4. Valerio
VALERIO
The drive to Camillo’s apartment is six minutes.
I spend three of them looking at the car window without seeing what is on the other side of it. What I see, instead, is her face.
I close my eyes for the last three minutes of the drive.
When I open them, we are parked at Camillo’s address. My driver turns off the engine.
Camillo answers the door on the third knock.
He’s in a hooded sweatshirt, looking like he’s not shaved in two months. His body doesn’t look water has touched it in three days.
“Rio? What are you doing he?—”
I stride in without waiting for an invitation.
Camillo’s apartment is the apartment of a man whose money has been imaginary for a long time.
The furniture is good. The art on the walls is exactly aspirational enough to imply taste.
The bar cart has a single bottle on it and the bottle is half empty.
He has been drinking. He has also been hiding in his apartment.
“Where’s Fede?”
“Federica is safe.” I do not raise my voice. “She’s on her way to my office. She is not coming up here.” I answer the unspoken question in his eyes. “Sit down.”
He sits.
Fists bang on the door.
His whole body seizes. “Oh, shit. That’s them. They’ve been hovering around the building.”
“Then you should probably open the door.”
He stares at me. “Are you crazy, man? If Fede ran her mouth with you, then you know?—”
“She didn’t. And if you say one bad word about her, our friendship’s over.”
Camillo blanches. Whatever he expected when he found me on his doorstep instead of his sister, it was not this.
The banging grows louder. With trembling hands, Camillo gets the door.
Three men step in. Their leader is broad, mid-forties, hand in his coat pocket. He looks at Camillo.
“Where’s the money?” he says with a thick Serbian accent.
“He doesn’t have your money,” I say.
The leader looks at me. “Who the fuck are you?”
“A friend of the family.”
There are friend-of-the-family rates in this work. There are also friend-of-the-family hazards. The leader is, in this exact second, doing the math.
I let him.
I let him watch me while he does it. I let him notice that my jacket has been measured at a salon on Madison, and that the man wearing it is standing too still for someone who’s being threatened with a concealed gun.
The leader’s eyes flick back to my face.
He has it now. Recognition fills his eyes. “Greco.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t—” He stops. “We didn’t know this man was your friend.”
“I’m sure you didn’t.”
I take an envelope from my inside pocket and hand it to the leader without looking at it.
“This is a check for half a million. It will cover whatever he owes you.”
I had Tito research while I was on the drive over.
His text came just a short while ago. Camillo owes fifty million total, but most of it is through banks and equity firms. Most likely, he turned to loan sharks when he ran out of credit with respectable entities.
Based on the fact he still has all his fingers, it can’t have been that long ago.
Half a mil is probably a stretch, but I’d rather overpay than admit I don’t know the exact amount he owes these people. In my world, information is the most invaluable form of currency. Better they think they can’t keep secrets from me.
I’ll have eyes on them soon anyway.
Predictably, the leader takes the check. “Mr. Greco, you know I can’t cash this.”
“You’ll find a way.”
He opens his mouth to argue, then thinks better of it. Loan shark or not, he’s not stupid. He knows who I am. That’s enough to tell him he doesn’t want to fuck around with me.
“Take the money. Leave this place. And don’t speak this family’s name out loud again for as long as you have a tongue in your mouth. Are we agreed?”
He nods quickly.
One of his goons, however, doesn’t seem to be as smart. “Who the fuck are you to talk to our boss like that, huh?”
I glance at him, through narrowed eyes. “Come here and find out.”
“Sven, don’t,” the leader says, but it’s already too late. The guy is moving, swinging at me.
I dodge easily, grab his arm, and snap it clean in half.
The scream is the best stress-relief I’ve gotten all night. The guy crumples like wet cardboard, writhing on the floor, clutching at the awkward bend of his elbow.
“Take your trash and go,” I tell the leader. “Do not come again. I will know, and I won’t be happy.”
He motions for the others to grab the fallen one. “Yes, sir.”
“Say you understand.”
“I understand, sir.”
Soon, they’re hurrying out of the apartment. As soon as they’re gone, I turn to Camillo.
“Rio—” His voice cracks. He gets it under control. “I—I can’t thank you enough. I owe you my life. You came in here and you saved my ass and?—”
“Camillo.”
“Yeah?”
“How long?”
“How long what?”
“How long has she been covering you?”
