CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #2
That amused him more. I ignored that and gestured toward the others. "Katerina Romanov, senior associate. Eric Callahan, my chief of staff and right hand." A fancier title for what he really was, and not nearly good enough to describe how vital he was to me.
Cortez looked between them, and Eric opened the meeting. "Why isn't your current counsel sitting here?"
"They became unsuitable."
"Unsuitable how?" Eric pressed.
Cortez leaned back and spread his legs. "They stopped understanding what was required to be useful."
I spoke before he could bury the answer beneath another layer of bullshit. "Did you fire them? Or did something happen to them?"
He laughed as if I had made a joke. "You're very direct. I like it.”
Katerina folded her hands. "If previous counsel withdrew because of ethical conflicts, threats, interference, or anything else that could affect our representation, we need to know before we consider stepping into their place."
Cortez's attention slid toward Kat. "I like her too."
Katerina's expression didn't move. "I'm flattered."
"If we take this case, you work with us on our terms. We don't get ambushed. We don't get half-truths. You don't decide which facts your attorneys deserve to know."
Cortez's eyes settled on mine. "And if I agree?"
"Then I review everything."
"Everything?"
"Discovery. Transcripts. Prior motions. Financial records. Informant material. Communications with previous counsel that you're legally permitted to disclose. All of it."
"And then?" he pressed.
"Then I decide whether I want your case."
That finally erased his smile, and for the next twenty minutes, we went through the indictment without any of his humor only he found entertaining. The meeting became a slow, methodical excavation. We went through the charges one at a time. Racketeering, money laundering, conspiracy to distribute.
I requested discovery logs, asked about jurisdictional challenges, pressed on informants whose names were redacted into black bars on a page.
I traced the faint outlines of financial trails that vanished into shell corporations and offshore accounts, and reviewed the prior counsel’s strategy, which read like a surrender document.
Cortez answered every question with the polished evasion of a man who’d spent a lifetime talking without saying anything.
He’d offer a fragment, then pull back, a glimpse of something real before sliding the curtain shut again.
I’d dealt with men like him before. They treated information like currency, hoarding it even from those hired to save them.
By the time I closed my leather-bound notebook, my knuckles were white where I’d been gripping my pen.
Two realizations had crystallized in the sterile air between us.
First, Dominic Cortez hadn’t come to me as his first choice.
He’d come because whatever had happened with his last team had left him backed into a corner, desperate enough to reach for a name like mine.
Second, the money, the astronomical retainer he’d waved around like confetti—wasn’t the point. If the Marcelli Group took this on, the only calculation that mattered was risk.
Cortez leaned back in his bolted-down chair, the metal groaning softly under his weight. “So?”
I kept my voice level. “So what?”
“Do I get the best?”
I laid my pen deliberately across the closed notebook. “You get a review.”
His brow furrowed, the charm thinning at the edges. “I’m not here for a review, Ethan. I want your signature on my file.”
“You’ll have an answer once we’ve examined everything.”
“Men usually line up to sit where you’re sitting,” he countered, the arrogant fuck.
I stood, not bothering to respond to that. “You’ll hear from us when we’ve reviewed everything. If there’s a defense we believe we can execute, we’ll discuss representation. If there isn’t, we’ll tell you that too.”
Cortez studied me for a long moment, then let out a low laugh that didn’t reach his eyes. “Smart man.”
I slid the notebook into my briefcase and clicked the latches shut. “We’ll see.”
Eric and Katerina rose smoothly beside me. We were turning toward the door when Cortez spoke again, his voice dropping into something quieter and more dangerous.
“There is one more condition, one of my own.”
I stopped. Of course there fucking was. “What condition?”
“When you take my case, my daughter works with you.”
I stared at him. Not because he’d said when—I’d expected that kind of arrogance. It was the other word.
“Your daughter?”
Every preliminary report I’d seen listed one child. His son, who was just as fucked in the head as his father. There was no daughter or whispered second family. Nothing.
Cortez’s expression shifted into something almost smug. “She does not carry my name.”
My father’s warning resurfaced in my mind, clear and cold, assume they were already in my house. Apparently, he’d been right.
“Who is your daughter?”
Cortez watched me for another beat, letting the silence stretch taut between us. “Lila Marino.”
For the first time since I’d entered that room, my thoughts didn't just slow—they fucking stopped. The name landed like a physical blow. For one suspended second, every other fact, the charges, the money, the risk, all vanished beneath it.
Beside me, Eric sat like a marble statue, his features utterly still. Across the gleaming mahogany table, Katerina absorbed Cortez’s confession with only the faintest arch of her brow. Years of courtroom battles had trained my face into a perfect mask of neutrality.
“Explain,” I said, my voice low and steady.
“Her mother and I had an arrangement many years ago.” His tone was casual, as if discussing the weather.
“I don’t give a shit about the arrangement.”
His lips curved into a wider smile, too easy, too sure. “I imagine not.”
“Does Lila know you’re her father?” I questioned, thinking about this revelation logically.
“She knows enough.”
His non-answer felt like a threat I couldn’t identify. Not betrayal, yet, but dangerous fragments of truth were falling into place.
“What exactly does she know about your case?” I pressed.
He folded his hands on the table. “My daughter is exceptionally intelligent. She knows how to listen. She knows how to remember details, and she understands more about my affairs than she realizes.”
I forced my throat to swallow. “Has she performed legal work for you?”
“No.”
“Moved money? Or communicated with anyone on your behalf?”
“Not knowingly.”
“Not knowingly.” The two words echoed in my skull. Fuck. “This meeting is over.”
Cortez’s brows lifted in mock surprise. “You haven’t agreed to my condition.”