CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ETHAN
LATE-AFTERNOON SUNLIGHT cut hard angles across the conference room's glass walls when we returned, throwing long shadows over the table.
The others were already waiting.
Knox had his ankles crossed, chair pushed back a few inches from the table—the posture of a man who wanted to look like he hadn't been thinking about this for the last two hours.
Rafa stood at the far end, both hands flat against the edge, like he needed something to push against. Serena was flicking a pen end over end between two fingers, the soft plastic click of it the only sound in the room.
Caleb hadn't looked up. His legal pad was already dense with handwriting, columns and arrows and bracketed notations that would be illegible to anyone but him.
I shut the door. "Phones off. Nothing discussed in here leaves this room."
Chairs shifted. Screens went dark. Eric and Katerina took their seats, and I stayed standing.
"Cortez isn't getting an answer today."
Knox's brow lifted a fraction. "That bad?"
"That complicated." I set my hands against the back of my chair, the leather cool under my palms. "He gave us information at the end of the meeting that materially changes our risk assessment."
Rafa's chin came up. "What?"
"He has a daughter."
Serena's pen stopped mid-rotation.
Knox's frown deepened. "Cortez has a daughter?"
"Apparently."
"Who?"
I looked around the table. "Lila Marino."
Absolute fucking silence aside from Serena saying something in Italian that didn't need translation. Rafa stared at me like he was waiting for the correction. Knox slowly uncrossed his ankles and let both feet drop to the floor.
Caleb blinked twice, his pen hovering an inch above the page.
Then Knox said what everyone else appeared to be thinking. "You've got to be fucking kidding me."
"I wish."
Serena leaned forward. "Does she know?"
"That Cortez is her father? Apparently, to some degree. Whether she understands the full extent of his business, I don't know. According to Cortez, she doesn't know he approached us or that he intends to demand she work on his defense."
Rafa frowned. "Demand?"
"He wants her on the case."
"Absolutely fucking not," Serena snapped.
"Already told him staffing decisions belong to me."
Caleb finally spoke. "What does he claim she knows?"
"Information that isn't contained in discovery. He wouldn't specify."
Caleb looked back down at his notes. His pen moved once, stopped, moved again—a small correction to something already written. "Then that's not evidence of anything."
Exactly. Serena looked at him like he'd said it in a language she didn't speak. "He specifically wants his secret daughter on his defense team. You don't find that suspicious?"
"I find Cortez suspicious," Caleb replied, without looking up. "That does not establish Marino's knowledge or involvement."
Katerina gave the slightest nod. It was the kind of nod that closed a door. "She warrants scrutiny. She does not yet warrant accusation."
Rafa exhaled through his nose and dragged a hand over his jaw, the rasp of it audible in the quiet. "Christ."
"That's where we are."
Knox leaned forward, forearms coming down flat against the table. “So what happens now?"
I couldn’t outright fire her.
I had no idea what her stake was in the all this and until I found out I wouldn’t be acting rash. She was talented. The firm had invested in her and until now, the issue had been narrow enough that I believed it could be corrected.
Serena looked between us all, "So we're supposed to sit across from her and discuss her inappropriate behavior while pretending we don't know she's Dominic Cortez's daughter?"
"For now? Yes."
She swore beneath her breath.
The air in the conference room felt thick, charged with impatience. I could taste the collective frustration, like metal on my tongue. I understood it. I felt it too, but frustration wasn’t proof.
“We have no evidence that Lila’s done anything for Cortez,” I explained, keeping my voice calm. “I’m not turning a routine boundary discussion into a full-blown interrogation just because her father tossed her name onto a prison defense table.”
Caleb’s pen hovered over his notepad, the click of its mechanism the only sound. “That’s... rational,” he admitted.
Knox pointed at him with a crooked grin. “See? Caleb likes it. Motion passes.”
“I did not vote,” Caleb protested, lowering his pen.
“You’re ruining this for me,” Knox teased. A reluctant laugh echoed around the mahogany table, cracking a sliver of the tension—but only a sliver.
