into its icy mask and prepared to protect the rights of my criminal client even though it unsettled my heart to do so.
“Ms. Lombardi for you.”
I stepped out from behind the secretary as I was announced and stopped in the middle of the large antiquated room with the peeling plaster, my hands clasped at my front over the handles of my Prada purse.
“Good afternoon, Mr. O’Malley,” I greeted coolly.
He barely spared me a glance before addressing his assistant, “Thank you, Mrs. Nanquil. That will be all for now.”
I tried not to bristle at his negligence as she closed the door behind her, and Dennis went back to his task on the computer. Indignation soured the back of my tongue, but I refused to beg for attention so I only stood there demurely as he finished his work.
Once done, he leaned back in his chair with a sigh, tossed off his thick black-rimmed glasses, and folded his arms over his chest. He was a good-looking older man, one who, under other circumstances, I probably would have found attractive. As it was, I found his posturing incredibly annoying.
His eyes fell down my body once before locking on my own. “Elena.”
“Ms. Lombardi, if you please,” I corrected as I finally moved forward to collect the papers from my bag and lay them on his desk. “Ms. Ghorbani asked me to deliver these personally. As you may know by now, we have filed for a speedy trial, and we are moving for a pre-trial notion to exclude the testimony of Mason Matlock given after the shooting. As you know, he is related to the deceased Giuseppe di Carlo and had reason to lie for the Family. His statement was taken without a lawyer present at the scene of a violent crime where trauma could have clouded his thinking. As he is now nowhere to be found, we cannot corroborate his words or cross-examine them.”
His thin mouth flattened. “Not one for pleasantries? You certainly don’t get that from your father.”
“Hopefully, I didn’t get anything from him,” I agreed easily even though my belly clenched against a surge of acid.
Any comparison to Seamus Moore was an insult.
Dennis studied me with narrowed eyes, ignoring the documents I’d laid out. “You look exactly like him. Though, I must say, a far sight easier on the eyes.”
I pursed my lips around the sour lemon taste of his words. “Well, if that’s all, USA, I’ll leave you to the rest of your business.”
When I turned on my heel to leave, he chuckled lightly. “Sit down, Elena. I promise to behave professionally. Can you blame a man for being intrigued when he sees a ghost from his childhood?”
I ignored him, continuing on toward the door. It wouldn’t jeopardize the case, and I was tired of men and their games. I felt as if I’d been a pawn in them all my life, first with Seamus then with Daniel and now Dante. I had enough to deal with. I didn’t need Dennis assuming control of any aspect of my life, even if it was only for a ten-minute meeting.
“Please, forgive me,” he called out as I wrapped my hand around the doorknob. “I would like to know Ms. Lombardi, the lawyer. Only a fourth-year associate, but it seems you’ve already made quite the name for yourself in criminal court.”
I hesitated. His thread hooked through the eyelet of my pride stuck into the pincushion of my heart.
“Assistant US Attorney Jerome Hansen almost refused to take the Arnold Becker case when he found out you were representing him,” he continued, laying into the flattery.
Unfortunately, it worked.
I spun on
my red-heeled shoe and arched a brow at him. “I have time to take a seat if you want to continue praising me.”
Dennis laughed, his features even more pleasing crinkled in amusement. “Then sit, please. Tell me how you found out WDH had unfairly terminated him. Our private investigator wasn’t able to figure that one out.”
I leveled him with a coy glance. “That is between our company PI, Ricardo Stavos, and me.”
He sighed, and even though I hadn’t dated anyone but Daniel in years, I recognized the hint of flirtation there. “A woman with secrets.”
“A woman with integrity,” I corrected.
“Good to know the apple fell far from the tree.” I pursed my lips at another comment about my father, but Dennis held his hands up in mock surrender. “You’re really not curious to hear childhood misadventures about your father?”
“No. Nothing you say can humanize a man I know to be a monster.”
