Page 51 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet

He laughed. Actually laughed at my threat, tucking his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels as if we were just having a lovely father-daughter chat.

“Little fighter,” he said again, affection in his tone. “If I don’t protect you, however ungrateful you may be, you’ll die.”

“A part of me died the day you introduced Christopher into our lives.” The words were wrenched from the fabric of my soul, and I found suddenly that there was wet in my eyes and a harsh tickle in my sinuses. “When you let him seduce a little girl who didn’t know better and again when youknewhe hurt me, but you didn’t step in.” A shadow passed over his face, but I was too far gone to feel anything but rage. “Another part died when you took Cosima from us, when you disappeared even though we were better off without you. You killed my ability to love, Seamus, and you almost killed my ability to evenlive. Most of what plagues me is because of you, and that is the only legacy you’ve ever given me. If you care atallabout me, you’ll leave me with the scars you’ve already inflicted and never bother me again.”

I turned to stalk down the alley only to flip my hair over my shoulder and snarl one last threat, a warning that wasn’t mine to make, yet I felt fully assured of its validity. I knew I wouldn’t tell Dante I’d seen my father, that he’d told me the truth about Cosima and Alexander, but I knew even if I never did and I had to cash in my warning, Dante would do it without question.

“And if you think to fuck with me again, the Devil of New York City himself will come for you, and I won’t stop him when he does.”

The pre-trial hearing was successful.

In fact, it was almost ridiculous how easy it was to suppress Mason Matlock’s testimony. Judge Hartford wore a furious scowl on his thick brow during the entire proceeding, but there was no denying that Mason Matlock was an unreliable witness, and without him present to cross-examine, it was impossible to validate his testimony the night of the shooting.

It was brilliant to watch Yara Ghourbani at work. The legal profession was all about puzzles. Researching and cross-examining until you found the right piece to fit with the overall picture of what you were trying to present. It was finding the right words and the right tone, about knowing how different laws interacted with each other and how you might use one to cancel out the other. Yara, clearly, was a master dissectologist.

She parried everything US Attorney O’Malley said with calm clarity, used his own need to posture against him, and never for a moment forgot who her audience of one was and what he stood for.

“Your Honor,” she’d finished, hands folded before her, eyes locked on Judge Hartford’s even though her expression was deferential. “Without Mason Matlock present as a witness, it is impossible to determine where his loyalty to his uncle Giuseppe di Carlo ends and the truth begins. As we have presented to the court, Mason accepted an apartment on the Upper West Side from his uncle only a few years prior and used his connection to Mr. Stewart Sidney on Wall Street to get his first job in the market. If he was so willing to accept his uncle’s favors, it stands to reason that he would have no qualms about lying for his uncle and their family to the police and this court. Without his presence in your courtroom and your judgment on his testimony and cross-examination, his statement should be suppressed.”

I smiled slightly at her subtle manipulative flattery. Even though I’d compiled all the research for the trial, it was like seeing it for the first time through the lens of such a powerful female lawyer.

Dennis sat at the opposite table with his lips pinched and hands crossed, unable to say anything because everything had already been said.

Judge Hartford too, seemed irritated by his lack of options. He shot USA O’Malley a quick look, then sighed. “I have read and listened to the motion to suppress objections, and the defense does have an…extensive argument for striking Mr. Matlock’s statement from evidence. Mr. Matlock is a problematic and prejudice witness due to his familial association with the deceased Giuseppe di Carlo. As Matlock has failed to appear, I have no choice but to rule in favor of the defense.”

The truth was, we had been sure going into the pre-trial hearing that we would secure a victory, but that wasn’t the only reason we had pushed to disallow Matlock’s statement. Going to court before trial allowed us to gain insight into how the prosecution was structuring their case and, potentially, what it hinged upon.

Even something as little as Dennis’s flatlined mouth gave away too much. It was obvious he was unhappy about the outcome, but he wasn’t fighting as hard as he could have to keep it. Which meant, probably, that he had something different up his sleeve to pin on Dante.

Yara thought it was another important witness.

I didn’t know why she was so certain, only that she’d emerged from a phone call with Dante in the office a few days ago and appeared in the doorway of the conference room I usually worked in to tell me so.

I didn’t pry. I was learning that the Camorra had their own ways of gathering evidence.

Which was why I wasn’t immediately on guard when Yara and I were leaving the courthouse, and Yara stopped me from getting into a cab back to the office.

“Have a coffee with me,” she suggested mildly as if we did such things all the time.

We did not.

And as far as I could tell, Yara didn’t have a friendly coffee with anyone at the firmever. She was a lone pillar of strength. It was one of the reasons I was so drawn to her.

Even though suspicion spiked through me, I agreed because I would have been foolish not to. We walked together a few blocks from the courthouse to a little Italian place that served espresso through a window at the front of the small storefront. Yara ordered without asking me what I wanted, paid for our two double espressos, and then left me to carry the small white cups and saucers to the table she picked on the sidewalk farthest away from the door.

With every second she was silent, my pulse raced harder. She and Dante both had a similar predatory quality, their gazes too watchful, too hungry and calculating.

She took a small sip of the thick crema on the coffee and hummed her pleasure.

I followed suit, but the coffee, good and strong, tasted like mud on my tongue.

“So much more patient than I would have given you credit for, Ms. Lombardi,” Yara said with only a trace of a smile. “I know you must be bursting to question why I brought you here.”

“I have a feeling it wasn’t for the coffee, as good as it is,” I demurred.

Her lips twitched. “Astute. No, I brought you here for two reasons. The first is to tell you a story.” She paused, studying me so intently I could track the way her gaze mapped my features, drawing a line down my straight nose, over the arch of my brows, tunneling into my eyes. “When I was a girl, I fell in love with an Italian while I was on a summer abroad in Rome.”

My eyebrows hiked into my hairline. That was not how I thought the conversation would start.