“I don’t know about that,” Carlo says. “She seemed like a woman with a plan. But regardless, Miranda Winter is a symptom of a larger problem. My father, Don Morelli. He hired her, after all—a Clemenza-affiliated lawyer. He’s been asleep at the wheel.”
“Your father and I will discuss these issues later. As for you, Bianchi, you can go. I’ll have Carlucci—”
“No,” Carlo says, and I almost choke halfway through my sigh of relief.
“No?” Luca tilts his head in that dangerous way he has.
“Get the fuck out of here, Harvard,” I snap. “Get out before he changes his mind.”
Carlo stands, and I sag against the chair, once more thanking God for saving him. But instead of turning to leave, Carlo straightens his jacket and pulls the sleeves straight. “Don Morelli, my father has always hamstrung the firm with his insistence that we keep a distance from your Family. If Nicky and I hadn’t had to keep our relationship secret, none of this would have happened in the first place. But I have no reason to believe my father will change his stance, which I don’t believe benefits youorus. And apart from that, he’s obviously incompetent, if he can’t even do effective background checks on our staff. So I intend to ask my father to step down as managing partner. To retire. And when I take over, I plan to make some changes.”
Luca raises one eyebrow. “The infighting at Bianchi and Associates is of even less interest to me than what’s going on in Las Vegas. Do what you like. Just get out of here.Now.”
“That’s not true, though, is it? Not really,” Carlo persists. “I think you care very much about what’s going on in Las Vegas. And if you don’t, you should.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Luca says, very slowly and very softly.
I take a breath to tell Carlo to get lost again, but he holds up a hand to me without even looking my way. “I want to help you get what you want, Don Morelli.”
Luca scoffs. “And what is it that you think I want?”
“What we all want. Safety. Security. The freedom to pursue our business interests without constant outside threats. Whatever else Nick might have done, hehasgiven you an opening with Sonny Vegas, and it would be foolish not to take advantage of that.”
For a moment there, I thought Luca was listening to him, but the mention of my name turns his cold eyes to ice again. “Fontana will not be a consideration going forward.”
“Nicky was doing his job when he killed Gatti,” Carlo argues. “No more, no less.”
“Carlo,” I snap. “Get out of here!”
This time it’s Luca who holds up his hand in my face. Carlo takes it as a signal to go on, although I’m pretty sure Luca just wants silence as he takes careful aim at Carlo. But Luca doesn’t raise his gun, and Carlo just keeps talking.
“I’m an asset to the Family,” he says bluntly. “You proved it yourself just now, when I told you about Ms. Winter—you have no reason to care about her attempts on my life except for the fact that youneedme. I’m better than my father. I’m better than every other lawyer in the firm. And frankly, I’m better than most attorneys in this city. Did you know the incarceration rate for Morelli Family members has dropped by seventy-three percent since I started taking up your criminal cases?”
It sounds like a made-up statistic to me, although when I think about it, none of us have been put away for a while now. And those whohavebeen inside get light sentences, or come out on early parole. It’s one of the reasons I favored Carlo for my own defense.
He is very good at his job.
“Nick Fontana knows how important I am to the Family, too,” Carlo is saying. “When he came in and saw Gatti trying to kill me, he reacted with honor and loyalty by protecting one of your greatest assets.” He gestures to himself.
Luca actually laughs at that. “He was protecting the man he loves. Acting in his own interest, first and foremost.”
“Maybe. But those interestsarealigned with yours,” Carlo retorts, stabbing a finger at the floor like it’ll help make his point. Luca says nothing. “And the fact of the matter is, he was seeking to protectyou, Don Morelli, when he kept you in the dark. It was a tactic that worked—for a time. It kept the New York Commission functioning a few weeks longer than it might have otherwise. You werebelievablewhen you told them you had no idea what happened to Gatti.”
“And now they think I ordered a hit on him.”
“We can tell them Dellacroce killed Gatti. A rat from another Family, known for violence, who’s been trying to break apart the alliance. He’s been hiding out in Montauk, and his kid was working the wedding that night to scope the scene for him.”
“I don’t want Matt mixed up inanyof this,” I growl.
In unison, Luca and Carlo say, “Shut up.”
Luca’s expression goes from contemptuous to thoughtful. “I’ll take your idea about Dellacroce into consideration. But as for Fontana, he made vows and he broke them.”
“We all make mistakes from time to time. I’m sureyouhave in your life.”
“What I’ve done in my life is not the issue.”
“Okay,” Carlo says, his voice just as hard as Luca’s. He folds his arms. “Then let me make this clear. If—foranyreason—Nick Fontana no longer works for the Morelli Family, then neither does Bianchi and Associates.”
