by Dave Daren
“Thank you,” I said as I took the seat she’d pointed to.
I was right in the middle of the kitchen at the massive island, but I stopped caring if I was in the way when I saw the plate of eggs, roasted tomatoes, and fat sausages. I took a huge bite of the perfectly fried egg just as I heard footsteps thundering down the stairs. I had just enough time to walk over to the doorway before Anthony burst into the living room.
“We got it!” he shouted as he waved a stack of papers in the air.
Chapter 14
“Hunter!” Anthony shouted as he looked around the living room.
The mafioso was wearing the biggest smile I’d ever seen on his face as he waved the sheets of paper in the air.
“What did you get?” I asked from the doorway to the kitchen.
Gulia brought over the coffee for me with a knowing smile, and I gave her a grateful smile before I took a sip. I almost gagged on the strong brew, but she’d added a dose of cream to help smooth it out.
“The numbers,” the younger Febbo said. “We figured out what they mean.”
I downed the rest of the coffee in one swig, shivered as the bitterness ran through me, and then set the empty cup down on the side table. I had a million questions, but decided to start with the most important.
“So, what do they mean?” I asked.
“Have you eaten?” my client asked as he glanced out to the patio.
“He has not,” Gulia answered for me. “Now, you two go outside. It’s a nice day, and I don’t want any talk about business in my kitchen. Hunter, I put a cup of lemon and blueberry water next to your plate. It’ll help to recharge you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said with a grin.
“I’ll meet you outside,” Anthony said. “I need to take care of some things, first.”
The Italian man walked over to the group of tech support guys that crowded in the living room and started to talk to them about what he’d found on the paper. He still looked excited, but his professional face had taken over, and the men listened with rapt attention before they went back to work.
I puttered back into the busy kitchen to grab my plate and the water that my hostess had made for me. I had to dodge around a few servants, and I wondered where the extra people had come from. I’d always thought that Gulia was the only one allowed to cook in the well-stocked kitchen, but everyone seemed to know what they were doing and where everything was.
The morning sunlight poured over the gardens in the back of the house as I took my breakfast outside. I shivered as the chill set over me, and I noticed that the grass still had a sheen of morning frost. I was sure that the snow was going to come early this year, and I added wood for the fireplace to my list of things to buy for the house on my next day off.
“That looks delicious,” Anthony said as he took the chair next to me.
“Your mother has outdone herself, again,” I said. “Who’re all those people?”
“Cousins,” my client said. “She had them come help because of the extra people in the house right now.”
I nodded my head before I took another bite of the perfectly cooked fried egg.
“The numbers show the people that they’re paying off,” the mafioso said as he accepted a cup of espresso from Annie.
“You’re sure?” I asked.
I’d thought that the long strings of numbers that we’d found on Galic’s laptops were for payoffs, but we hadn’t been able to figure out what they stood for. I grinned as I scooped up another bite of eggs.
“Positive,” the mafioso said before he took a sip of his coffee. “We found a document on the server data that Gabriele sent over. The guys say that someone tried to delete it at some point, but they didn’t do a good enough job.”
“Fantastic,” I said. “Can I see?”
I held my hand out for the stack of papers that Anthony had set on the table. I could’ve easily picked them up, but I wanted to make sure that he was ready for me to look at them myself.
“Of course,” Anthony said as he slid the printed copy toward me. “It’s everything that we needed. The document shows the names for every number that we couldn’t link to a receipt.”
I set my fork down, washed the taste of rich egg yolk down with the tart blueberry and lemon water, and then wiped off my hands on my napkin so that I didn’t get anything on the pages. I was so excited that I bounced a little in my seat, though I wasn’t sure if that was from finally having what we needed to bring the Serbians down or from the coffee that Gulia had given me.
The first few pages were all of the numbers that we hadn’t been able to connect to anyone, but the rest of the pages were a list of names, dates, and amounts for the payoffs. The last page acted as a key that listed the people that were being paid off and the number that had been assigned to them.
I couldn’t believe it. I knew that Mayor Webber, Chief Flores, and Nelson were all on the take, but it still shocked me to see them on printed paper. I saw DA Adams about halfway down, followed by Warden Marlowe, and DA Osbourne. I shook my head and ran my hand down my face as I set the sheets back onto the table and stared over at my client.
“This is crazy,” I said. “This is going to be talked about all the way out in California.”
“Good,” Anthony said. “These stronzos need to get what’s coming to them.”
“We should rally the troops and take care of this today,” Sal said as he walked out onto the patio to join us.
The older Italian man still shuffled a little while he walked, but the set of his shoulders was strong as he sat in one of the empty chairs. The head of the Febbo family was a walking contradiction in so many ways. He wanted to go legit, but his first instinct was always go to the methods he’d used as a don rather than trusting that the law would take care of any problems.
I took a deep breath in as I readied myself for the inevitable argument. I wasn’t sure if the mafioso still planned to go legit, or if he even planned to retire, but I would still help Anthony take the legal route as often as possible.
“We should take it to the FBI,” I said.
