Page 12 of Shadowed Loyalty

Lorenzo shook his head, not knowing whether to smile or groan. “Mr. Stein, this isn’t about money.”

Stein’s face relaxed. “Good. I didn’t think you were that type, Lorenzo. Now we just have to figure out how to get you off this case without making certain dangerous parties angry.”

A long exhalation slipped through Lorenzo’s lips. His future was falling apart. Yesterday, his engagement had probably come to an end, and now he might lose his job. All because of the clash between the law and the Mafia. “I can’t get off the case. I’m sorry—I’d really rather not be working for him, but I don’t have much of a choice.”

Stein’s gray brows pulled together again. He advanced a step into the room and rested a gnarled hand on the back of the client chair across from Lorenzo’s desk. “Why? Did he threaten you? I must say I don’t understand why he would. You were a brilliant student and you’re off to a great start, but the fact remains that you just passed the bar a month ago. Most of these mafioso types go for Darrow or his ilk. Unless it’s because you’re Sicilian?”

“Sort of.” Lorenzo’s gaze fell to his desk, where four different files lay in neat stacks. He hadn’t opened any of them today—and what he had been working on would never get its own folder for his file cabinet. Recognizing it as a nervous habit, Lorenzo drummed his fingers on the ink blotter. “He didn’t threaten me. It’s just…well.” He pulled in a deep breath and forced himself to look back up at Stein. “Giorgio Mancari is Sabina’s father.”

Stein sank into the chair, never taking his eyes from Lorenzo. Incredulity deepened every line on his visage. “You’re engaged to the daughter of a Mafia boss? Did you know that all along?”

Temptation flickered before his eyes. He could say no. He could claim that he just learned it yesterday, that Sabina had come begging him to represent Manny, and that it was the first he had made the connection.

He blinked that hazy idea away—it would never hold up under a cross-examination. Besides, it was time for honesty. Lies had caused enough problems in the last twenty-four hours. “We grew up together.” He said it softly, but the implications rang out loud and clear. “My father is Manny’s best friend, one of his lieutenants—they immigrated from Sicily together.”

Stein’s mouth tightened. Creases feathered out from his lips. Usually the German was a cheerful man, all his wrinkles due to smiles. Not today. “Funny. I seem to remember a certain law student arguing ardently about how unfair it was that so many Americans assume all Italians are either Mafia or Camorra or Black Hand. That some of you are just honest men who happened to be born into a Sicilian family.”

Lorenzo’s fingers fisted. “I am an honest man born into a Sicilian family.”

“You lied to me about this, didn’t you?”

Lorenzo stood up, pushing his chair back with a scrape of its legs. “I didn’t tell you. I don’t tell anyone my father’s one of Manny’s men if I can help it, because unlike some of these ridiculous pretenders going around bragging about connections that don’t exist, I’m not proud of it. All my life I’ve been judged because of my father and godfather. I’m sick of it. That’s not who I am, and it’s not how I wanted to get a job—or not get a job. I don’t want anything to do with the Mafia.”

Stein’s eye twitched. “Yet you planned on marrying his daughter.”

“I love her.” His voice wobbled, and he sank into his chair again. Loved. He should have put it in the past tense. Should have spoken it that way so it had a hope of being true. “Mr. Stein, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry I got roped into this case. I understand if you don’t want me in your firm. But I also seem to remember a certain law professor telling me that his brother was a general in the Kaiser’s army, and that he prayed every day his neighbors wouldn’t draw the connection and judge him for it.”

“Oh, Lorenzo.” Stein folded his hands together and rested his chin on the steeple. “You’ve put me in a tough spot. But you’re right. I understand better than most the position you’re in. My wife came from the same type of family I did—but we chose to leave it together. We cut our ties. Is your Sabina willing to do that, too?”

Part of him wished for the release of tears, even though he hadn’t given in to such a desire in almost two decades. How many times over the last three years had he started to ask that question, broach that conversation? But he’d been too much a coward. How could he ask her to give up her family? They were her whole world.

So instead he’d said nothing, and the nothing had grown. He’d just blissfully thought that they’d sort it all out when they were married—when he could hold her close without fearing the force of the passion she awoke in his veins.

Blast it all, O’Reilly was right. He hadn’t been there for her, not really. He hadn’t tried to talk to her about anything. He’d been so afraid of losing his control that he’d… just let her drift away. “I don’t know. I doubt it matters. The engagement’s pretty much off at this point.”

Stein shook his head, which sent his fluff of steel-gray hair moving in the breeze. “I’m sorry to hear that. I know how much you care for her.”

Lorenzo ran his tongue over his teeth, his insides still too knotted up to want that to be true. But he knew it was. He’d loved her all his life. She was the reason he’d made every single choice that had led him here. How was he ever supposed to get over her? “Perhaps it’s for the best. I don’t think we really understand each other anymore.”

“That doesn’t make it hurt any less.” Stein pushed himself up again. “I’m guessing this case against Mancari is going to go the way most such cases do?”

Lorenzo nodded. “He’s got enough politicians on his side to get it all dismissed in a matter of days.”

Stein sighed. “I hate the circumvention of justice, but I can’t say I mind that this won’t drag out.” He turned to the door then paused in the threshold. “I understand why you couldn’t say no to him this time. But I trust that you’ll steer clear of these sorts of cases as much as possible in the future.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to say he’d already tried to make sure of that, but Sabina had dragged him into it. New anger surged up, mixed with the pain. Guilt shot through it too, when he reminded himself that he’d never told her about that promise he’d elicited from her father. Still, shouldn’t she have known? Didn’t she know him at all?

To his boss, he said, “Yes, sir.”

The older man nodded and stepped out the door. “The missus and I are still expecting you for dinner on Monday.” He turned his usual sunny smile on him, tinged with mischief. “And since you seem to have the connections, you could always bring a bottle of wine with you.”

Lorenzo chuckled as Mr. Stein stepped out of sight. One disaster had been averted, but more waited around the corner. Sooner or later, he was going to have to talk to Sabina again, really talk to her. All those years of saying nothing were going to catch up to them both in the worst possible way.

He made the sign of the cross and whispered a prayer that there’d be enough pieces of them left to pick up afterward. Then he reached for pen and paper to jot a note for Brother Judah.

If ever he could use the council of the older cousin who had long been his mentor, it was now.

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