Chapter 16
16
SAMANTHA
I ’ve spent enough time in courtrooms to know when judges hate the arguments they’re hearing. I can tell the three board members on the ethics panel despise my case from the moment they walk into the room.
They’re wearing business suits instead of black robes, and they sit behind a table instead of on a raised platform. But these three people will decide my entire future, based on whatever I say during the next two hours.
Sonja introduces herself and me. I’m invited to make an opening statement—the one Sonja and I rehearsed for so long yesterday.
“Good afternoon,” I begin. “May it please?—”
“Is it true, Ms. Kelly,” starts one of the board members, but then she interrupts herself. “Or should I call you Ms. Canna? That is your name, isn’t it? Before you changed it to misrepresent your connection to the dangerous Russo crime syndicate?”
“I changed my name because?—”
“How much of your current legal practice involves representing figures involved in organized crime?” asks the second member.
“The identity of my clients is confidential,” I respond.
“So you agree that you are employed by Mafia dons, Irish mob bosses, and the like.” That’s the third member, peering at me over her cat’s-eye glasses.
“No! I’m employed by Diamond Freeport.”
“A tax haven organized under the laws of the state of Delaware?—”
“Yes, the?—”
“—specifically to thwart the enforcement of United States tax statutes and regulations.” Board Member Number Two speaks over me, reading from some document. And then he says, “I’m surprised to hear you admit it.” He sounds like I barbecue babies for breakfast.
“The freeport is organized?—”
“Ms. Canna,” the first one interrupts. “Are you directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of anyone other than the three individuals listed in the ethics complaint we’re deciding today?”
The hearing goes downhill from there.
When I was in law school, I was taught to appreciate interruptions from judges. Their questions offer opportunities to explain my case, to clarify my clients’ points of view. Questions prove judges are engaged, are actively considering every argument made.
The ethics panel doesn’t give a damn about how I answer their demands. It’s clear all three of them made up their minds long before they entered the room. If they weren’t inclined to yank my license when they first heard about my case, they were absolutely certain I needed to be disbarred after they read the recent newspaper coverage. I’m only grateful this proceeding is closed to the public.
After forty-five minutes of making no headway explaining even one of my points, I ask for a recess to consult with Sonja—the one thing she said we shouldn’t do. She waits until we’re outside the conference room, standing in a corner of the all-too-public hallway before she mutters something.
“Excuse me?” I ask.
“You’re fucked,” she announces.
“So what do I do?”
“Go back in there, spread your legs, and think of England.”
“This is what I’m paying you for?”
“And I can promise, you aren’t paying enough. Because after we walk out of here today, I’m pretty sure I’ll never be able to bring another client in front of that board. Lube up. This won’t be pretty.”
She’s right.
It’s brutal. And two hours later, when they’ve dragged me back and forth over the facts, when they’ve ground my answers into powder, when they’ve willfully misinterpreted every single word I’ve said and cut off every attempt I make to rephrase, Board Member Number Two leans back in his chair with a sigh so heavy I wonder if he has extra lungs where his heart should be.
“All right, Ms. Canna. We’ll take some time to confer among ourselves. You can expect our written opinion within ninety calendar days.”
Ninety days. I wonder why they don’t just shoot me in the head right now.
Sonja and I shake hands outside the hearing room. I ask her to send her final invoice, and then I pretend to need the restroom so she can take the elevator downstairs on her own.
I realize I should reach out to Teddy Newland. Tell him about this disaster of a hearing. Warn him that my criminal case just became infinitely more difficult.
I don’t have the heart.
When I finally get out to the street, I’m surprised to see Liam Murphy waiting at the curb with the new Bentley. I actually forgot that he drove me down from Philly four hours ago. A lifetime ago.
He’s leaning against the sign that says, “No Stopping. No Standing.” The instant he sees me at the top of the stairs, he opens the back door of the car. He must be able to read my face as he hands me in, because he says, “There’s a cooler on the seat. Ice, Jameson, and soda. Himself said you might want a snort when you were done.”
My laugh sounds slightly hysterical. I want to ask if Braiden thought I’d be celebrating or drowning my sorrows, but it’s not fair to put Liam on the spot. “Thank you, but I’m fine,” I lie. “I do need to stop by the office, though, before we head home.”
