Page 12 of Sinner's Bond

But I keep looking until I find a Fictitious Name filing of “Sinners Nightclub.” I open the record and look at the Interested Entities, almost expecting to see Mateo listed as the owner. But he’s not. Instead, I see the name “Maurizio Trevisi” listed as the owner. I feel like I’ve heard that name before.

I search the internet for “Maurizio Trevisi.” The first result is the About page of Iron Legal LLP. Maurizio is listed as an attorney for the firm.

“Fuck,” I blurt out.

I know Iron Legal. They’re the firm representing the Italians that were arrested in the bust the other night. There were three of them alongside five Russians. I reach back in my memory for their last names. Two of them had the last name Barone. One was Boncaldo or something similar.

I don’t even need to search his name. Once I put them together, I know who he is. Mateo Barone. Mafia.

“Goddammit.” I slap my hand on the couch cushion next to me. I can’t believe I didn’t know who he was. Did he know who I was? Did he know I got the tip off? Shit. This is not good.

I’m shaking with adrenaline. I can’t believe it. The first time in months, and I hook up with someone from the mob. What the fuck is wrong with me?

6

MATEO

Riccardo drivesme up to Chestnut Hill. As Underboss of the organization, I regularly meet with the Boss and our Consigliere to discuss strategy.

The Consigliere is Leonardo Barone. My first cousin twice removed. My grandfather’s cousin. We meet at his home on Seminole St. It’s a grand stone mansion with acres of meticulously designed gardens and collections of trees from Asia. It even has a carriage house. It was built for one of the oldest families in Pennsylvania, and reeks of old money. A palace for the captains of industry. Or the old guard of one of the largest Mafia families on the East Coast.

Leo has lived here for as long as I can remember. I enter through the grand foyer and entry hall. The carved terra cotta fireplace sits cool and inactive in the middle of summer. When I get to the library, I see that my father and Leo are already seated. They stop talking when I enter, but don’t say anything.

Leo sits behind a massive desk. I pour myself a drink at the bar and then take my seat in the chair next to my father and on the opposite side of the desk from my cousin.

These men are my family, but family is business. They’ve never been about warm greetings. Especially after my mother died. I take a sip of my drink and nod to my father and Leo.

“We were just talking about Luca,” my father says. “Have you heard anything new?”

My father, Domenico, is Boss. What he says goes, but Leo still holds a lot of sway on the big issues. As Underboss, I’m the one who actually enacts the plans that we make in these meetings.

“Still nothing,” I reply. “No leads.”

Luca wasn’t my true brother, but I was closer with him than any of my other siblings. My parents adopted him when we were both kids. We grew up tight and worked together closely our whole adult lives.

Just before our deal with the Russians, he contacted Raf and told him not to go. It was a really unusual order, so Raf checked it out with me right away. We both knew something was up, but the deal was already in motion so it was too late to call it off.

Luca stopped responding to anyone. I told Raf to not go to the deal with the Russians. Without knowing what Luca was up to, I had to hedge our bets somewhat. I had Raf send as few guys as he could and only half the money.

It’s a good thing, too. It was still a lot of money to lose, but since the Irish boss was also killed that night, we don’t have an imminent war with them on our hands. That would have cost us at least as much as we lost to the cops.

The District Attorney’s office is taking credit for the investigation leading to the seizure and arrests, but I’m pretty sure we would have known if they were on to us. We have a contact in the DA’s office that probably values his life enough to give us a heads up about something like this. I don’t want to believe my brother ratted us out, but I’m having a hard time finding any other possibility. Luca obviously knew something was going to happen when he called Raf that night.

“We’ve got bigger things to worry about,” Leo interjects.

“You don’t think losing our top assassin and a couple million dollars is big?” My father asks. “Do you plan to pick up his jobs from now on?”

Leo ignores my father’s last comment. Leo used to be the assassin for the Barones. He’s the one who trained Luca. It’s been at least 15 years since he carried one out himself.

“He failed his last job anyway,” Leo says. “We’re still stuck with Nicoletti.”

Luca was supposed to kill Nicoletti as part of a cease fire agreement. We’d had a dispute with the Irish over some territory that attracted a lot of heat from the DA. Raf killed one of their Captains so we offered to get rid of him to placate them. Obviously, that offer benefitted us, too, but that’s beside the point now that everything is so fucked up.

Instead, the DA lived and now three of our guys are in custody along with the loss of the money and guns.

I’m surprised how much more I seem to care about what’s happened to Luca than anyone else in this room. My father raised Luca like a son, but he seems more concerned about replacing him than what happened to him. Leo mentored Luca and doesn’t seem to care either. People would think I was joking if I said I was the most humanitarian person in my family. Unless they knew my family.

But Leo has never really been the sentimental type. I was always kind of afraid of him growing up. I didn’t envy Luca having to spend so much time with him when we were teenagers. That’s when we started going down parallel but different paths from each other. Our friendship was never as close as when we were kids again, but I always thought that was just what growing up does to people.

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