“Did the defendant agree to grant her a divorce?”
“Not that I know of. My observations state Viktor Safin was fond of his wife despite what he believed of her, and he didn’t want a divorce. Even his infidelity, to him, was a reflex to hers.”
“Is it possible, on the night of the heinous murder, Mr. and Mrs. Safin were arguing about the divorce, as the help has testified, and he suspected she was trying to poison him because he wouldn’t grant her the divorce?”
The prosecutor was digging the grave of this case. “It’s possible.”
“And is it possible, right in that moment, that he was lucid enough to end that argument in blood?”
“Objection, Your Honor. This is—”
“Overruled. Answer the question, Doctor.”
“Your hypothesis dictates the defendant wasn’t acting under the influence of his delusion when he thought the dinner his wife had made was poisoned. You’re suggesting it was a rational suspicion. If that was the case, then it establishes that Mr. Safin was indeed lucid enough to walk away from the dinner table after the argument, which clearly indicates he had no intention to retaliate or harm his wife. What would motivate him to return and stab his wife to death? If that was his intention, why didn’t he do it in the heat of the argument?
“On the other hand, his wife, if she did poison him, would be the one inclined to finish the task, don’t you think? So perhaps, based on your hypothesis, Mrs. Safin attacked her husband with the dinner knife, and he, whether you assume he was in a delusion or not, still killed his attacker in self-defense.
“But the witnesses—”
“The answer to your question is no, Counselor. In my professional opinion, which is the only thing I’m here to give, it was when Safin looked back at his wife’s seat on his way out that the delusion of Stan attacking him manifested and thus Safin defended himself. Your hypothesis contradicts my documented findings and diagnosis. Everything else regarding this case is your job to proof or discredit.”
A flash of anger stained his face. I was sure after this argument, Polanski’s irresistible impulse insanity defense would hold, and Viktor Safin would walk away with murder. I assumed the prosecutor had reached the same conclusion when he marched toward his table. “I’m done. No more questions, Your Honor.”
I wished I’d been done, too. With my profession, with the state of Illinois, with the Mob.
With everything.
CHAPTER 2
Leo
You always hurt the ones you love.
When she hurt me, did she love me? I knew I loved her when I did.
Even now, a year later of getting my bones smashed and teeth shattered, of having the sickest fuck of the Lanzas mark every inch of my skin with his fucking knife, literally cutting pieces of me, I was still obsessively in love with Lina Baldi.
The girl that put me under her spell before I even saw her face. The woman that stood in white next to me, vowing to be mine forever. The bitch who took my last name, only it wasn’t me who gave it to her.
Why?
The infinite questions spun in circles in my head every day since I’d been captured. They tortured me as hard as Domenico Lanza did.
Why when I closed my bruised eyes did I still see the green ones and the fragile smile that lied to me? Why in the quietness of the dark did the sound of her violin echo louder than the resonating pain of my fissuring skin? Why as the taste of my blood sickened me did I only wish it was replaced by her taste even though I’d never had a chance to know what it was?
Why wouldn’t my heart stop beating, stop screaming her name? Why was the memory of her face the only thing keeping me alive? Why when she’d betrayed me did I still want to protect her from the monster she chose over me?
Why did I always fall for a woman who wouldn’t choose me? Why hadn’t I fallen for someone like Nicky Baldi? One who, unlike Lina, unlike Sia, remained faithful to the man she’d promised herself even when she saw him for the monster he truly was?
With my swollen gaze, I stared at the feisty blonde that was supposed to bemysister-in-law, who stood in front of my cage in shock, refusing to believe my words that were the blatant truth because she was loyal to her man. “Congratulations, by the way. You followed your sister’s lead and got yourself a Mob husband, and I thought you were the smart one.”
“Shut the fuck up. You don’t know the first thing about me or Lina or Dom,” she spat.
My heart fluttered and cursed at the sound of her name. If Lina was as half as faithful as her sister, none of this shit we were all in would have happened. As much as I needed to win Nicky over, I admired her devotion for Domenico Lanza. “I know one thing. Something you and I have in common, maybe Lina, as well, and I think you know it, too.”
She banged the shovel in her hand against the cage metal bars. “You don’t get to say her name on your filthy tongue, and I have nothing in common withyou.”
“So we weren’t both tools in Tino Bellomo’s hands? People he lured into his world no matter how hard we rejected and fought it? People he chewed and spat after we became exactly what he wanted?”
