Chapter 11 #2
The dinner party he was planning was nothing of the sort either.
Lifting her face to the clear blue sky, she visibly shook off her fleeting melancholy before looking back at him. “Shall we eat out tonight?”
“I thought you were working?” This was her regular night for visiting her Milan casino.
She shrugged and smiled. “I can take a night off.”
“Okay… Want me to book a table somewhere?”
“Let’s go to Carlo’s.”
“You’re sure?” They’d eaten there a few times, but only for lunch.
“I’ve a craving for Rocco’s carbonara.” Then, as if she couldn’t surprise him anymore, she put a hand on his shoulder and lifted herself onto her toes to place a fleeting kiss on his mouth. “I’ll see you later,” she whispered before turning away and striding to her car.
His heart suddenly full to bursting, he watched her leave, touching the mark her lips had imprinted on his.
* * *
Elio and his siblings and cousin sat at their usual table in Carlo’s. Elvira and Renata kept looking at their watches, as if that could make time move faster. Bruno just ate his carbonara in his usual calm manner.
Carlo stopped at their table with a fresh jug of water. “Everything okay?”
Elio grimaced.
Knowing the Ranieris as well as if he’d raised them himself, Carlo nodded his understanding.
He didn’t know what was happening, but he knew something was.
It was safer to keep him in ignorance. Too much knowledge was a dangerous thing, and nothing was more dangerous than a wounded Esposito.
Not that the Espositos knew they were wounded yet. Soon, the wound would be fatal.
Everything was falling into place. At any moment, Elio would get a message from ‘Michael’ confirming the documents had been signed, and then the final stage of their vengeance could begin.
* * *
Siena flicked through the thick pile of documents Vincent had handed to her.
She’d already read through the draft versions.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tommaso and Rico hunched over, signing their documents.
Mattia and their mother, like Siena, were scanning to make sure everything was as per the approved draft versions.
Vincent, their lawyer, had been by their father’s side for close to forty years.
Their father had paid for his legal training.
His brilliant legal mind could be thanked for its part in the accrual of their vast wealth.
Their father had learned his lesson from Al Capone’s downfall.
Thanks to Vincent and Aldo, their father’s accountant, their father had always stayed one step ahead of the authorities.
On paper, their father had been scrupulously clean.
But their father had been unwilling to relinquish his power.
The money-laundering assets he’d passed on to his children in his lifetime, including the casinos, allowed them to run them as they saw fit, but with certain caveats that included being unable to sell without his approval.
Their father’s name had even been on the deeds of the homes they lived in.
Now, all those assets would be theirs in their entirety.
Mattia had wanted to set all the business assets up so that he had the same ultimate control that their father had enjoyed, and Siena was thankful Vincent had advised against doing that as she’d had no intention of letting Mattia have any form of control over the casinos. They were hers.
By the time Siena had finished scanning her documents, her mother’s and brothers’ documents were all signed and notarised. Everyone was waiting for her.
She couldn’t understand why her chest felt so tight or why she was having to force her hand to reach for the pen.
Breathing slowly but deeply, she put the pen to paper and signed.
* * *
Mission complete.
Elio read the message three times before exhaling a long breath and passing his phone to Bruno.
Strangely, the euphoria he’d expected to experience in this moment of triumph failed to materialise. His siblings and cousin read the message with the same restraint he was displaying, but their eyes were glowing with an exhilaration he just could not find.
It would hit him soon, he was certain. Probably when it was all over.
The endgame would be played out on Saturday.
Come Sunday morning, and those of the Espositos’ left alive would be waking to a new reality. All that would be left of the empire the great Lorenzo Esposito had built would be the carcass.
They were going to lose everything, just as he’d always vowed, and he would not allow himself to think about how all this was going to affect Siena. His feelings for her had always been complicated.
Siena was an Esposito. It didn’t matter how delicious she tasted or how his nights had become totally consumed with her to the point where sleep barely existed. She was still an Esposito.
* * *
For the second time that day, Elio entered Carlo’s, this time with his wife by his side. The man himself greeted them with his usual ebullience. He made no mention of Elio’s earlier visit.
As usual, the restaurant was full. Only a handful were faces he didn’t recognise. When war came – if it came; the Espositos were not stupid – then only that handful would not be fighting on Elio’s side. His army, as Siena and her family would soon learn, was even bigger than they believed.
They reached their table and took their seats.
Although Elio had already eaten a bowl of it that day, he asked for Rocco’s carbonara because that’s what he always ate when he ate here. Carlo didn’t bat an eyelash.
“What’s wrong, princess?” he asked after watching Siena half-heartedly nibble at the antipasti she normally devoured with gusto.
The eyes that met his were subdued. “Nothing you want to hear about.”
“The loose ends you were talking about earlier?” Meaning she was thinking about her father.
Siena nodded and had a small drink of her wine.
The more she thought about her hesitancy in signing those documents, the more she understood what had brought it about: signing them removed their father’s name from them. Signing them was the final erasure of their father from the empire he’d built from nothing.
How could she tell Elio how heartsick that made her feel when his family had been wiped out to build that empire?
No matter what happened with their marriage, that was a chasm that would never be breached.
He let the subject drop, and she was grateful he didn’t make any deserved cruel dig about her father.
What the hell was wrong with her? She’d been feeling out of sorts for days, a feeling that only kicked off when Elio climbed off her with a kiss and then climbed out of bed.
She would watch him disappear into the bathroom with her heart sinking to her stomach and with a longing to follow him into the shower.
The unwritten rules of their marriage meant she couldn’t.
Other than those early days when he would goad her into kissing him whenever he wanted, intimacy within their marriage had been strictly confined to the bedroom.