Ricardo #3
“Men like Harrison do not just jump to that kind of violence,” Roberto says.
“They practice before they escalate. Women paid off. Staff dismissed. Security incidents explained away. Campaign aides pressured into silence. Records sealed through family lawyers. If Julia was the only one, the Winthrops might contain her. If she is one of many, the containment becomes the scandal.”
Mario looks at Roberto. “Do you have names?”
“We have possibilities.”
Vito says, “Luca has people confirming them now.”
Luca again. Moving even before the meeting.
Sending his heir, his brother, and his security chief while his own network begins digging into the Winthrops’ buried rot.
A message in action.
Blood answering blood without saying the words aloud.
I look at Vito. “Why?”
The question leaves me before I decide to ask it.
Vito understands exactly what I mean.
Why come.
Why help.
Why move this quickly for men Luca barely knows, even if they’re blood.
He studies me for a moment.
“When you were still in Naples and only doing business here from a distance, there was no reason to think about it. Our paths would never cross. But when news came to us that you were going to make the permanent move to Chicago, my father knew things were going to change. He knew that eventually our lives would tangle.”
Vito turns and meets Mario's eyes. “He didn't know when or how, but he knew they would. And he made the decision before that ever happened about how he would handle it.”
“He decided on cordiality?” I ask.
Vito's lips turn up into a smirk. “I wouldn't put it quite like that. He simply doesn't care about a feud more than fifty years old that he had no active part in.”
That he knows of, I think.
“It's blood,” Diego chimes in.
“Yes, our fathers,” Roberto says. “My father loved my mother more than anything else in the world, and he had no regrets where she was concerned. But he regretted until his last dying breath the broken relationship with his brother.
“Luca simply isn’t interested in keeping their feud going.”
I sit very still.
My father had carried the feud like it was a living thing.
Even on his deathbed, even with his body failing and his voice stripped down to almost nothing, he had spoken Elio’s name with hatred. Elio had stolen Maria. Elio had stolen his son. Elio had built a life on what belonged to Francis first.
There had been no forgiveness in him.
No peace.
Only the old wound, torn open one final time so he could place it in Mario’s hands before he died.
And now Roberto sits across from us, calm as a judge, and tells us Elio regretted the broken relationship with his brother until his last breath.
I do not know what to do with that.
Two brothers. Two versions of the same ruin. One dying with hatred in his heart, the other dying with regret.
What would our lives have been if Francis had chosen regret instead?
What would Luca’s life have been if Elio had told the truth?
What would any of us have become if our fathers had been better men?
Mario’s expression gives nothing away, but I know him too well. I see the thought pass through him. The same one passing through me.
Francis raised us in the shadow of an enemy.
So we came here expecting an enemy.
Elio raised his sons in the shadow of a brother he missed.
That difference matters.
It may explain things I have never allowed myself to consider. Why Luca did not treat our arrival in Chicago as a declaration of war, as we had expected. And why he sent his son, his brother, and his son-in-law to us instead of turning away.
Lorenzo’s voice is careful. “Your father spoke of Francis?”
Roberto’s gaze moves to him. “Rarely. But when he did, it was never casually.”
Vito’s face remains unreadable. “My father was raised to understand that blood can be difficult without becoming disposable.”
Something hard twists in my chest.
Francis raised us to understand the opposite.
The bond between the four of us was something we created in spite of him.
I asked the question I know we're all thinking. “And how does he know that we can be trusted? We were raised by Francis, after all.”
Vito gives one of his terror-inducing, spine-twisting smiles again.
“If you're thinking he's overly trusting or sentimental, you'd be mistaken.” He turns and locks eyes with Mario again.
“You don't strike me as a stupid man. I have to assume you didn't make it to the position you're in by fucking over powerful allies with long arms.”
Mario’s eyes hold his.
“No,” he says. “I did not.”
Vito gives a slight nod, as if that is all he needed.
Roberto draws the conversation back with practiced ease.
“Good,” he says. “Then we can stop discussing whether this is friendship or family, and focus on what it actually is.”
Mario’s gaze shifts to him. “Which is?”
“A useful alignment,” Roberto says. “For now.”
Vito leans back in his chair. “And a man in Connecticut who just made himself everyone’s problem.”
“Aside from blood, what is it that you get out of helping us with this? The Winthrops are very powerful,” Diego asks.
Vito considers for a moment. “Well, initially, it was to come here and feel the situation out. But, the more you talk about this fuckhead, the more I think removing him from society would be a public service.”
Roberto exhales. “Vito.”
“Am I wrong?”
“No,” Adrian says from his post by the wall.
I look from the three of them to Mario. “That's good enough for me.”