“What?” Sal snapped.
Anthony put his hands up as he looked back into the house where servants and tech guys were everywhere.
“Why don’t we go upstairs and discuss this?” he suggested.
His father scowled at me, his face turned a deep shade of red, and his jowls shook as he clenched his jaw. He took a deep breath in, closed his eyes, and then let out a heavy sigh.
“That... is a good idea,” the older Febbo said. “There aren’t any ears upstairs.”
He pushed himself to his feet and led the charge back into the house. He stopped to greet his wife and gave her a kiss on the cheek, and then he inquired pleasantly about what time we should expect lunch. He stalled for a few more minutes, no doubt trying to rattle me as he showed me that he was the one in control, but eventually he made his way to the stairs, along the hallway to his office, and eased himself down into the chair behind his desk.
“Hunter, close the door,” Anthony said as he went to sit in one of the chairs in front of his father’s desk.
I did as I was told before I joined the two mobsters, and though I tried to remain calm on the outside, I found myself drumming my fingers on the arm of the chair as I waited for Salvatore to speak. I had no intention of backing down, and I was sure that I could convince the old Italian mafioso to come around to my way of thinking. Or at the very least, I could change his mind on this.
“We’re not going to the FBI,” Sal said after a few long minutes of silence. “We can take care of this ourselves.”
“It’ll start a war,” Anthony warned as he adjusted himself in his seat. “We’ll all lose men, and the press will have a field day.”
The older Febbo smirked and rolled his eyes at his son.
“That’s why we do it quietly,” he said. “We have all of their names and addresses. All we have to do is send a few of our guys to take care of them.”
“And what happens when the news starts asking questions about all of these mysterious murders of government employees?” I asked.
“They won’t connect the mayor with some Serbian bodyguard,” my client’s father retorted while his face started to turn bright red again.
I knew that it was dangerous to argue with the head of the Febbo family, but I couldn’t let him send a bunch of men to murder everyone on the list.
“But the FBI will,” I said. “They already have the data from Galic’s computer. And they’re the ones that gave us the subpoena for the information that we retrieved from Gryffon’s computers in Andorra.”
“The subpoena that the government wouldn’t honor?” Sal snapped as he slammed his hand down on the desk. “Now you listen to me, we’re going to take care of this ourselves. We’ll clean up the game before I get out.”
I sighed and ran a hand through my hair as I tried to reason with the old Italian man. He’d done things his way for so long that he couldn’t see any other way out of it, but it was my job to keep Anthony safe and out of prison.
“The feds will know it was the Febbos,” I said. “They’ll find the flight records, the hotel that we stayed at, and they’ll know that we were able to get the information from the servers.”
“But they won’t be able to prove it,” the head of the Febbo family snarled. “You’re just a lawyer. You need to learn your place.”
I gripped the arms of the chair and fought the urge to slam my fist somewhere I’d regret it. I’d proven myself over and over again, but he still wanted to treat me like I was an outsider. I had no idea how to convince the man that he would endanger his son and all of the operations if he went through with his plan, but I needed to think of something if I was going to keep Anthony out of jail.
“Hisashi is like a dog with a bone,” I said. “He’ll find a way to prove it. And until then, every business and operation that you have will be under federal scrutiny. It would only be a matter of time before they filed their own RICO case against the Febbos.”
“You come in here,” Sal said as he stood and glowered at me. “Some estraneo who doesn’t know anything about the family, and you think you can tell me what to do?”
“I’m not trying to tell you what to do,” I hedged. “I want what’s best for my client. And if you have your men take care of everyone on this list, then it’s going to point straight back to the family. You’ll be trading one enemy for another. And the new one will be the federal government.”
I’d raised my voice as I argued with the older man, but I’d managed to stay seated despite my urge to stand and get in his face. I still had enough common-sense to know that was a death sentence, no matter how much Anthony liked me, and I still had work to do.
“Alright, alright,” Anthony said as he stood and looked between us. “Go to your corners.”
Sal glowered at his son, but pursed his lips as he sat back down in his chair. He groaned as he did, and somehow still managed to glare at me hard enough that I wondered if he was going to stab me with a letter opener before we came to an agreement.
“Are you two done?” the younger Febbo asked.
“For the moment,” Sal huffed. “But you need to put a muzzle on that lawyer of yours. I don’t care how much you like him, or how many Serbian guards he’s beaten up, he needs to learn his place.”
I ground my teeth together as I held back a snide retort. I’d already pushed the mafioso’s buttons, and I knew there was only so much I could say before Anthony decided that I’d gone too far.
“Yes,” I said when my client pinned me with a stare.
“Good,” the dark-haired man said.
He sighed and sat back down in his seat. He tapped his fingers for a few minutes while Sal and I cooled down, and I could see the wheels turning in his mind as he tried to decide which path to choose. He’d never wanted to be a part of the family business, and I hoped that would lead him to the legal way of thinking rather than the work of made men.
“Are you planning on retiring?” Anthony asked after the atmosphere in the room was a little less tense.
