Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
JULIET
SEPTEMBER
The messages haven’t stopped through the entire summer so far; it’s early September, and they are more of an annoyance than anything.
Most of what they say is the same things we already know.
Lorenzo is the mastermind of this, and the rest of the Russos have no idea what he’s doing.
He has his own crew, and there are no known associations with him in the States.
So this person is trying to get under our skin, whoever it is.
After spending the morning in my usual routine, I’m back on the reviews of this Third Street Deal. It makes sense for this to be my focus, as everyone else spends their time looking for Mateo.
Sitting at the dining room table, I start looking over all of the documents.
Mateo was in the middle of this deal when Gino sent him to Italy, so I took over to close it once we realized Mateo wasn’t coming back right away.
I’m not a lawyer, but I do have experience in business and contracts.
My father let me sit in on meetings when I was home after Antonio hired me, and Gino has had me in just about every conversation related to the business.
I hear the front door open and close.
“Hey, Juliet,” Vanessa calls out, Alonso right on her tail. Since he’s been living with her, they’ve become very close friends.
“Hey Vanessa, hey Alonso,” I respond.
They both walk into the kitchen. I’m so focused on what I’m doing, I don’t see Vanessa sit next to me until she says something.
“What’s that?” She asks.
“Contracts and financial records of a deal we’re trying to close,” I reply.
“I see,” she says.
I look over to Alonso, and he’s rummaging through the kitchen, probably for food.
“There are leftovers from lunch in the fridge. Drew didn’t eat anything, and he’s downstairs if you want to bring him something,” I say to him.
“Alright,” he replies. He quickly grabs two plates of food and takes them down to the basement.
“I know my brother doesn’t want to tell me anything, but please let me help,” Vanessa says, looking at me with pleading eyes.
“You can help me with this. This Third Street deal is a pain in my ass. The construction company on the other side of the deal is being a problem, and something doesn’t seem right.”
“Was this something Mateo was working on?” She sounds hopeful. If I were in her position, I would be feeling the same way. Doing anything I can to be connected to the man I love while he’s missing.
“Yeah, he was. I was just there to review financials. Your husband can’t do math,” I reply.
She snorts.
“He really can’t,” she laughs.
I give her a stack of papers. “These are all of their recent transactions.”
“Should we have these?” She asks.
“Probably not, but we do because they needed to file certain financial documents with the city when they made the initial deal when they bought the building. We may have asked for copies,” I say.
“Hmm, I’ve learned that sometimes I don’t need to ask too many questions,” she says. Don’t I know that.
“I learned that years ago. Don’t get me wrong, these guys are not as violent as the generations before them, but they will get their hands dirty in other ways,” I say.
“That’s an understatement,” she mumbles.
We spend a few minutes in silence, looking over everything.
Something that’s catching my eye is how perfect everything is.
There’s no weird transfers of money, no invoices that look off.
No purchase orders that didn’t get fulfilled.
Everyone makes mistakes, even the most seasoned professionals.
I highlight the transactions that seem suspicious, low-cost orders that were much larger in the past. Invoices that were paid so quickly that the ink barely dried when it was sent.
I look at Vanessa and see her staring at the paper in front of her, unmoving.
“Vanessa? How are you really? Gino’s not in the room, so you don’t need to put on a front for him.”
She looks up. “I’m okay. I’m not okay, but I’m living through it. I have to. These babies need me, and I need them. I have no idea when he’s coming back, and the end of my second trimester is kicking my ass.” She clears her throat and places her hand on her stomach.
“There’s nothing I can say that will make you feel better. I know that. But you’ve got a lot of people surrounding and supporting you. Everyone’s looking for him; no one will stop,” I say honestly.
“Mateo would lose his shit if he knew the violence my brother was dealing out right now,” she tells me.
“That’s very true. Mateo probably would’ve locked him in a room to get him to stop,” I know Mateo would do it if he felt Gino was taking something too far.
