12. Max
MAX
Isaid nothing on the ride back to the mansion.
What was there worth saying? Apologizing?
It wouldn’t make anything better.
It wouldn’t change the fact that Greco had the RICO case hanging over our heads.
My bet was that he’d stuck his slippery fingers into law enforcement the moment he stepped inside the city—probably before he even traveled to the States.
Now, it was leverage against us. If Leona didn’t answer his demands, he’d get her arrested—if he didn’t kill her immediately.
The future wasn’t looking good for me.
There was no reason for the Shadows to keep protecting me with this on the table. I expected Leona to hand me over and wipe her hands of the whole matter. She and her men would live. It was everything she wanted.
As soon as we made it back inside the house, a knife pressed into my back. I’d recognize that pinprick and pressure anywhere. I didn’t even need to look to know it was Ryuji. He’d been looking for an excuse to kill me, and now he had one.
I didn’t blame him.
Leona stomped ahead, arms crossed over her chest, while the rest of us followed.
She dropped her weapons on the counter and kicked off her boots while the rest of the guys silently started disarming themselves—except for Ryuji and his knife.
She whirled on me so quickly that I stepped back into the sting of Ryuji’s weapon.
“Care to tell us what the fuck that was about?” she snapped, anger flaring in her golden eyes. She glanced at Ryuji’s knife pressed into my back near my kidneys. “Ryu, put the goddamn knife away.”
“I’ll kill him.”
“I will kill him!” she shrieked. The rest of the guys froze around the kitchen, staring at her after that outburst.
The knife reluctantly pulled away while I stared at the floor, my teeth gritted together. My hands shoved into the pockets of these borrowed pants, and I shifted from foot to foot.
“You’ve been hiding a RICO case from us?” Her voice vibrated with anger. “You sat in that chair”—she pointed toward the living room—“and you told us you would tell the truth. And now we find out there’s a RICO case? That you were aware of?”
She paused, waiting for me to respond.
The entire room waited.
“You didn’t ask about it.” I knew they were the wrong choice of words before they left my mouth.
Her eyes flared wide. “How am I supposed to ask you about things I have no fucking clue about, Max? Tell me fucking how!”
A sudden headache laced through my eyes. I just couldn’t outrun it, could I? Luciano was always going to bite me in the ass, again and again.
“Fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “Your father told me about a RICO case the day I killed him.”
“The fuck?” Cas asked. “Luciano was fighting a RICO case?”
Obi’s nostrils flared and his fingers flexed, like he might be reaching for a weapon, before he crossed his arms over his chest and stared at me. His heavy frown matched Leona’s. They were perfect for each other.
“And now that the Camorra know about it, we’re fucked,” Ryuji said as he braced his hands on the marble island bisecting the kitchen. “That shit will take us all down.”
“What was Luciano doing?” Cas shoulders hunched and his eyes furrowed in confusion. “Why didn’t he tell any of us about this? The Family needed to know if we were fighting a RICO case. We would have pulled our men in, questioned them, made sure that no one was turning on us.”
My eyes squeezed shut as I remembered the way Luciano had thrown this at me in a last ditch effort to not kill him. I’d killed him regardless—I was too far deep in it to stop then—before I’d asked him questions. It had been looming over my head ever since.
Ciel sucked in a quiet breath. I watched in real time as the hacker put the pieces together and came to the same conclusion I had. “Not fighting. Luciano was the informant, wasn’t he? He was going to provide evidence against the other Heads?”
Leona’s head whipped to mine. “The FBI said my father was acting as a confidential informant.”
My eyes widened. “What? You’ve been talking to the fucking FBI? I knew you were reckless, but I never took you for a snitch.”
Her head reeled back like I had slapped her. “I’m not fucking talking to them; they’re after me.”
The FBI was after her? A chill ran down my spine. “What are you talking about?”
“They’ve been hovering around us for weeks, and they cornered me and Ryu at his club about two weeks ago.
We were supposed to meet them the day after you got attacked.
” She pulled on one of her curls and looked over her shoulder at Obi.
“We had to postpone it, but we can’t put it off forever.
They keep pressing our lawyer for a meeting. ”
“Why didn’t you fucking tell me that?” I hissed back. “Now who is keeping secrets?”
