She pulled me back toward the shadow of the brick archway, away from where Nico and his wife stood.

Nico watched us go, but he did not stop us; he was too busy quietly arguing with Seraphina in hissed, angry tones.

“Listen to me very carefully,” Denise said, her face pale under the bare yellow bulb hanging from the ceiling.

“If you don’t take this deal, we go to trial with everything we have,” she said.

“That’s the plan,” I said. “We expose them and we clear my mother’s name.”

“If we do that, the state is going to get involved on a federal level,” Denise warned.

“They’ll look at the restaurant’s books, the illegal gambling, the money laundering.”

She looked up at the wooden beams above us, then back down at my face.

“The Marigold Room will be classified as the proceeds of crime, Harper,” Denise whispered.

My heart skipped a beat in my chest. “What does that mean?”

“It means the government will seize the property under asset forfeiture laws,” Denise said.

“The state will take the deed, the building, the bank accounts, everything.”