“How do you know he wasn’t?” Jax challenged.
It was Noah who stepped up to take that one on. “Once we made a positive I.D. on Santoro, our forensic accountants did a deep dive into the man’s financials. About three years ago, there was a massive jump in income.”
“Let me guess.” Grady leaned his elbows on the table’s smooth surface. “That about the time De Luca hired Santoro on as his lead attorney?”
“And they say I’m the smart one in this partnership,” Declan joked.
“No one says that,” Grady challenged back without missing a beat.
Lips twitching, Noah brought the conversation back on track. “Santoro’s income remained steady over the course of those three years until two weeks ago.”
“What happened two weeks ago?”
Noah’s dark gaze landed on Poppy’s. “The guy’s cash flow came to a halting stop.”
“You think he tried to quit?” It was the only thing that made sense to Jax.
“That’s the working theory, yes.” Noah nodded. “We know he was on his payroll legitimately as his attorney, but the deposits going into Santoro’s account suggest he was getting paid a hefty bonus each month. Our guys are still looking into it, but we’re confident, as we keep digging, we’ll find a correlation between the extra deposits and criminal activity that took place around those same dates. Specifically events where De Luca was or is the main suspect.”
Beside him, Poppy’s pretty face twisted into an incredulous expression. “How many crimes is this De Luca guy connected to?”
“That we know of?” Noah shrugged. “About thirty.”
“I don’t understand. If you know that, then why hasn’t he been arrested?”
It was Jax who answered her most recent question. “Because David Santora was the best defense attorney in the state, and he was dirty as fuck.”
“Monroe’s right.” Wade nodded. “The guy would sell out his own mother to get a client acquitted.”
“Okay, so if he was so great and was making all this money, why quit?”
“Who knows?” Declan looked at her from across the table. “Maybe the guy had a change of heart. Or maybe, he’d been diagnosed with some sort of fatal illness, and he wanted to try to do better with the time he had left.”
“I know for a fact that the latter is not the case.” Maggie spoke directly to Declan. “His autopsy showed no signs of cancer or any other diseases. In fact, with the exception of being about fifty pounds overweight and having some naturally progressing plaque build-up in his arteries, Santoro was a fairly healthy fifty-five-year-old man.”
“You think he and De Luca had a falling out?” Grady posed the question to Noah.
“Anything’s possible.” Wade looked at Declan’s partner. “Although Santoro was constantly finding new ways to get the guy off.”
“He’s right,” Noah confirmed. “We’ve been trying like hell to put De Luca behind bars, but every time we think we’ve got him dead to rights, his slimy bastard of a lawyer gets him off on a damn technicality.”
“Not anymore,” Jax quipped. When Grady turned his way, Jax simply shrugged, adding a casual, “What? The guy’s dead.”
He thoughtthe point he’d been making was rather clear.
“Smart ass comments aside”—Noah brought the conversation back into focus—“Jax is right. De Luca wouldn’t take a hit out on the man who’d saved his ass time and again unless Santoro did something big.”
“You think cutting ties is big enough?” The question came from Grady.
Noah nodded. “Possibly. The guy probably knew more about De Luca than De Luca’s own mother.”
“My partner has a point,” Wade chimed back in. “That’s a whole lot of damning evidence stashed in that guy’s head. Not to mention anything he may have kept on the side for insurance.”
Jax agreed. “And Frank De Luca isn’t stupid. He knows his lawyer’s about to bail; he’s not going to just let the man walk away.”
No one walked away from the Mons Leones.
“You haven’t heard anything about any of this?” Noah’s question was directed at Jax.