“I understand.”
“Once you testify, there’s no going back. The family will know. They’ll come for you.”
“I know.”
“And you’re willing to accept that risk?”
I think about Stevie. The Blue Door. The life I could have if I’m brave enough to reach for it.
“I’m willing.”
Lancaster nods. Slides a stack of papers across her desk.
“Then sign.”
I sign.
And now I’m committed.
No more Enzo. No more family. No more blood on my hands.
Just whatever comes next.
The trial starts six weeks later.
I’ve testified before. Plenty of times. But always for the other side, providing alibis, contradicting witnesses, saying whatever needed to be said to keep our people out of prison.
This is different. This time, I’m the one in the witness box. The one with a target on my back. The one who decided that the truth matters more than survival.
The courtroom is packed. Press in the gallery, family members scattered throughout, lawyers at two tables pretending they’re not about to tear each other apart.
And Sal’s sitting at the defense table, watching me with eyes that haven’t changed since I was seventeen and he was teaching me how to break fingers. Cold. Patient. The look of a man who knows exactly how to make you disappear.
The prosecutor starts slow. Easy questions. Establishing who I am, how long I worked for the family, what my role was.
“And what was that role, Mr. Mancini?”
“Enforcement.” The word sounds too pretty for what I did. “I handled people who owed money, people who talked too much, people who.” I stop. Force myself to continue. “People who needed to disappear.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“I hurt people. When Sal told me to.” I look at the jury. Twelve strangers who will decide whether any of this matters. “And sometimes I killed them.”
Murmurs in the gallery. The defense lawyer objects. The judge overrules.
I keep talking.
Names. Dates. Locations. Bodies buried in places they’ll never be found. Every secret I’ve kept, every sin I’ve committed, laid out in a federal courtroom for the whole world to see.
It takes three days. Three days of questions. Three days of Sal’s eyes on me, never looking away. Three days of remembering every terrible thing I’ve ever done and saying it out loud.
On the fourth day, it’s the defense’s turn.
The lawyer, Vincent DeLuca, is good. Expensive. The kind of shark who builds his career on making witnesses look like liars.
“Mr. Mancini, isn’t it true that you’re only testifying because the government offered you a deal?”
“Yes.”
