Chapter 13

"They are," Dominic said, moving toward his desk — a massive slab of mahogany that looked like it had been carved from a single tree and polished with a century of ambition. He gestured for me to sit. I remained standing. He registered this without comment, and something in his eyes shifted — not surprise, exactly, but a recalibration. As though he were adjusting his estimate of me upward by a degree. "Tavio has retained Giordano & Associates. They are sharks — the kind the Feds use when they want to make someone disappear through paperwork instead of bullets. They will drag you through every tribunal the Commission can convene. They will demand psychiatric evaluations. They will petition to freeze every Santoro asset for years while the courts and the council debate whether you're sane enough to hold the seat your father built with his blood. By the time you win — and you would win, eventually — the Santoro empire will be bankrupt or carved up between the other Families like a carcass."