“I heard. Fire the fancy lawyer. Let him navigate this with a public defender. He will get the book thrown at him.”

“Right. Yeah, I’ll get on that.”

“Get on what?” Teresa asked. “What can I do?”

“Get Sheila on the phone,” I told her, watching as the gears turned.

“On it.”

“Was this… Primo?” I asked, thinking of the man whose doorstep they said they would throw Alen at.

“Yeah. It’s not usually his style. He’s typically a lot more… gritty than that. But I guess Renz explained the situation and he decided not to involve you in… all that.”

“Okay.”

“Fire the lawyer. This all goes away. Forever.”

“Teresa is on that.”

“Of course she is,” Saff said.

“Hey, I know T and you had a tense talk—”

“I’m not mad at her. She was right, after all. And I like how much she mama-bears you. It’s sweet. There’s no hard feelings on my end.”

“I don’t think there’s any on hers either.”

“Time will tell. Okay. Go handle that.”

“I’m on it. You coming my way tonight, or should I head back to you?”

“It makes more sense for me to come to you, since your work is there. And my work is… changing.”

I expected there to be more grief for her at stepping back from the world and the job she worked so hard on for so many years. Maybe there would be eventually. But we’d done little but discuss the future once we had sex and I finished making breakfast the day before. All I saw from her was excitement and planning. She was already talking about other clubs, expanding, taking a more direct role in the planning and running of them.

She’d even come up with the perfect name for our current project.

The tongue-in-cheek Alibi.

Once her capo position was handed off to someone new—she suspected Bastian—she would be fully, officially, out of the family. While still retaining a professional connection and her close relationships.

I couldn’t help but love the idea of her being out of any direct mafia role. Her hard life had prepared her for such a hard job. But I wanted to give her a soft future. Luxury and comfort and safety. She deserved that after all she’d been through.

“Sheila on two,” Teresa called, pulling me out of my swirling thoughts.

I picked up the phone and informed Sheila that Alen was no longer her client. She’d been relieved at that information because she said his case wasn’t winnable.

It was all over.

Years of being indebted to a man who had become increasingly unhinged, of being forced to funnel his money through my clubs, to pay for his attorney, to worry he might expose me at any point.