Chapter Twenty-Nine
Dmitri
The day after we told Alexis that I was her father, I wanted to stay home with her while Sarah went to work. It was unusual for me, because I didn’t usually take any time off from my work with the mafia. Between my injury and the trial, I’d already been slacking off lately, and I was lucky I had good men who could help keep things running smoothly.
But there was nothing I wanted more than to bond with my daughter at home, especially when she called me ‘Dada’at breakfast. Ronnie’s eyes got so big that I thought they might pop right out of her head.
Unfortunately, staying home today wasn’t an option because I had to go to the courthouse yet again. I suspected the trial would be wrapping up soon. There weren’t many people left to call to the witness stand in my defense. There were a few experts who could testify that there was no evidence directly connecting me to the scene, but I didn’t anticipate it taking more than a day or two to get through the rest of the witnesses and the closing statements.
Thank God. I was ready for this to be over.
I didn’t have to be in court until the early afternoon, so I spent the morning working out of my office at the construction company. There was a recent issue with the police sending someone undercover to try to locate our gambling ring, and I had to make a decision about how to handle that. There was also a problem with one of the money laundering operations we ran.Someone had been skimming off the profits, so I had to decide if they needed a warning, or whether they should be stopped.
Permanently
In the middle of dealing with all of that, my office door opened. Both Nikolay and Maxim walked in with grim faces.
Wrapping up the phone call I was on, I folded my hands on the desk and looked at them expectantly. Maxim spoke first.
“We found out something about Baldoni’s plans for you.”
My neck went stiff as my muscles locked up. “What’s the bastard have planned? Is he going to try to hit my house next? The construction company? Frame me for another crime?”
“Oh, no. It’s nothing new,” Nik said. “It’s about the trial.”
I frowned. That’s not what I was expecting.
“We wondered why the DA was pursuing this case,” Maxim said. “I thought Baldoni might have somehow made it happen, but I wasn’t sure how.”
“That’s where I come in,” Nik cut in with a smirk. He tossed a folder onto the desk in front of me. Flipping it open, I found myself staring at a picture of District Attorney Jared Reid sitting at an undeniably romantic dinner with a woman whodefinitely wasn’t his wife. “It turns out that the man who’s known for being upstanding and moral actually has a hidden second family upstate.”
“Holy shit,” I said. “Baldoni is blackmailing him?”
“Yep,” Nik said, and I knew he was the one to uncover this from the smug expression on his face and the surly one on Maxim’s. “And you know how Baldoni found out?”
“The other woman is a cousin of Baldoni’s,” Maxim added, and Nikolay sent a glare his way for interrupting.
So, this was the answer I’d been looking for ever since I was arrested. I didn’t understand why the DA was so aggressively pursuing a case against me when there was no evidence. Now, I understood. The Italians had dirt on him that he wouldn’t want to get out into the world.
“We could go talk to him,” Maxim suggested. “Confirm what we already know, maybe use it to our own advantage.”
I shook my head. “There’s no point in that. The Italians already know about his secret, and they’re the only ones I’d like to see him go after if we could control him.”
“So, what do you want to do with this information?” Nikolay asked.
A smile slowly spread across my face. “We release it.”
Maxim raised an eyebrow. “That’s… brilliant.”
Nikolay nodded. “We can’t let the Italians keep controlling the DA through blackmail. Letting the information out will break that chain around Reid’s neck.”
“And humiliate him,” I added, and I couldn’t even pretend to feel bad about that. “Do it. I want it out as breaking news within the hour.”
As usual, my orders were followed. Nikolay’s computer skills made it easy to distribute the pictures and other evidence to several media companies.
By the time I arrived at court that afternoon, it was everywhere, and I had to hold in my laughter when I saw the DA. He looked like he was unravelling. There was a vein pulsating on his forehead and he was gesturing wildly as he talked on his cell phone at his table. His tie hung loosely around his neck, and his thinning hair that was usually gelled to within an inch of its life, was sticking out at odd angles as though he’d been running hishands through it repeatedly. The murmur of conversation in the courtroom kept me from hearing what he was saying, but he was obviously stressed out.
Good.