“No,” I said.

“Blackmail is when I demand something I have no right to.

I am demanding that a man return the money he stole, free the woman he imprisoned, and promise to leave us alone — and I am offering him, in exchange, the chance to do it quietly instead of in handcuffs.

That is not blackmail, Luca.

That is mercy, and it is more than either of you deserves.

The evidence of your father’s fraud is going to the authorities either way; that part is not on this table.