Chapter 9 Emilio
Chapter Nine: Emilio
Leone sends me to negotiate with the Castillos because apparently my most valuable skill set is being likable under threat of death.
"You want me to walk into a Castillo restaurant and tell their underboss that his family has been running cover for a child trafficking operation," I say, standing in Leone's office at seven in the morning with coffee I haven't finished and a headache I haven't started treating.
"And you want me to do this without getting shot. "
"I want you to do this and come back with an alliance."
"An alliance… with the Castillos. The family that sent four men into our east wing three days ago."
"The family that sent four men into our east wing because they're scared and desperate and fighting a war they don't understand against an enemy they can't see.
Same as us." Leone leans back in his chair.
He looks worse every day. The bags under his eyes are big enough to cradle a fucking baby, and the stubble on his jaw has crossed from sauve into neglect.
"The trafficking changes everything, Emilio.
This isn't about territory anymore. Both families have been played.
Both families have blood on their hands they didn't know about.
If I go to the Castillos with that information, it's an accusation. If you go, it's a conversation."
"Because I'm charming."
"Because you're the only person in this compound who can sit across from a hostile underboss and make him feel like the conversation was his idea."
"That's a fancy way of saying I'm charming."
He rolls his eyes and heaves a sigh. "Take Carmelo for backup. Don't bring guns into the restaurant, but make sure Carmelo is visible. His presence communicates enough."
"Carmelo's presence communicates that someone is about to stop breathing."
"Exactly." Leone hands me a folder. Inside are photographs from the marina surveillance, financial records from Alexandra's analysis, satellite images of the Apex Meridian Holdings facility, and a printout of the shipping manifests showing eighteen months of containers that went in full and came out empty.
"Show him everything. Hold nothing back.
If we're going to do this, we do it with full transparency. They need to see what we see."
"And if he doesn't believe me?"
"Then we fight Kreiss alone and the Castillos keep being cover for a trafficking pipeline without knowing it, and in six months when this comes out publicly, they burn.
" Leone stands. "He'll believe you. The evidence is too strong, and the implications are too ugly for denial.
No man who runs a crime family wants to find out he's been protecting pedophiles.
That's not a pride issue, that's an extinction-level event for any organization that relies on community tolerance to operate. "
He's right. The mafia exists because neighborhoods let it exist. Because the protection works, because the money flows, because the violence stays between men who chose the life and doesn't touch the people who didn't. The second a family gets connected to trafficking kids, that tolerance evaporates and every cop, every federal agent, every journalist who's been looking the other way suddenly develops a conscience.
The Castillos can't afford that any more than we can.
"When?" I ask.
"Tonight. I've already reached out through back channels. Castillo's underboss, a man named Renzo Ferrara, will meet you at Marcello's on Fifth at eight. Neutral ground, public enough that nobody starts shooting, private enough that the conversation stays between you."
"Renzo Ferrara. The guy with the scar."
"The guy with the scar and a reputation for listening before reacting, which is why he's the underboss and not the dozens of louder men who wanted the job. He's reasonable, Emilio. Approach him with respect and evidence and let the information do the work."
I take the folder and leave. In the corridor I run into Savannah coming back from the kitchen with a mug in one hand and a piece of toast in the other, and the sight of her in the morning light with crumbs on her shirt and sleep still in her eyes makes me want to go caveman and drag her up the stairs.
"You look like you're going somewhere," she says.
"Castillo meeting tonight. Leone's sending me to broker an alliance."
Her eyebrows go up. "An alliance. With the people who shot at us three days ago."
"The trafficking changes the math. Both families got played. Leone thinks if we show them the evidence, they'll want blood as badly as we do."
"And if they don't?"
"Then I run very fast to the car while Carmelo does Carmelo things. Just kidding, I know how to fight too. "
She doesn't laugh, but her mouth does the thing where it twitches and she kills it a second late. "Be careful."
"I'm always careful."
"You're literally never careful. You're the opposite of careful. You're the human embodiment of hold my beer and watch this."
"That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."
"It wasn't a compliment."
"Everything you say to me is a compliment. You just don't know it yet, little vixen."
She rolls her eyes so hard I'm surprised they don't get stuck. "Go to your meeting, idiot."
"Miss me while I'm gone?"
"Not even a little."
"You’re a terrible liar."
I walk away before she can throw the toast at me.
I can feel her watching me go and I don't look back because looking back would mean seeing her face.
Seeing her face would mean wanting to stay and wanting to stay would mean not doing the thing Leone needs me to do, and the thing Leone needs me to do might be the most important conversation anyone in this family has had in two years.
So… I walk away.
Marcello's on Fifth is the kind of Italian restaurant that's been in the same family for three generations and has never updated the menu or the decor because both are perfect and everyone knows it.
Red leather booths, dim lighting, checkered tablecloths, a bartender who's been pouring since the eighties and has seen enough mob dinners to know when to disappear.
Carmelo and I arrive at seven-forty-five.
I'm in a suit because the occasion demands it, dark navy, white shirt, no tie because ties feel like someone's got a hand around my throat and I've had enough of that lately.
Carmelo is in black from head to toe, which is what Carmelo always wears, and the hostess takes one look at him and seats us without asking for a reservation.
Renzo Ferrara arrives at eight on the dot.
He's older than I remembered, mid-fifties, silver hair cropped close, a scar that runs from his left ear to his jaw, and the build of a man who was dangerous thirty years ago and has spent every year since making sure people remember it.
He's got one man with him, a bodyguard who sits at the bar and orders a soda and watches the room the way Carmelo watches rooms, which means everyone in this restaurant is being observed by two men built specifically for violence and the waitstaff is going to earn their tips tonight.
