Chapter Thirteen
Elio
The man sitting opposite me was agitated.
Flustered. Guilty of crimes I did not care to unearth; I only cared about the discernible fact that he was wasting my time.
I had other pressing matters to attend to.
But Casmiro had informed me that if it were something he could have overseen himself, he would have done it.
I sat at the head of the table, with the document the man had brought forward lying right in front of me, untouched.
Angelo sat on my left side with a laptop.
Casmiro was on my right, with work folders requiring my attention in front of him.
They were waiting for me to speak first, the room silent as a show of respect, but I remained quiet.
Soldiers manned every corner in and outside the space, those who belonged to the stranger, Angelo, Casmiro, and me.
The minute the man walked into the boardroom in my suite, his eyes latched onto me like he was staring at a myth, like he had only just confirmed my existence. He still had a confident form, but his eyes laid bare all his weakness and strength.
I lifted my gaze to both men standing behind him, faces stoic, eyes forward. I looked back down at the lean man before removing the cigar from my mouth and blowing out the smoke.
The silence was loud, palpable, filled with tension.
Lifting both fingers that held the thick stick of my cigar, I motioned to his bodyguards. “Are they here to kill me?”
The man’s eyes widened as he gestured for the men to find another place to stand.
They did so promptly, and the man threw an apologetic smile my way.
“The Marino bodyguards of the Caporegime society take their jobs very seriously, Mr. Marino,” he informed me.
“They are well trained, skillful, and attentive. If you are ever in need of their services, we will have a team sent right to the headquarters, sir.”
“Do my soldiers look incapable of protecting me?”
The man blinked rapidly, shaking his head. “That was not what I implied by my offer—”
“Offer?”
“I meant…” he blurted, sweat gathering between his brows. “My suggestion, Mr. Marino. A mere suggestion.”
I kept my gaze steady on him, relaxing back on the soft leather chair.
“Do your words fail you, Armato?” I asked, bringing the cigar to my lips again, taking a drag, and letting out the smoke, my focus still on the dark-haired man with the receding hairline.
“Do you perhaps need water or a drink, or would you prefer a cigar to help you function properly?”
The man gulped, shifting in his seat. “I am all right, Mr. Marino.”
“Hm.” I nodded. “You came on behalf of the MCSS?”
“Yes.”
“As their…”
“Spokesperson, sir.”
I frowned. “Are you usually this transparent and uncoordinated when you conduct business on behalf of the Society?”
He cleared his throat. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”
I watched him for a few seconds before nodding once.
“Thank you, sir.” He sat up, straightening his suit.
“Forgive my lack of self-control; it’s difficult to determine how to approach you.
Your name is all we know, and what we have heard from different mouths is all we see of you.
Some people in the Society can never put a face to the name, and our messages and requests stop directly at the door of Mr. Valerio.
I act out of character because I am overwhelmed with the privilege of sitting before you, sir. ”
I suppose I have my father to thank for that.
“I see,” I said. “You feel privileged and overwhelmed, yet you choose to disturb my vacation.”
“For which I apologize, Mr. Marino. The matter was rather pressing, and my boss had tried and failed to reach you directly via email.”
“He will continue to try and fail,” I responded.
The man’s mouth fell open and then closed again.
I sat up, pressing my cigar to the ashtray before picking up my glasses, putting them on, and opening the file. In my peripheral vision, I caught Armato’s surprise, clearly not expecting me to take much interest in the file’s contents.
Casmiro inched forward toward me, his seat creaking under his movement as he did. “It contains information for the shipment—”
“I can read,” I cut him off without letting my eyes leave the pages.
He inched backward in his seat.
The room grew quiet as my eyes perused the pages, reading line after line. A clock was ticking in the background. The light vibration beneath my feet as the cruise ship hummed was extremely loud, and the breathing of every man in the room was careful, waiting—ceasing, when I frowned.
“If I am correct”—I turned my head toward Casmiro—“this shipment was the one that had been shifted due to two added containers?”
“Yes.”
“That should have arrived, shouldn’t it?”