Katerina folded her hands neatly in front of her, dark nails tapping. “There’s another consideration.”
All eyes shifted to her. “Yesterday, Lila’s behavior didn’t match someone bracing for her father to drop a bombshell in her lap.”
Serena leaned forward, brow furrowed. “Meaning?”
“If she’d entered this firm on Cortez’s orders, she’d have played it safe. If she’d known he planned to demand her placement on his defense, overtly seeking Ethan’s approval would’ve been wildly careless.” Katerina’s gaze swung to me, sharp as a scalpel. “What we’re seeing looks personal.”
My jaw clenched. That had been the goddamn problem this entire time. Eric, ever watchful, caught the shift in my posture. Of course, he did. He noticed everything.
“So we keep these issues separate until we have proof tying them together,” he stated, jotting a note on his tablet.
I forced my shoulders to relax. Lila wanting my attention didn’t prove she was working her father’s angle.
Being Cortez’s daughter didn’t automatically mean she’d joined Marcelli Group because of him.
And Cortez’s accusations weren’t gospel.
I lived and died by evidence. I’d be damned if I abandoned that standard now just because coincidence made my skin crawl.
“We’ll audit everything we’re authorized to audit. Discreetly. Case files, internal communications, any client matters connected to Cortez—anything that falls outside her normal duties gets flagged.”
Caleb gave a curt nod. “Defined parameters reduce false positives.”
“Exactly.”
Serena tapped her pen against the glass tabletop. “Her personal communications?”
“Off-limits,” I replied. “Unless we establish a lawful basis to dig deeper.”
Rafa glanced up from his notes, eyebrows raised. “You’re remarkably lawyerly about someone who might’ve been living under our roof for two years.”
“I am a fucking lawyer,” I said evenly. “We’re not manufacturing guilt based on a surname handed to us,” I continued. “If there’s something there, we’ll find it.”
Eric was already sketching out next steps. “And if there isn’t?”
“Then there isn’t.”
Serena leaned back, pen still in hand. “What about assigning her to Cortez’s defense team?”
“No.” The word came out sharp and immediate.
“No matter what?” Serena pressed.
“No matter what.” I reclined in my chair, cracking the leather. “Even if she’s completely innocent, putting an associate on her own father’s federal criminal case is a conflict nightmare. Cortez doesn’t get to pick my lawyers.”
That decision had come easy. Every other corner of this situation felt like a labyrinth.
Serena’s eyes narrowed. “You’d actually keep her here besides that?”
“If she respects the boundary and our audit finds nothing—yes.” I shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Silence fell again, heavy with unasked questions.
Maybe they’d expected me to snap or to lash out.
I didn’t dislike Lila. I disliked that something as simple as an associate looking at me too long had become a conversation involving my wife, my partners, and now a fucking incarcerated crime boss, but none of that justified destroying someone's career.
"She's good at her job," I said. “Between now and Monday, we verify everything Cortez told us. Nobody contacts Marino or hints that anything changed today. And nobody starts treating her differently around the office."
"Eric, get me the initial access review. Katerina, work with Serena on anything related to her case assignments. Caleb, start tracing Cortez's known family connections and see whether Marino appears anywhere legitimate."
Caleb wrote each item down.
"Knox and Rafa, keep reviewing the actual case."
Knox looked offended. "So everybody gets espionage except us?"
"You get several thousand pages of federal discovery."
"Fucking Christmas."
I looked around the table. "Cortez wanted to destabilize us with this. Don't let him."
Chairs scraped across the polished floor as everyone rose, phones awakened with quiet chimes.
The murmurs of departing colleagues swelled and then faded until only Rafa, Serena, Eric, and I remained clustered around the long mahogany table.
A single fluorescent bulb buzzed overhead, casting the scale-tipped silhouette of Lady Justice on the far wall.
Eric studied me across the scattered case files, his blue eyes probing. “You alright?”
I closed my fist around a pen, knuckles whitening. “Fine.”