He swallows. “A few years.”
“How many?”
“Five.”
“Five?” I am visibly shocked.
“Six. Maybe six.”
“Six years.” I widen my eyes. “After your family cut her funding and forced her to leave college.” I remember the whole story.
“C’mon, man. You know that’s not how it went.”
He’s lying. I know all there’s to know. I’d even offered to cover Fede’s tuition myself, but she was too proud to accept it. Be it a gift or a loan, she didn’t want it. She said she was going to make her own way. And she did.
Apparently, she also made Camillo’s.
“The investment,” I demand. “The one that got you started. Was it truly your idea?” It’s one question that has been on my mind.
I’ve been Camillo’s best friend for as long as I can remember and I know he never has great ideas.
I was suspicious about this years ago, but never bothered to ask. Now, I want answers.
There is a silence in the apartment. I can hear his refrigerator.
“It was a joint thing,” he says. “I would have done it without her. She just said the words first.”
I shake my head slowly. I have no words for him.
He let out a sigh and mutters, “You used to be fun, man. Now you’re just scary as hell. What happened to you?”
“Real life happened to me.” I keep my voice flat. “And it’s about to happen to you.”
The color drains from his face. “What are you talking abou?—”
“I’m going to clear your debts. All of them.”
He looks up. “Y-You’d do that?”
“I said I would.” I pull out my checkbook as I speak.
Money is no object. Fifty million is a large chunk to most people, but a drop in the ocean for me, considering the kind of work I do.
“I won’t tell your parents either. They will go to their graves believing you are the man you told them you were. ”
He looks up. “Rio. Man. Thank you. I don’t know what to?—”
“In exchange, Federica marries me.”
He stares at me, shocked. Surprised, maybe? I can’t tell. I also can’t tell how this idea made it to my head.
The expression changes slowly. He is recalibrating in real time and he is bad at hiding it.
“My sister?”
“Unless we both happen to know another.”
He narrows his eyes. “Why?”
The honest answer will die with me. That I’ve loved her for seven years without saying a word. That pushing her away six months ago was the most painful thing I’ve ever done.
Instead, I say, “Because you sold her a long time ago. Someone is going to have to buy her back. That is going to be me.”
“Rio—”
“Yes or no, Cami?”
He looks at his hands, for what I count to be six seconds. “Fine. You can have her.”
I punch him in the face.
Camillo goes flying. He hits the wall hard, howls, and clutches at his left eye. “What the hell, man? You’re insane!”
I flex my knuckles. “Consider it an advance.”
The worst part is, a corner of my old soul was hoping he’d say no. That he’d take a swing at me and prove he is still the boy I was once proud to call my best friend.
I soon realize that the boy I was hoping to see is gone. In his place is a man I do not recognize.
I shrug. Who am I to judge? I’m also unrecognizable. The world twists all of us.
But it will not twist her any further.
If Camillo isn’t capable of protecting his sister, I will take over that duty. I’ll protect her with my name and my reputation. If he takes on any more debt, which he is sure to do, no loan shark will be able to kick down her door.
Because I’ll be there on the other side.
Forever.
I hold out the hand I punched him with. “It’s a deal, then.”
Camillo glares at it, then at me. “Alright. But on one condition.”
I frown. Camillo draws himself up like he’s suddenly grown a spine.
“You don’t touch her. Whatever fucked-up reasons you have for asking this of me, I’m in no position to say no to you.
But it’ll be a marriage in name only.” He glares at me.
“You need a wife for your capo promotion nonsense, right? That’s what this is about?
Then fine. You can have her. But you can’t have her for real.
You’ll put it in black and white on a prenup, or no deal. ”
I hesitate. It’s a first, but I do.
Camillo is bluffing. I know he is. He’s in no condition to refuse me, and he clearly doesn’t care enough about his sister to go to bat for her. This isn’t about her wellbeing—it’s about his pride. He just doesn’t want to be the guy whose best friend fucked his sister.
Joke’s on him. Federica hates my guts. Whatever may have bloomed between us is long dead. I killed it the day I became capo. The day I got the call that the cartel had my family and wasn’t going to ransom them for any price lower than Queens on a silver platter.
All that matters now is making sure nothing like that happens to her. And as fucked up as it is, she’s safer with me than her own brother.
“Deal,” I say and forcefully shakes his hand like I’m some villain.