I laughed, feeling lighter in days. It felt good to be back with my brothers, to laugh and joke like the old times. But that wasn’t why I’d invited them over today.
Once everyone was settled and caffeinated, I walked over to my desk and placed a hand on the folder on top of it.
“We need to discuss something important,” I explained.
They all listened, rapt with attention.
“With Marc Montes now dead, I was curious as to who the next Federal Prosecutor might be. Over these past couple of years, we’ve lost good, innocent men to the justice system for crimes they never committed, and now we know why.”
“The Pavlovs had him put up to it, just to weaken us,” Caspian nodded, the anger still fresh on his face. “Bastards. The whole lot of them.”
“Right here.” I tapped the folder. “This is a file on our new prosecutor, Mario Ruben. I’ve had a background study done on him, just to see if he leans toward justice or getting his palms greasy.”
“Pass me the file,” said Caspian, and I chucked it over.
“What did you find?” Gio asked impatiently.
Caspian’s face turned red. “Dear God.”
“Exactly.” I leaned against my desk. “He’s worse than Marc. Way worse. He’s been waiting in the wings for years, and he’s the kind of hungry that makes a man dangerous.”
Federico raised an eyebrow. “How dangerous are we talking?”
“He’s got dirt on half the judges in the state,” I explained. “Connections to three different crime families. And a particular soft spot for the Pavlovs.”
“Fuck,” Achille muttered.
“Exactly.” I nodded. “I think they’ve been grooming him as a backup in case Marc ever became a problem. And now that Marc’s gone… “
“They’ll have their new puppet in place,” Caspian finished, setting down the file with a heavy sigh.
The room fell silent as my brothers processed what this meant. The Pavlovs would only get stronger, and thought he news reported Marc Montes’s death as a burglary gone wrong, Alisa and I had been there.
And now, people were whispering in our world, even though we hadn’t said a word. The Pavlovs had sent a message—cross them and die.
“So what’s the play?” Giovanni asked. “We take him out before he’s sworn in?”
I shook my head. “That’s too messy. Creates more problems than it solves.”
Federico leaned forward. “What about turning him? Getting him on our side first?”
“Too risky,” Caspian said. “If the Pavlovs already have their hooks in him, he’d just feed them information about us.”
“So we’re fucked either way,” Achille threw his hands up. “Great meeting, Dante.”
I shot him a look. “I didn’t call you here to complain. I called you here because I have an idea, but I need all of you on board.”
“Let’s hear it,” Caspian nodded.
“I think we need to push for a different prosecutor altogether,” I said.
Giovanni snorted. “And how exactly do we ‘push’ for a different prosecutor? We don’t exactly have a vote.”
“We have leverage,” I insisted. “We have information on Ruben that could have him fired if it got to the right people.”
“And piss off the Pavlovs even more,” Federico pointed out. “They’d come after us full force.”
“Not if they don’t know it was us,” I argued.
