Page 42 of Fall Before Her Throne

My eyes squeezed shut as I remembered the way Luciano had thrown this at me in a last ditch effort to not kill him. I’d killed him regardless—I was too far deep in it to stop then—before I’d asked him questions. It had been looming over my head ever since.

Ciel sucked in a quiet breath. I watched in real time as the hacker put the pieces together and came to the same conclusion I had. “Not fighting. Luciano was the informant, wasn’t he? He was going to provide evidence against the other Heads?”

Leona’s head whipped to mine. “The FBI said my father was acting as a confidential informant.”

My eyes widened. “What? You’ve been talking to the fucking FBI? I knew you were reckless, but I never took you for a snitch.”

Her head reeled back like I had slapped her. “I’m not fucking talking to them; they’re after me.”

The FBI was after her? A chill ran down my spine. “What are you talking about?”

“They’ve been hovering around us for weeks, and they cornered me and Ryu at his club about two weeks ago. We were supposed to meet them the day after you got attacked.” She pulled on one of her curls and looked over her shoulder at Obi. “We had to postpone it, but we can’t put it off forever. They keep pressing our lawyer for a meeting.”

“Why didn’t you fucking tell me that?” I hissed back. “Now who is keeping secrets?”

“Oh, you asshole,” she shot back, stepping forward. I moved closer. Only a few steps separated us. “Don’t you even think about acting like the victim when you’re hiding things left and right.”

“If the Camorra knew you’d been talking to the FBI, they would have killed you. No more questions. No playing Mr. Nice Guy like Greco tried to do tonight. It doesn’t matter that he might have connections with them. He would have said you’d broken omertà and killed you.” My fists were shaking at my sides. “That’s something I should have known before walking in there.”

“You are so full of it.” She laughed bitterly.

“Goddamn it, Leona, this is going to swallow us all up.”

“I know!” she yelled, fuming, staring up at me. Only a foot separated us now. “That’s why you should have told me! What did my father say?”

I wanted to tear my hair out. I had gone through all this fucking effort to keep her out of this, and here we were. I’d done my best, and it still wasn’t good enough.

It would never be enough.

I ran a hand through my hair and pressed my free hand against my aching ribs. The stitches were itching. “Luciano was drowning. He knew I was coming for him and building allies against him, and he knew his time was limited.”

“So he decided to turn you over to save himself?” she asked.

“I have barely had time to look into it. I don’t know for sure. But the only explanation I’ve been able to come up with was that he was going to turn me over, and the other Heads over, in order to keep himself safe. Everything was piling up, and he had no other option. He was going to wipe us all out in one swoop, and then rule over New York by himself.”

“Goddamn it, Max.” She bit the words out. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t you just tell us? Even when we were going after the Albanians together, we should have known!”

“I’ve been trying to keep you out of it!” I shouted, finally fed up with it all.

“What?” Cas perked up, like he could hear a truth hidden behind my words. He really did know me the best. “What do you mean?”

My hands pressed against my face, dragging down like I could physically pull all this shit from me. “I couldn’t tell you anything. This whole time, I’ve been trying to keep you out of it. I had no idea what they had on me, what your father gave them about me, and if you were known as my associate, they could take you down with me.”

The room went quiet again. I pulled my hands away from my face to see her staring up at me, clearly not believing any word I said.

“Is that true?”

I threw my hands into the air. “RICO is dangerous. There doesn’t even need to be evidence that you committed a crime for you to be convicted, so long as there’s enough to connect you to the organization and establish intent to commit crime, or that you’re part of the conspiracy. As Luciano’s daughter, it wouldn’t be hard to make the case. But you’re so damn stubborn, Leona. You refused to listen. You wouldn’t back off, and now I have no idea what they’ve got on you.”

Cas made a move, like I thought he was going to come to my defense, but he paused and sat back. He crossed his arms over his chest, then inclined his head—like he was trying to signal me to tell more of the truth.

I hated it. I hated all of this.

“I know I am going down in this RICO case,” I said. “That was Luciano’s intent this whole time. I was only trying to make sure you didn’t get caught in the fallout.”

Leona braced her arms on the kitchen island and pressed her forehead to them. She took multiple deep breaths. Everyone else seemed to want to set me on fire and watch me burn alive.

“And now the Camorra has all of us wrapped up together,” Ryuji said. “Because you ran to the penthouse.”