I don’t need anything at the freeport. But I can’t bear the thought of sitting at dinner with a busy, happy Aiofe. The idea of yet another perfect meal from Fairfax turns my belly to stone. I can’t imagine how I’ll tell Braiden I’ve failed.
Liam doesn’t care about any of that. He just makes his confident way through afternoon traffic, getting me to the freeport in record time.
My assistant, Mary, has taken the afternoon off for a dentist’s appointment. Liam settles into his chair outside my office, beyond my range of view.
That means I can sit at my desk without interruption. I stare at the walls, not seeing the files around me. I count my breaths, starting over from one every time I lose track.
I’m finally up to twelve when there’s a light knock on my open door. “Oh,” Alix Key says. “I didn’t expect you to be here.”
“I am.” My voice sounds strange. High. Thin. Like I’m trapped on top of Mount Everest.
“I was going to drop off these brochures with Mary, so she could send them up to Philadelphia. I want Braiden to see how we’ve promoted similar auctions in the past.”
“Auctions?” I ask, because I think I’m supposed to say something.
“He called this morning to say he—” She cuts herself off. “Are you okay?”
I shake my head. “Sure,” I say. I realize something’s wrong there, that I was supposed to nod, but there isn’t an easy way to make things right.
Alix shuts my office door and comes to sit in one of the chairs across from my desk. “Sam?” she says. “You’re scaring me.”
“I’m sorry,” I answer automatically. “I won’t do that anymore.”
Alix puts a stack of brightly colored papers on my desk. “What’s going on?” she asks.
“I had my hearing this afternoon. For my bar license. It didn’t go well.” There. I thought it would be hard to say those words: It didn’t go well . But it’s so much easier than I thought it would be. It’s such a short sentence to say my life is changed forever.
“Did they issue their decision?”
“Not yet.”
“How long until they do?”
“I’m not sure. Three months at the most.”
“If it’s bad, can you appeal?”
“It’ll be bad.”
“Can you appeal?” she repeats.
I blink. “No. All decisions are final.”
Final .
Alix sits back in her chair. She’s Chief Operating Officer at the freeport. If her General Counsel is about to be disbarred, she needs to hire a replacement. Immediately.
But after a moment, she says, “So what do you do now? When you know you can’t fail?”
I shake my head. “I failed. I’m going to lose my license to practice law.”
“You’re going to do that. But you haven’t yet. And no one can stop you right now. Not until you get your official notice about the hearing.”
“Alix, you’re not listening. They’re going to disbar me. I won’t be a lawyer anymore.”
“ You’re not listening to me . You’ve got a window of opportunity here. A get-out-of-jail-free card. What’s the last thing you want to do as a lawyer? The most dangerous thing. The thing that could get you disbarred.”
Get Russo.
The answer’s waiting for me, without a second of hesitation. He’s the one who told the world about That Night. He’s why the panel decided against me before I ever entered the hearing room. He’s the reason I fled to New York in the first place. He murdered my parents. He killed my cousin. He’s done everything in his power to take down the man I love, and I’m still not sure Braiden will come out ahead in their ongoing battles.
“I want to destroy Antonio Russo,” I say.
Alix nods slowly. She doesn’t know everything that’s happened in my life, but she reads the newspapers. She’s heard the gossip. “So what do we do?” she asks. “To make sure that happens?”
We don’t do anything.
I do.
I walk into Russo’s lair as if I have every right to be there. I gain the bastard’s trust. I learn his deepest secrets. I bring all of it back to Braiden, so Russo is destroyed, once and for all.
Yeah. Right.
“Braiden would kill me,” I tell Alix. I don’t mean that literally. I think. But talk about taking control where I know I have no right to run things…
“I don’t believe that for a second,” Alix says.
“What would Trap do if he found out you worked behind his back to take down his worst enemy?”
She purses her lips. “Good point. So you’ll have to tell him beforehand?”
“What?” My question cracks with disbelief.
“Tell him what you’re planning. Work with him to make it happen.”
I shake my head. But even as I reject her suggestion, I wonder if I actually can convince Braiden. If the lure of taking Russo down, once and for all, is enough for him to let me do it.
It’s impossible.
It’s the only thing that makes sense.
I have to try.
Russo murdered Eliza, the last of my cousins. He ended the story I began That Night, eleven years ago. I need to destroy him. It’s the only way I can give any meaning to those bodies I left on the mountainside.
It’s the only way I can atone for my past.