Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
ENZO
The deal takes three weeks to negotiate.
Three weeks of meetings in federal buildings that smell like floor wax and judgmental assholes. Three weeks of lawyers and prosecutors and people in suits asking me questions I don’t want to answer about things I’ve spent my whole life pretending didn’t happen.
Saul’s there for most of it. Not officially. He’s not supposed to be involved, but he shows up anyway. Sits in the back of conference rooms. Drives me to meetings when I’m too wrecked to drive myself.
“You don’t have to do this,” I tell him once. “Babysit me.”
“I’m not babysitting.” He hands me a coffee. Black, no sugar. He’s learned how I take it. “I’m invested.”
“In the case?”
“In you.” He holds my gaze. “You’re going to be part of her life. That makes you part of mine. So yeah, I’m invested.”
I’ve never had someone invest in me before. Not like this. Not without expecting something in return.
The deal, when it finally comes together, is better than I deserve. Full immunity for my testimony. Witness protection for life. New identity, new location, new everything. In exchange, I give them Sal. Every murder he ordered, every body I buried, every secret I’ve kept for twelve years.
The prosecutor, a woman named Lancaster with sharp eyes and zero patience for bullshit, lays it out in her office on a Tuesday afternoon.
“You understand what you’re agreeing to,” she says.
“I understand.”
“Once you testify, there’s no going back. The family will know. They’ll come for you.”
“I know.”
“And you’re willing to accept that risk?”
I think about Stevie. The Blue Door. The life I could have if I’m brave enough to reach for it.
“I’m willing.”
Lancaster nods. Slides a stack of papers across her desk.
“Then sign.”
I sign.
And now I’m committed.
No more Enzo. No more family. No more blood on my hands.
Just whatever comes next.
The trial starts six weeks later.
I’ve testified before. Plenty of times. But always for the other side, providing alibis, contradicting witnesses, saying whatever needed to be said to keep our people out of prison.
This is different. This time, I’m the one in the witness box. The one with a target on my back. The one who decided that the truth matters more than survival.
The courtroom is packed. Press in the gallery, family members scattered throughout, lawyers at two tables pretending they’re not about to tear each other apart.
And Sal’s sitting at the defense table, watching me with eyes that haven’t changed since I was seventeen and he was teaching me how to break fingers. Cold. Patient. The look of a man who knows exactly how to make you disappear.
The prosecutor starts slow. Easy questions. Establishing who I am, how long I worked for the family, what my role was.
“And what was that role, Mr. Mancini?”
“Enforcement.” The word sounds too pretty for what I did. “I handled people who owed money, people who talked too much, people who.” I stop. Force myself to continue. “People who needed to disappear.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“I hurt people. When Sal told me to.” I look at the jury. Twelve strangers who will decide whether any of this matters. “And sometimes I killed them.”
Murmurs in the gallery. The defense lawyer objects. The judge overrules.
I keep talking.
Names. Dates. Locations. Bodies buried in places they’ll never be found. Every secret I’ve kept, every sin I’ve committed, laid out in a federal courtroom for the whole world to see.
It takes three days. Three days of questions. Three days of Sal’s eyes on me, never looking away. Three days of remembering every terrible thing I’ve ever done and saying it out loud.
On the fourth day, it’s the defense’s turn.
The lawyer, Vincent DeLuca, is good. Expensive. The kind of shark who builds his career on making witnesses look like liars.
“Mr. Mancini, isn’t it true that you’re only testifying because the government offered you a deal?”
“Yes.”
“So you’re being paid, essentially, to tell this story.”
“I’m not being paid. I’m being given a chance to start over.”
“A chance that requires you to say what the prosecution wants you to say.”
“A chance that requires me to tell the truth.”
“The truth.” He smiles. Condescending. “And why should this jury believe that a self-admitted murderer is capable of telling the truth?”
I look at Sal. He’s still watching me. Still waiting.
“Because I’m tired,” I say quietly. “I’m tired of lying. I’m tired of hurting people. I’m tired of being the man he made me into.” I turn back to the jury. “I can’t take back what I did. But I can stop pretending it didn’t happen. And I can make sure he doesn’t do it to anyone else.”
The lawyer opens his mouth to respond.
Sal speaks first. “You’re a dead man.”
The courtroom explodes. The judge bangs his gavel. DeLuca tries to silence his client.
Sal doesn’t look at any of them. Just keeps his eyes on me.