“We should do that,” she mumbles.
“Do you think he’s being that violent?” I ask.
“No, but from what I overheard Alonso and Ryan talking about, they’re concerned he will become as violent as Dad.
Now, I didn’t know Dad’s violence like everyone here, but he was an asshole.
I know how much Gino doesn’t want to be like him, but he’s turning into him.
Even the secrets he’s been keeping from me when it comes to Mateo’s kidnapping and what everyone is doing to find him.
He lets me help on the small stuff, checking in on the guys if they get hurt or if there’s something I can look at to bring a medical perspective to.
Like he didn’t have the nerve to tell me you two were dating, I had to pry that out of Alonso,” she says.
Shit.
“What?” I yelp.
“Don’t be mad at him. I was very hormonal that day, and I needed to hear something good. So Alonso spilled the beans to me after Drew told him.”
Great, Gino’s plan worked.
“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you. It’s new and with everything going on, we—”
She grabs my hand. “Hey, it’s okay, I promise. I’m happy for the two of you, really.”
I swallow and nod.
After a few hours of us combing over everything, I feel like we’ve hit a wall. Vanessa and Alonso leave. I know I should make dinner, but I’m not in the mood for it.
I stare at the wall, overthinking the conversation with Vanessa. If she finds out we’re lying, she’ll be crushed.
After who knows how long, someone sits next to me.
“Hey, you okay?” I hear a voice ask. It’s Gino.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Vanessa knows or thinks we’re together. If she finds out, she’ll be devastated that we lied to her,” I reply.
“I know that’s why we don’t tell her,” he says back.
“How do you expect this to end, Gino? Honestly. When this is all over, how are we going to explain to everyone we’re not dating, but what? We’re still friends? We’ll still run a business together?” I say, getting frustrated because this could go down terribly.
“We’ll figure that out when we get there,” he says softly.
“I knew you weren’t thinking clearly when you made this decision. You just decided it and didn’t assess it like you normally do,” I scoff at him.
He doesn’t respond; he just looks at me.
“Jules,” he sighs, “maybe I did rush into this, but I don’t regret it, not for a fucking second.”
“Okay, but you need to talk to your sister more. She's strong; she won’t falter like you think she will,” I say, hoping I can get the point across to him.
“I know. But I can’t stress her too much.”
“You not telling her things is stressing her out. She thinks the reason you’re not keeping her updated is because it’s bad news.”
Gino and I, since Mateo’s kidnapping, have had this conversation more than once.
What to tell Vanessa, and what not to. She’s smart and similar to Gino in her ability to detect bullshit.
If he fed her a lie, she’d catch it, so he decides to just keep things from her.
Eventually, it will crater their relationship.
And when Mateo comes back, it could ruin their friendship.
Mateo has made it obvious since he and Vanessa got married that nothing is above her.
He will tell her everything he can, and Gino needs to start doing the same, but we both know he won’t.
The only person who could probably get him to see reason was Mateo’s mom, Isabel; she was like a mother to Gino.
He’d go to her for advice about everything.
I only met her once before she died, but she seemed to have everyone following a high standard of respect and trust. Antonio was not allowed to talk about mafia business in front of Gino and Mateo until they were adults in her house.
But everyone knows he tried to tell them early, and she somehow knew.
And I know Isabel would get under his skin about lying to her daughter-in-law, who I know she would have loved.
I put everything away and start to get up. But Gino stops me, grabbing my arm and guiding me to sit back down.
“Jules, I will take all the blame for this. But this isn’t going to stop me from my plan,” he whispers.
“And what’s that?”I whisper back.
“I’m not telling you that.” Then he winks and walks away.
I watch him, and when he gets to the bottom of the stairs, he turns and looks back at me.
“I already ordered dinner. I got us some food from the French restaurant you like,” he says.
How does he remember these things? We went there almost a year ago.
I’m starting to realize he doesn’t forget much.