Sal narrowed his eyes at his son, but the rage that he reserved for me was missing from his face.
“Why does that matter?” the head of the Febbo family asked. “You know what needs to be done. We can’t show weakness and let the Serbians get away with everything that they’ve done to our family. And we aren’t rats.”
He sneered at me as he said the last word, and I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes at his old-fashioned way of thinking. He just couldn’t see that we were using the feds as much as they were using us, and my way meant that the family couldn’t be arrested.
Anthony sighed, ran a hand over his scruff-covered chin, and then looked out of the window behind his father. He stayed like that for a few long seconds before he nodded his head like he’d come to a conclusion and then turned his attention back to his father.
“If you aren’t retiring,” the younger mobster started. “Then the decision about what we do with the list is up to you. But, if you’re getting out of the game, then it’s my choice what we do.”
“Just like that?” Sal asked in a terrifyingly calm voice. “You want to give me an ultimatum. I have been running this family for the last three decades while you were pissing your life away at some brewery and hiding behind your mother’s last name.”
The head of the Febbo family had turned a deep shade of red again, which spread up his neck and into his hairline, and he gripped a pen so hard that the silver began to bend under the pressure.
“I’m not giving you an ultimatum,” his son hedged. “But, if you plan on retiring, then I need to make the decisions for the family.
“And you have to know right now?” my client’s father growled. “In front of this… lawyer?”
“Hunter has nothing to do with this,” Anthony said. “This is a big decision. It will affect the family for years to come, and if you’re not going to be around for it, then I should be the one to make the final decision.”
The older man glowered at his son for a few seconds before he stood and stormed around the desk. He stood face to face with his son as Anthony rose from his chair, and I tensed as I readied myself to pull them apart if necessary.
“I don’t have to deal with this,” Sal said. “I’ll retire when I want. And not a moment before that.”
“I’m not trying to rush you,” my client said. “But you need to figure out what you want to do.”
The tension in the air was so thick that I could cut it with a knife. I didn’t think that Sal would hit his son, but the man had a violent temper, and I would jump in if I needed to. I understood that the mafioso didn’t want to be hurried into his decision, but he’d already been planning to retire before the attempt on his life, and Anthony was right about the way they handled the list affecting the family.
“I’m going down to lunch,” the older Febbo said after what seemed like forever. “You should both come down and join me. Your mother and cousins have been working hard all morning to prepare it.”
Anthony nodded his head and then watched as his father hobbled out of the room. The older man tried to walk as straight as he could, but he still struggled not to limp, and he refused to use the cane when there were other people in the house.
“Are you an idiot?” my client asked as soon as the door shut behind his father.
His tone was tense, but I didn’t hear any anger, so I shrugged and stood while I put my hands in my pockets.
“He needs to understand that the feds will know who put the hits out,” I said. “And it’s my job to make sure that you, and the family, stay out of prison.”
“Lesser men have died for talking to Salvatore Febbo the way that you just did,” Anthony said with a shake of his head. “You’re lucky he likes you so much.”
I let out a bark of a laugh as I looked at the younger Febbo. I could believe a lot of things, but Sal liking me was unlikely.
�
�You can laugh all you want,” my client shrugged. “But you survived arguing with him, more than once, and that says something.”
“Yeah,” I chuckled. “That I’ve done just enough to be too useful to kill.”
“True,” the dark-haired man said with a smirk. “Let’s get down to lunch before he has an aneurism. We’ll figure all of this out once we’ve all eaten.”
I nodded my head and followed the mafioso out of the office. Once we were downstairs, I was surprised to see that most of the tech guys were still in the living room working away, but I supposed they were trying to track down every last scrap of information they could.
Someone had set up a buffet of food along the wall of windows that overlooked the driveway, and a coffee station took up the back corner. The men all had heavy bags under their eyes from pulling an all-nighter, but they still managed to find enough of an appetite to eat Gulia’s food.
Not that I could blame them. I’d eaten less than an hour ago, and I had every intention of piling my plate high with whatever the matriarch served. I took my seat next to Annie and across from Anthony as Gulia and her staff of cousins brought out dish after dish. I debated for a little while about whether I wanted to focus on the antipasto, the massive salad, or the fresh fish filets that were covered in butter and herbs.
No one talked as we waited for Gulia to join us. The beautiful matriarch drifted in from the kitchen with a tray of watermelon lemonade that she served to each of us before she took her seat next to her scowling husband. She patted him on the arm but didn’t ask any questions, and I wondered if she’d heard us yelling from the upstairs office but knew better than to poke her nose into her husband’s business affairs.
Sal took his time before he made his plate, and I was sure that it was an act of spite as he made everyone wait. The patriarch eventually took some of the fish, the fresh baked rolls, and a heaping portion of the salad. He chewed slowly without making eye contact with anyone, and I looked between each of the Febbos as I waited for someone to start talking.
“This is the last time that we’ll be able to have watermelon lemonade until next year,” Gulia said to break the silence. “It’s getting harder to find the watermelons since winter is almost here already.”