“Oh, you asshole,” she shot back, stepping forward. I moved closer. Only a few steps separated us. “Don’t you even think about acting like the victim when you’re hiding things left and right.”
“If the Camorra knew you’d been talking to the FBI, they would have killed you.
No more questions. No playing Mr. Nice Guy like Greco tried to do tonight.
It doesn’t matter that he might have connections with them.
He would have said you’d broken omertà and killed you.
” My fists were shaking at my sides. “That’s something I should have known before walking in there. ”
“You are so full of it.” She laughed bitterly.
“Goddamn it, Leona, this is going to swallow us all up.”
“I know!” she yelled, fuming, staring up at me. Only a foot separated us now. “That’s why you should have told me! What did my father say?”
I wanted to tear my hair out. I had gone through all this fucking effort to keep her out of this, and here we were. I’d done my best, and it still wasn’t good enough.
It would never be enough.
I ran a hand through my hair and pressed my free hand against my aching ribs. The stitches were itching. “Luciano was drowning. He knew I was coming for him and building allies against him, and he knew his time was limited.”
“So he decided to turn you over to save himself?” she asked.
“I have barely had time to look into it. I don’t know for sure.
But the only explanation I’ve been able to come up with was that he was going to turn me over, and the other Heads over, in order to keep himself safe.
Everything was piling up, and he had no other option.
He was going to wipe us all out in one swoop, and then rule over New York by himself. ”
“Goddamn it, Max.” She bit the words out. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t you just tell us? Even when we were going after the Albanians together, we should have known!”
“I’ve been trying to keep you out of it!” I shouted, finally fed up with it all.
“What?” Cas perked up, like he could hear a truth hidden behind my words. He really did know me the best. “What do you mean?”
My hands pressed against my face, dragging down like I could physically pull all this shit from me.
“I couldn’t tell you anything. This whole time, I’ve been trying to keep you out of it.
I had no idea what they had on me, what your father gave them about me, and if you were known as my associate, they could take you down with me. ”
The room went quiet again. I pulled my hands away from my face to see her staring up at me, clearly not believing any word I said.
“Is that true?”
I threw my hands into the air. “RICO is dangerous. There doesn’t even need to be evidence that you committed a crime for you to be convicted, so long as there’s enough to connect you to the organization and establish intent to commit crime, or that you’re part of the conspiracy.
As Luciano’s daughter, it wouldn’t be hard to make the case.
But you’re so damn stubborn, Leona. You refused to listen.
You wouldn’t back off, and now I have no idea what they’ve got on you. ”
Cas made a move, like I thought he was going to come to my defense, but he paused and sat back. He crossed his arms over his chest, then inclined his head—like he was trying to signal me to tell more of the truth.
I hated it. I hated all of this.
“I know I am going down in this RICO case,” I said. “That was Luciano’s intent this whole time. I was only trying to make sure you didn’t get caught in the fallout.”
Leona braced her arms on the kitchen island and pressed her forehead to them. She took multiple deep breaths. Everyone else seemed to want to set me on fire and watch me burn alive.
“And now the Camorra has all of us wrapped up together,” Ryuji said. “Because you ran to the penthouse.”
“Yes,” I replied without looking away from her.
“But their main informant is dead,” Ciel added. “Depending on what testimony he has already given, their case could be blown apart.”
“Unless they have someone else in their pocket,” Obi countered. “Any of the Camorra men, or Sandrini’s men, willing to face jail time to testify against us. To take us down.”
A RICO case relied on a snitch to help boost the evidence that there was a conspiracy taking place, and that the men in charge ordered crimes to take place which were perpetrated by the men who worked for them.
The snitch wasn’t necessary, but it solidified the case.
That was how the racketeering charges would stick.
The FBI might already have enough evidence gathered on me, Rossi, and Sandrini to prove that we led the remaining Five Families, but any kind of testimony against Leona could be enough to loop her in with the rest of us.
“Yeah, all it would take is one of San—Sandrini’s men to take the fall,” Ciel said. “They could wipe out all the New York mafia in one swoop and give Greco everything he needs to take control.”
“We can get Samuel to investigate,” Obi said. “He can find out how extensive this case really is.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that Max is here,” Wynn said. “He’s here, and we’ve been working with him for weeks. There’s likely more than enough documentation to establish conspiracy to commit a crime.”