He seemed shocked by my bluntness. “He was always a bit of a rascal… but I didn’t know he’d gone down such a dark path.”
“Don’t be surprised if you’re making a case against him one day if he ever ends up back Stateside.” I’d had nightmares about such a thing happening and thanked my lucky stars I’d had the presence to take Mama’s name years ago so that I wouldn’t be linked to him. “And for the record, I would prefer people not know I was related to him.”
“Of course.” Dennis gave me a calculating look. “Look, I’ll get straight to the point so we can move on to better topics of conversation. If your client is willing to turn on any of the other families, we can offer a tempting plea deal. Reduced sentence time in a mid-level penitentiary.”
Without my permission, a little laugh escaped me. The idea of a man like Dante Salvatore, so assured of his own magnificence and the sanctity of his criminal brotherhood, would no sooner turn on his own mother than on another capo.
I didn’t have to voice that for Dennis to read my refusal.
“You’re obligated to take it to your client,” he reminded me somewhat insultingly. “It could mean the difference in dying behind bars and getting out before he’s an old man.”
“This isn’t the first time you’ve offered,” I said. Even though I wasn’t certain, I had no doubt he’d relayed the same thing to Yara before the indictment. “It probably won’t be the last. You don’t care about one man. You want the entire operation.”
He smiled charmingly. “What man wouldn’t?”
“Careers are made on these cases,” I agreed, but there was an edge to my voice.
It could have been competition, my desire to beat anyone in court because I was possessive of that arena. But a tiny voice told me it could have been a misplaced sense of loyalty too. Even though Dante was a criminal, a man who deserved to go to prison, I suddenly found myself incapable of wishing him inside a cage for the rest of his life, even if I wasn’t on this case.
He was too…vital to contain. For the same reason I avoided going to the zoo, I wanted to avoid the sight of Dante trapped in a steel box.
“Or broken,” Dennis added, and I knew he’d read my tone correctly.
One of us would win, and one of us would lose.
Dennis needed the win to fill the sails of his political campaign.
I needed the win so I could get out from under the shadow of my family, their accomplishments and pitfalls, and stand strong in the limelight as my own person.
It would come down to who was the more desperate of the two, I knew, because it always did. I’d grown up in Naples where children fought with their fists in the sandbox because they’d seen their own parents do it in the streets, so I knew all about winning at any cost.
But I didn’t underestimate Dennis O’Malley just because he lived a life of privilege now. If he was anything like my father, whom he grew up with, he’d started poor and hungry.
It took more than a couple of decades to satisfy the insatiable appetite such an upbringing instilled in you.
“May the best person win,” I offered with a tight smile as I stood and offered my hand in farewell.
Dennis stood to take it, his hand smooth and callous free around my own, his eyes an inch below mine where I stood in my towering heels. He was not cowed.
“To the winner, the spoils,” he agreed as his thumb stroked over my palm. “To the winner, the spoils.”
ELENA
Dante lived on Central Park East in a penthouse suite that covered two floors overlooking the greenery of the multi-block park. It was an older stone building with gargoyles carved into the layered balconies of the top floors. I was surprised by its elegance and old-school charm. Dante struck me as a glass and chrome, modern kind of macho man in his design sense. Still, I recognized the cost of a space like that in the city and was awed again by the fact that mafia families operated like Fortune 500 companies, accruing so much untold wealth that reporters could only speculate at the dividends of their schemes.
There was a private elevator to his floor, and the man who let me up was as Italian as they came, thick neck, broad shoulders, short in the way of southerners with wiry black hair.
“Ciao,” he’d greeted me with a robust yell that startled me. “You are here to see Mr. Dante, si?”
“Mr. Salvatore, yes,” I allowed, offering a polite approximation of a smile as I followed him into the elevator, clutching my bag to my front as if it could shield me from his Italianisms.
As if such things were contagious and I was in danger of catching it.
