Roberto returned to the prosecution table and picked up a document. "Mr. Costello, you required surgery for this injury, correct?"
"Yes. Three pins in my arm. Months of physical therapy. I still don't have full mobility." He demonstrated by trying to rotate his wrist. The movement was clearly limited. "The doctors say I might never get it back completely."
"No further questions."
Judge Morrison looked at Diana. "Cross-examination?"
Diana stood and approached the witness stand with her trial notebook. She looked confident. Prepared. I'd given her everything we had on Antonio Costello—his history of bar fights, his gambling debts, his previous assault charges that his family made disappear.
"Mr. Costello, you testified you'd had 'a couple beers' that night. Is that accurate?"
"Yes."
"How many is a couple? Two?"
"Two, maybe three. I wasn't counting."
Diana pulled up security footage on the courtroom monitor. "Your Honor, Defense Exhibit 12. Security footage from Inferno's main bar on June fifteenth."
The video played. Showed Antonio at the bar. Showed him ordering. The timestamp ran in the corner.
"Mr. Costello, that's you at 10:47 PM, correct?"
Antonio squinted at the screen. "Yes."
"And what are you ordering?"
"I don't remember specifically."
"Let me help you. According to the bartender's testimony and the bar's POS system, you ordered six shots of tequila between 10:30 and 11:15 PM. Does that sound accurate?"
"I was buying for my friends—"
"But you were the one consuming them, weren't you? The video shows you drinking each shot immediately after ordering." Diana paused. "Six shots in forty-five minutes. Plus the beers you mentioned earlier. That's quite a bit more than 'a couple beers,' isn't it?"
Antonio's confident expression faltered. "I might've had more than I thought. But I wasn't that drunk."
"You weren't that drunk. Yet you testified you were just trying to order drinks when Mr. DeLuca approached you. But the bartender testified he cut you off because you were visibly intoxicated and becoming belligerent. Which version is true?"
"I wasn't belligerent—"
"The bartender has no reason to lie, does he? He doesn't work for the Vitale organization anymore. He's employed by a different establishment. Yet he testified under oath that you became aggressive when he refused to serve you. Are you calling him a liar?"
"I don't remember being aggressive."
"You don't remember. But you clearly remember everything else about that night? The exact sequence of events? How Mr. DeLuca grabbed you? How he threw you against a wall?" Diana's voice sharpened. "Isn't it more likely that your memory of that night is impaired by the amount of alcohol you consumed?"
"I remember what happened to my arm."
"I'm sure you do. Broken bones tend to be memorable." Diana walked back to the defense table. "Mr. Costello, did you have a knife on you that night?"
Silence. Long and damning.
"Mr. Costello? The question is simple. Did you have a knife?"
"I might've had a pocketknife. For utility purposes."
"A pocketknife. Can you describe this knife?"