Ferrara sits across from me and looks at Carmelo, looks at me, his face giving nothing.
"DiAngelo," he says. "Your boss has interesting timing."
"My boss has interesting information."
"So I'm told. Talk."
I talk. I start with the marina, the Meridian Star, the surveillance photographs. I lay them on the table between the bread basket and the olive oil and Ferrara picks up each one and studies it without expression. When he sees Vidal boarding the boat, his jaw moves once. Just once.
"Vidal is yours," I say. "Castillo soldier, embedded as an operative in your organization by an outside handler named Kreiss. He's not a Castillo traitor. He was planted. So was our mole, Salvatore Ferretti, who we already dealt with."
Ferrara sets the photographs down. "You're telling me someone put a spy in my family."
"I'm telling you someone put spies in both families. Yours and ours. The same handler, the same network, the same operation. We've been fighting each other for two years while a third party ran intelligence on both sides and used the war as cover."
"Cover for what?"
I open the folder to the shipping manifests. The satellite images. Alexandra's financial analysis. The weight discrepancies, the empty containers, the intake processing facility.
"Cover for this."
Ferrara reads. He's a slow reader, or maybe he's being thorough, but the silence at the table stretches while he goes through each page and Carmelo sits beside me without moving and the restaurant keeps going around us with the particular ignorance of a place that has learned not to notice what happens in the back booth.
When he gets to the shipping manifests, his reading slows down even more. I watch his eyes move across the weight logs and the customs declarations and the discrepancy reports, and I watch the color leave his face the same way it left Alexandra's in the war room.
He sets the papers down. His hand is flat on the table, and his fingers are spread and the tendons are tight. He hasn't looked up yet.
"Age brackets," he murmurs.
"Yeah."
"They're running a trafficking pipeline through our waterway."
"Through both our waterways. Both families used as cover. Both families too busy trying to kill each other to see what was moving underneath."
Ferrara looks up. His eyes are different now. Whatever neutrality he walked in with is gone. What's there instead is old and cold and the kind of angry that doesn't shout, the kind that plans.
"What does your boss want?"
"A joint operation. Both families coordinated. We take Vidal, we take the handoff, we follow the trail to Kreiss and we dismantle the pipeline, but as one big happy family, instead of two brothers fighting."
"Family." His nose scrunches ever so slightly. "The Bonaccorsos and the Castillos working together."
"Nobody's asking you to like us. Nobody's asking for peace or partnership or a group hug.
We're asking for a temporary alliance against a common enemy who's been trafficking women and children through our territory.
After Kreiss is dealt with, you can go back to hating us.
We'll go back to hating you, but right now, this is bigger than the war. "
Ferrara sits with it. The restaurant noise fills the gap. Dishes, conversation, the bartender running a blender for something nobody at this table ordered. Normal sounds around an abnormal conversation.
"I need to take this to the Don," he says.
"Take it. Take the photographs, the manifests, all of it. Show him everything. If he wants to verify independently, we'll cooperate with whatever due diligence he needs. The evidence is real, Renzo. I wish it wasn't."
Ferrara gathers the papers. Puts them in the folder. Slides it off the table and into his lap. He looks at me for a long moment.
"Your father was a soldier," he says.
I blink. "My father was executed when I was seven."
"I know. I knew your father. He was a good soldier who made bad choices and paid for them. But he was honest, and his sons have his eyes." Ferrara stands. "I'll call your boss within forty-eight hours."
He leaves. His bodyguard follows. The restaurant keeps moving and the back booth is empty except for me and Carmelo and two untouched glasses of water and the hope that a conversation that might have just changed the trajectory of a two-year war.
Carmelo looks at me. "He'll say yes,.”
I pull out my phone and call Leone.
"He took the evidence. He's bringing it to Marco. He'll call within forty-eight hours."
"How did he react to the trafficking?"
"The way any man with half a conscience reacts. He went white and his hands went flat on the table, and he said age brackets in a voice that sounded like he wanted to dig a grave with his bare hands."
Leone is quiet for a second. "Good."
"He knew my father."
Another pause, longer this time. "A lot of people knew your father, Emilio."
"He said my father was honest and that his sons have his eyes."
"Then he's already decided. A man who invokes your father to your face is telling you he's going to honor the request. It's a respect signal." Leone exhales. "Come home. Get some rest. Aurelio asked about you."
"How is he?"
"He's Aurelio. He wants updates on the operation and refuses to eat the soup the nurses bring him and told the doctor to go fuck himself when he suggested hospice care."
"That's a good sign."
"It's a stubborn sign. Those are different things." Leone hangs up.
I sit in the booth for another minute. Carmelo waits without impatience because Carmelo doesn't experience impatience.
He experiences presence, and the presence right now is two men in a restaurant booth who just offered the enemy a handshake over the bodies of trafficked children, and the handshake is going to work because some crimes are too ugly for rivalry to survive.
I drive back to the compound. It's late and Savannah's light is off. I stop outside her door, the way I did the other night, and I listen for the nothing behind the wood.
I press my palm flat against the door and hold it there for a few seconds.
Then I go to my room and I sit on my bed and I think about Renzo Ferrara.
A man who knew my father and looked at me with honesty and said his sons have his eyes.
I don't know what to do with that because nobody has ever told me anything good about my father and the kindness of it from an enemy at a negotiation table is the last thing I expected tonight.
Carmelo was right. He'll say yes.
And when he does, the war changes shape. Two families who've been tearing each other apart for years, turning in the same direction for the first time, aimed at a man named Kreiss who thought he was invisible and is about to find out how fucking wrong he was.