“Yes, but it was shifted to a later date because three more containers were added at the last minute, as the information from the MCSS explains.”
I nodded, looking back at the date written there. “August of next year. That is eleven months from now.”
“Yes, as stated,” Casmiro responded.
My frown deepened, and I turned my head toward Casmiro again. “Didn’t you tell me you already signed off on it? Why do they require my signature?”
“It is a huge shipment. Due to the added containers, they would need your signature as the overall overseer.”
“I see,” I said, uncomfortable as I read through the last lines of the document to the space that required my signature.
I looked up at the spokesperson, Armato. Eyes wide in anticipation, like his life was riding on the signature I was supposed to give.
Something was wrong.
I looked at Casmiro. “Did you confirm what contents are in these containers?”
“I tried, but they told me they were not allowed to say.”
“And who made that law?”
Casmiro cleared his throat, now looking uncomfortable and confused as he said, “You did.”
I turned my head toward Angelo for confirmation, and he nodded.
“I see,” I said, my gaze lifting to Armato. “The person who sent you to me, what position do they hold?”
Armato straightened up. “Federico Gennaro, the chairman of the MCSS, and his right hand, a Russian associate, Leonid Novikov, and their whole council.”
The Russian name was unfamiliar, but I recognized Gennaro.
“And this council consists of how many countries holding a seat?”
“Ten, sir.”
“It used to be five,” I said.
“Yes, sir.” Armato cleared his throat. “An invitation for the election and induction ceremony had been sent to you to welcome the new club members two years ago.”
It was my fault for not being well-versed in the business of the MCSS. I never wanted to participate in the Society. They were just another part of my father’s business I had pushed to the side when I took the seat—another one I would have brought to the ground eventually.
“So, from what I remember, there’s Italy, Russia, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, and…?”
Armato looked about ready to melt on his seat. “The United States, South Africa, India, South Korea, and Thailand.”
My frown deepened, alarm bells ringing in my head. “They breached Europe?”
“Yes, sir, it was a huge event, a lot of—”
I snapped my head toward Casmiro. “Why did this information not reach me?”
Casmiro’s jaw clenched. “You had placed strict orders about delivering information for the MCSS, though I did present the issue despite that, but you did not acknowledge it at that time, Marino.”
“If I may,” Angelo spoke up, “the MCSS is a sovereign society; though you oversee their affairs, they are allowed to make decisions of this magnitude without consulting you, as per the rules you set in place years ago.”
When my father took over from his father, he had lived and ruled by their standing laws, but when I was old enough to have my own signature, he changed everything, using my name, Elio Marino, the mastermind behind their new affairs, the man who told his father it would be wise to call in capos from other families, the man whom no one sees, the man who reformed the grand society amongst our capos, including other caporegimes from influential families in neighboring European countries, as per my father’s hand.
This new information was taking up a larger space in my head, and I did not like it. It left a bad taste on my tongue, and I most certainly did not have the time or the space to give it more attention than absolutely necessary.
“So.” I straightened my glasses. “The council needs my signature to allow the shipment a safe passage.”
“Exactly, sir,” Armato spoke.
The papers stated that the contents in the containers weren’t in danger of tainting the family name, and it was tagged as “normal cargo,” the same tag they’ve been using for decades.
I sighed, looking over at Angelo.
“We have more pressing matters. This is MCSS business; there’s not much we can do unless you decide to conduct a full-scale investigation, which might take months. I checked the documents beforehand, and they are more or less the same format as their previous shipments,” he stated.
I looked back at Armato, picking up my pen, uncapping it.
“Extend my message to your chairman; tell him that the next time he decides to interrupt my time without proper preparations, I will be changing a lot of rules. It would be kind to include the important notion that it is a threat I intend to follow through on.”
Receding Hairline swallowed, straightening like a rod. “Yes, sir, I will do exactly that.”
The second I placed the pen to paper, a small chaos at the entrance stopped my hand.
I frowned, raising my head at the familiar voice before I saw her approaching, hair straightened and styled with a bang, half pulled up in a short ponytail, and half left down.
It confirmed my realization that her hair had grown a few inches longer than its normal length.