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"I'm Mario Moretti with the U.S. Marshal Service and we need to talk."
Dimitri eyed the man with misgiving. "Am I under investigation?" he asked, wondering if the
Nine Lives, where his father worked, had become corrupted. The potential when working in Las
Vegas was always there.
"You're not under investigation," Moretti replied. "I want to talk to you about your relationship
with Maddy Hansen."
"You're implying there's something going on between us," Dimitri said. "She's been my assistant
for the past month and that's all."
"Don't give me that shit," Moretti said. "I was at your performance at the Coyote Lounge last
night, and after it was over, I saw the two of you offstage in a clinch."
"Is my being involved with a woman a federal crime?" Dimitri asked, realizing after he'd said the
words that this man wasn't one to challenge.
Moretti squared his shoulders, standing slightly taller than Dimitri, and said, "No, but your
involvement with Maddy has the potential of endangering a witness. Maddy's brother and sister-in-
law are under my protection, and Maddy's presence in Las Vegas for any length of time is a conduit to
them, as well as to the man they want most, the CW also under my protection."
"CW?"
"Cooperating witness, snitch, stoolie," Moretti replied. "His sorry ass is also my responsibility."
Dimitri realized, for the first time, that he and Maddy had never discussed the issue of Josh's
twin and his wife, who'd been in hiding for several years he'd learned from Genie sometime back.
Jack Hansen brought it up earlier in the month, but it never seemed relevant until now. "Does Maddy
know where her brother and sister-in-law are living?" he asked.
"No," Moretti replied, "but the wiseguys who want Maddy's sister-in-law and the snitch dead
don't know that, and if they get their hands on Maddy they'll brutalize her until they learn she knows
nothing, before disposing of her body in a way that would send a chilling message to her brother and
sister-in-law, the snitch, and anyone else inclined to take the witness stand."
Dimitri had no argument because it was common knowledge that Las Vegas was a hotbed of
organized crime. "What do you want from me?" he asked.
"To break off whatever you have going with Maddy and make sure she stays here when you return
to Las Vegas," Moretti replied. "The crime family under investigation has been indicted for murder,
extortion, money laundering, arms and narcotics dealing, and conspiracy to commit murder, and if
Maddy accompanies you to Las Vegas as your assistant or your wife, and one day her dismembered
body turns up encased in concrete, you'd have to ask yourself if that would have happened if she'd
remained on this ranch."
"Okay, I get the picture," Dimitri replied. "Is that all?"
Mario Moretti looked at Dimitri, long and hard, like he was sizing him up, and after a stretch of
silence, he said, "Yeah, that's all. Now let's see if you have the balls to do what's right by the woman
you love and break it off and walk away from her, because if you don't make a clean cut, she'll follow
you there, and I don't have the legal authority to stop her."
Saying nothing more, Moretti turned and headed toward Jack and Grace Hansen's house, leaving
Dimitri feeling as if he'd just had a fist shoved in his gut...
She's the kind of woman who can take a man away from his dreams&
That was the confusing part. He didn't have a tight handle on his dreams anymore. But he did
have a life-altering decision to make, very soon.
***
In the family room where they gathered Jack and Grace sitting on the couch, Maddy in an
overstuffed chair adjacent to her parents, and Mario Moretti standing across from them Mario,
having just given an update on the status of Jeremy, Billy, 3-year-old Amy, and little Willy, who'd just
turned one, continued by saying, "In a couple of weeks the trial will start for a half-dozen dangerous
criminal defendants charged with everything from extortion, money laundering and murder, to arms
and narcotics dealing and conspiracy to commit murder. Billy's brother-in-law is a key cooperating
witness for the prosecution. If his testimony is credible and the defense doesn't shred him on cross
examination, a major crime boss will be convicted, along with everyone down his line of command,
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