Chapter Fifteen

Madelyn

 

The next day, it was impossible to do anything without thinking of Enzo. She had stayed at his place as late as she dared, though he had invited her to sleep with him in his bed overnight. It had been a very tempting offer, and one she wished she could take him up on, but she couldn’t exactly head into the office looking disheveled from a night of passion. She would be meeting with the ‘fat cats,’ as Enzo liked to call them, and she had to sell them on the idea that she was still doing everything she could to win the case.

 

“You’re smiling an awful lot today,” Stacy hinted as they walked to work. “I haven’t seen that particular smile in quite some time.”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” But Madelyn couldn’t seem to keep her mouth in a straight line. She just kept reliving that affair on the dining table over and over, desperate for the next time it would happen.

 

“You know what I mean. You’ve finally broken your streak, haven’t you? Tell me, is it that sexy client of yours? The one you can’t stop talking about?”

 

Madelyn brushed aside the thought, but she felt her cheeks redden.

 

“Oh, I see that! Spill it! Tell me everything!” Stacy gushed.

 

“There’s nothing to tell.”

 

“I call bullshit!” Stacy declared. “Come on! You can’t have some inappropriate tumble between the sheets and not tell your best friend.”

 

The corners of Madelyn’s mouth were twitching up again. “I didn’t get into bed with him, for your information. Now, what might have happened in the back of a limo or on top of a dining table is another matter.”

 

Stacy screeched, causing a few other passersby on the street to turn and look at her. “Look at you, living it up as the naughty lawyer in your very own real-life porn, and you weren’t going to tell me! I’m ashamed of you!”

 

They both laughed, and Madelyn couldn’t remember ever feeling so good in her life. “Keep it down,” she advised, still giggling. “I don’t think an attorney is supposed to have this much fun, and I’m sure nobody else involved in the case would be very happy if they found out about it.”

 

“I’m sure you’re not the first person who’s done this,” her friend assured her. “In fact, I’m pretty sure my cousin slept with her divorce attorney well before the papers were final. Just enjoy it.”

 

But once Madelyn stepped over the threshold of her office, she knew that enjoying it was the last thing she needed to be doing at the moment. She had agreed to go with Enzo’s plan. Once they had gotten dressed again, he had finally revealed all of it to her. Even the tiniest details had been planned out, enough so that she’d had to admit she was impressed. If it had just been up to the two of them, then it would be have been no problem, but Morber and Barnard had insisted on being involved.

 

At 9:30, she went down the hall to the conference room, her file tucked under her arm. It had grown significantly thicker over the last couple of weeks, but she had her presentation all worked out and ready to go.

 

Mr. Morber eyed her from under his thick brows as she took her seat at the table. “I’m eager to see what you have to show us, Ms. Rowe. You’ve been almost secretive about the Marino case, lately, and it has me concerned.”

 

Barnard nodded sleepily, watching her with half-lidded eyes. “There’s a lot riding on this trial.”

 

“I know,” she assured them, folding her hands carefully on the table in front of her and concentrating on the way the cool surface felt against her warm skin. She felt overheated, anxiety creeping around inside her, but she couldn’t let it show. “And I want to assure you that I haven’t been trying to keep either one of you out of this, but it’s been consuming my entire life lately. It’s become very personal at this point.”

 

“Good,” Mr. Morber said with approval. “That’s how good lawyers get to the top. They fight for what’s right and they don’t let go of it, like a dog with a bone. But seeing as how this involves us, you need to share.”

 

Madelyn smiled, suddenly realizing just how much Mr. Morber reminded her of a bulldog, with his heavy brows and loose jowls. “I completely understand, and I think you’ll be pleased with what I’ve come up with.” She had rehearsed this over and over in her mind, and it had sounded good, but that wasn’t the same as actually talking to her bosses. “As we all know, the district attorney has assembled a lot of evidence against Mr. Marino. There’s quite a bit of it that doesn’t exactly pertain to the murder, which leads me to believe they’re concentrating on defamation of character in order to convict him.”

 

Mr. Barnard nodded. “Not completely unheard of, especially in a case like this.”

 

Madelyn knew that he meant it was because Enzo was a mob boss. “It occurred to me,” she continued, “that there is only so much we can do to convince a jury that a man who operates in such a manner is a good guy. As soon as they believe Enzo is part of the mafia, they’ll want to convict him. So I think the best idea is not to just prove that Enzo didn’t do it, but that someone else did.”

 

Mr. Morber pursed his lips. “That doesn’t sound very feasible to me.”

 

“I understand. I wasn’t sure I could do it, myself. But Mr. Marino isn’t the only man in the city who has this same type of operation, and the evidence points just as easily at Benny Scarvo as it does to Enzo, or perhaps even more so.” She took a sheet of paper out of the file, where she had carefully constructed a diagram that showed the proof of what she was saying. Madelyn hadn’t dared work it up on the computer, because she was hesitant to have any digital record of it.

 

Barnard studied the paper with a frown. “This doesn’t seem like the same list of witnesses that we were presented with before.”

 

A draught hit Madelyn’s throat. These men weren’t going to be easy to fool. Nobody could spot a liar like another liar. “That’s correct. A few of them were voluntary witnesses, and they’ve backed out. A couple of others skipped town, and I don’t think we can count on them to come back in time for the trial. My guess is that they’re concerned about testifying against a mob boss.”

 

It was Mr. Morber’s turn to study the diagram. He was silent for a long moment before his beady eyes lasered across the table to Madelyn’s. “I’m aware that Mr. Marino doesn’t always employ legal means to get things done. Has he convinced you to do something unlawful to help this case?”

 

Madelyn had been a lawyer long enough to understand how to mince words. While she had agreed to go along with Enzo’s plans, she was not the one who had talked to the witnesses or tampered with the evidence. So when Mr. Morber asked her if she was doing anything illegal, she was safe. “Of course not.”

 

But her boss didn’t seem to quite believe her. He glanced at Mr. Barnard before continuing. “Let me remind you that if he has, you’ll not only be fired from the firm but disbarred. You won’t ever be able to practice law again.”

 

“I’m completely aware, but there’s nothing to be concerned about,” she assured them with a smile. “Everything is on the up and up, or I wouldn’t be involved.” That had always been the truth before, at least.

 

Morber nodded and pushed the paper back across the table to her. “Very well, but I have to admit I’m not completely confident in this approach.”

 

“That’s all right, because I am.” She forced another smile.

 

They adjourned their meeting and retreated to their individual offices. As soon as Madelyn sank down into her office chair, she pressed her hand against her forehead, hoping all of this was worth it. Enzo was certainly confident in the scheme, and he had the money and the manpower to pull it off. She was risking everything, and she told herself that he was, too. It would be all right. It had to be.