He grinned a gap-toothed smile at me. “Shoulda known Mr. Dante’d have a good-looking ragazza to represent him.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I just rolled my lips between my teeth and kept my feminist retort on the back of my tongue.
“Busy day?” he continued in the same friendly vein as if we were good buddies. “Got all three floors moving out and in today.”
“Excuse me?” I asked, my interest piqued as the elevator began its smooth glide up the tower.
“Mr. Dante bought out the two floors beneath his,” he said, frowning at me like I was stupid. “Man’s gotta have his family close to him if he’s stuck here. Loneliness does terrible things to the human spirit.”
I raised my brows at him incredulously. So, within the space of forty-eight hours, Dante had bought out the top three floors of a luxury apartment building in order to have his associates nearby.
Oh, but in its own way, it was a genius move.
He wasn’t allowed to leave the apartment building, but within the structure, he had free rein to use the amenities and no one would flag him for visiting other apartments. It was a clever way to slip past the requirement that no known criminal associates could visit him while on house arrest. If they already lived in the building, it made it that much easier to meet and collude.
Oh, yes, Dante was clever.
And powerful, evidently, if he could bribe or coerce people to leave their homes on such short notice.
The lobby man, who was beginning to remind me of some kind of Italian leprechaun with his jaunty grin, short, stocky body, and oddly jovial wisdom, flashed me another smile as he touched the side of his nose.
“Name’s Bruno,” he introduced, sticking out a plump, hairy-backed hand to shake mine. “I know all the goings-on in this building. Mr. Dante’s eyes and ears, if you will.”
“You could be deposed by the prosecution,” I warned him. “I hope you’re not so free with information with them as you have been with me.”
Instantly his small eyes folded into heavy creases cast by his frown. “I’d die before I turned traitor.”
“Because he’s your boss,” I surmised, testing him because I was curious about how Dante’s soldati related to him. Was he a tyrant, an angry heathen like I wanted to believe?
“’Cause he’s the kinda man’d take the shirt off his own back for anyone,” he asserted in a voice that was nearly a shout. He thumped his fist over his heart and glared at me. “Even for the l
ikes of me.”
I didn’t have a response to that, but luckily, the elevator pinged, and the doors slid open to reveal the reception area of Dante’s apartment. Forgetting about Bruno, I stepped into the room, transfixed by the moody ambiance of his space.
Everything was black, gray, or glass.
The round walls of the foyer were a charcoal plaster, Italianate and modern at the same time. A huge circular skylight cut into the ceiling spilled pale autumnal light onto the towering olive tree at the center of the small room. It perfumed the air with its green, rich aroma even though there was no fruit on its boughs. The fragrance instantly took me back to Naples, the trees in our neighbor Francesca Moretti’s yard, and the feel of the fruit bursting beneath my bare feet as I chased my siblings through the trees during the summer.
I blinked away the memories and the accompanying ache in my chest as I noticed the music swelling through the apartment through surround speakers.
Dean Martin was crooning about an evening in Roma, but that wasn’t what had me creeping forward to peer into what I assumed was the living room.
It was the swelling, robust sound of a vaguely familiar voice singing along to the music.
When I turned the corner, the open living and kitchen space sprawled before me, everything the same black, gray, and glass theme of the foyer, starkly masculine yet also comfortable. Dante himself was in the huge kitchen at the black marble island singing as he rolled gnocchi by hand.
I blinked.
Others in the room had paused what they were doing when they took notice of me, but my eyes were trained on the singing mafioso making delicate pasta with his man murdering hands.
I blinked again, at a loss for words.
Someone must have alerted him to my presence because Dante looked up from his work to lock eyes with me and a slow, liquid smile spilled across his face.
Something in my belly fluttered.
I cleared my throat, squared my shoulders, and moved through the living room toward the kitchen. “Well, if you’re trying to be a cliché, you’re certainly succeeding.”
When Heroes Fall Page 8