Rafa snorted, exhaling through his nose in irritation. His black hair caught the light. “You look like you want to punch something.”
I pressed my palm flat on the table, fingertips grazing the edge of Serena’s legal pad. “I want information.”
He rolled his shoulders. “That’s less fun.”
Serena remained seated, posture rigid, her laptop open but screen dark. She looked up at me, jaw tight. “Laurel vetted her.”
I met her gaze. “Her paperwork was clean. HR processed everything. I signed off on her placement.”
“Rena,” I said, turning to point at her.
“How did we not know?” Her lips thinned, and she tucked a stray strand of dark hair behind her ear.
“Because there was no reason for us to know. Marino is her legal name. Cortez apparently kept her existence private. Unless you planned on DNA-testing every associate we hired, what exactly were you supposed to find?”
Rafa reached out and rested a hand on Serena’s shoulder, the leather of his jacket creaking. “He’s right.”
She exhaled, the tension in her shoulders melting away.
I felt it too—the sting of betrayal, the dizzying realization that Lila had walked our halls for almost two years, file by file, handshake by handshake, while we remained oblivious.
Every casual greeting, every conference-room exchange, suddenly bristled with potential secrets.
I forced the thought down. Hindsight could twist coincidence into conspiracy in a heartbeat.
“Sunday I’ll talk to Dad,” I said, voice low. “See what he knows about Cortez and the Marino family.” I looked at Eric. “You get me whatever we can verify before then.”
“Done,” Eric replied, already tapping his pen against the table.
“And tonight, I talk to Julia,” I added.
Serena’s expression shifted—her brown eyes narrowing. “About Lila?”
I tucked a stray file into a neat pile. “About everything I’m legally permitted to tell her.
” The weight behind those words was heavier than any briefing I’d given that morning.
Julia was my partner in life; I hated that privilege might force me to measure my words.
But I wouldn’t risk the firm—or a potential client—to unburden my own mind.
Eric pushed his chair back with a soft scrape. “I’ll have the first report in your secure inbox tonight.” He stood, straightening his tie, then left the room.
Rafa lingered a moment longer. He leaned down to brush a kiss across Serena’s temple before turning on his heel and following Eric out.
I’d never been awkward about their relationship—mainly because I deliberately kept it simple in my mind: Rafa loved her, and I trusted him with her. That was enough.
When the door clicked shut, Serena stared at me. Her voice was quiet but firm. “Ethan.”
I met her gaze. “What?”
She inhaled, as though summoning the right words. “I need you to promise me something.”
I crossed my arms. “Depends.”
She lifted her chin. “I’m serious. You’re Julia’s husband and my brother before you’re anybody’s attorney—before Cortez, before this firm, before whatever the hell this turns into.” She paused, her eyes glistening. “Don’t forget which one matters when things get ugly.”
I held her gaze without flinching. “I don’t forget, Rena.”
There wasn’t even a heartbeat of hesitation. Julia wasn’t competing with my work, the firm, or Lila Marino. My wife was my wife—the woman I built my life with, mother of my daughters, the person I ran home to when the world outside became too loud.
“I know where I belong,” I said softly.
Serena watched me for a long moment, then nodded once. “Good.” She gathered her things—her leather briefcase, her legal pad—and slipped out the door.
I was alone. The bronze statue of Lady Justice loomed at the room’s far end, her scales balanced perfectly, impassive. For years I’d thrived on weighing everything: evidence against allegation, risk against reward, truth against whichever version someone could afford.
Now Dominic Cortez had handed me a new equation: his case, his daughter, my firm, my family. They hadn’t intertwined—yet. And that was a distinction I intended to preserve. I’d make the boundary unmistakable.
Cortez was a separate problem.
His case was a separate decision.
And Julia? Julia was the coffee going cold on the nightstand because we’d talked too long. The way she folded the newspaper ads in half and handed me the crossword without being asked. The sound of her voice through the wall, reading to our daughters.
There was no reason any of this had to change that.
I was certain of it.
Completely fucking certain.