“You hear me, Enzo? The moment you walk out of here, you’re dead. You, and everyone you care about. I’ll find them. This about that bitch? I’ll find her. And I’ll make sure you watch before I…”
“Remove the defendant!” The judge is shouting now. Marshals are moving toward the defense table.
Sal’s still talking, still threatening, still promising to destroy everything I love.
I don’t flinch.
I’ve spent my adult life being afraid of this man. Years doing what he told me because the alternative was unthinkable.
But the alternative isn’t unthinkable anymore. The alternative is a blue door and a woman who saw me when I was nothing but a weapon. The alternative is worth dying for.
“I’m not afraid of you,” I say.
Sal hears me. I know he does, even through the chaos.
And for the first time since I’ve known him, surprise flickers in his eyes.
They drag him out of the courtroom. The judge calls a recess. The prosecutor looks at me like she’s not sure whether to be impressed or concerned.
“That was either very brave or very stupid,” Lancaster says.
“Probably both.”
She smiles. “We’ll finish tomorrow. Then you’re done.”
Done. I’m almost done.
The verdict comes a week later.
Guilty. All counts.
Sal’s going to prison for the rest of his life. The family’s fractured, scattered, half of them cutting deals of their own to avoid going down with him.
Dario will put it back together. Maybe better than before.
I watch the news coverage from a safe house in Virginia. Marshals outside, blinds closed, the same kind of limbo Stevie described when she talked about waiting.
I understand it now.
The suspension. The not-quite-existing. The feeling of being caught between who you were and who you’re going to become.
Saul comes by on the third day.
“It’s done,” he says. “The paperwork’s finalized. You’re ready for processing.”
Processing. Such a clinical word for erasing everything you used to be.
“When?”
“Tomorrow.” He sets a folder on the table. “I pulled some strings. Called in some favors. The relocation is approved.”
“Colorado?”
“Colorado.” He smiles. “Small town. Mountain views. Bakery that needs a second pair of hands.”
My chest tightens. “And the cover story?”
“Husband. Like we discussed.” He opens the folder. Inside: documents, forms, a whole new identity waiting to be born. “You’ll need to choose a name.”
I look at the blank spaces on the forms. First name. Middle name. Last name already filled in.
Carter. Like her.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” I say slowly. “What to be called.”
“And?”
“Nathaniel.” The word feels strange in my mouth. New. “It means ‘gift of God.’”
Saul raises an eyebrow.
“I’m not religious,” I clarify. “But.” I try to find the words. “She’s the best thing that ever happened to me. A gift I didn’t earn and don’t deserve. And if I’m going to be someone new, I want the name to mean something.”
“Nathaniel Carter.” Saul says it slowly. Testing it. “Nate.”
“Nate.” I nod. “Yeah. Nate works.”
He writes it in the blank spaces.
And Enzo Mancini starts to disappear.
Processing is exactly as dehumanizing as Stevie described.
Photos. Fingerprints. Forms signed in triplicate. A bored government employee explaining the rules of my new life, reading from a script she’s memorized.
No contact with anyone from your previous life. No returning to locations associated with your previous identity.
I stop listening. I’ve already lost everyone from my previous life. Except the ones who matter.
Stevie, Dario, and Saul.
There’s nothing to go back to.
Only forward.
They give me new documents. Driver’s license, social security card, birth certificate. Nathaniel James Carter, born in Ohio, thirty-four years old, no criminal record.
I look at the photo on the license. Same face. Same scars. Same eyes. But someone different underneath.
“There’s one more thing,” the processor says. She slides a small box across the table.
I open it.
Inside: a simple ring. Silver. Unadorned.
“What’s this?”
“Marshal Bennett requested it be included with your documents.” She checks her paperwork. “He said you’d know what it was for.”
Saul bought me a ring.
I close the box. Put it in my pocket. Feel the weight of it against my leg.
“Thank you,” I manage.
She nods. Stamps something. Slides more papers toward me.
“Welcome to your new life, Mr. Carter.”
The drive to Colorado takes fourteen hours.
I could have flown. Saul offered to arrange it. But I wanted the time. The space. The miles of highway between who I was and who I’m trying to become.
I think about the first time I saw her.
In the restaurant. Assessing if she was a threat. Then, I thought she was fragile. Breakable. Someone who needed protecting.
I was wrong. She’s the strongest person I’ve ever met. Strong enough to testify, to disappear, to rebuild herself from nothing. Strong enough to love three broken men and believe we’re worth it.
I think about the first time I kissed her. Against her apartment wall, angry and desperate, convinced I was making a mistake I couldn’t take back. She tasted like sugar cookies and something else I couldn’t name.