Page 335 of Niccolo

“He did not lie!” I yelled.

“My witness will state that he did,” Sofia retorted. “Plus, there are no hard-and-fast rules on when witnesses can be called – only tradition.”

Which was correct.

She’d obviously been schooled by Fausto on how to bend the rules without breaking them.

“I’ll allow it,” Don Severino said.

Shit.

But I was intensely curious about who the witness was.

Imagine my surprise when she held up a telephone.

“I call Mr. Jing Lau to testify,” she said. “Hello, Mr. Lau.”

“Hello,”said an older man’s voice in a cultured British accent.

SHIT.

“Wait!” I yelled and turned to Don Severino. “She has to present the witness in person!”

“What, like you did with your sister-in-law?” Sofia asked snarkily.

“I was fully willing to have Rachel walk into the chamber – ”

“But her past work with MI6 precluded that,” Sofia interrupted, “so the Council allowed Niccolo to call her on a cell phone. Well,mywitness’s physical presence in Hong Kong precludes his being here, so the Council should allowhimto testify by phone call, too.”

SHIT.

She had turned my own ploy against me…

Almost like she’d anticipated how to use it to my detriment.

Fuck, she was good.

“I’ll allow it,” Don Severino said, giving me a pointed look.

I retreated back to my side of the gauntlet in silence.

“Sorry about that, Mr. Lau,” Sofia apologized. “Thank you so much for agreeing to speak with me today. Could you tell everyone what the nature of your business dealings with Roberto Rosolini were?”

She led him through the same details Roberto had given:

That our family had invested 50 million euros with his gambling syndicate…

That Roberto had arrived in Hong Kong to ask for it back…

And that, yes, Mei-ling had worked for him, and had specifically been stalling Roberto so Lau wouldn’t have to make a final decision on returning the funds.

Sofia went further, though.

She had Lau state that Roberto had stolen $250 million in Bitcoin from him by threatening him with plastic explosives.

All the dons looked over at my brother in shock.

After all, he seemed somild-mannered.

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