Chapter Eight
Milo
“Two hundred and twenty-eight steps,” I grumbled when I reached the top of the damn lighthouse where Remo demanded we have our meeting.
“Weather was shitty this morning. You couldn’t get your run in. Figured you’d like the workout,” he said, turning from the view from the cage to look at me.
“Fucking hate stairs,” I admitted, my chest still feeling a little tight from the trek up the tallest lighthouse in the state.
“Noted,” he agreed, not looking the least bit apologetic. “How’d it go last night?”
I hadn’t been able to make contact with Roe again. Her lounge was busier than usual thanks to some concert that brought a bunch of people to town.
I’d spent the night instead at the casino itself—having a few drinks, making a few bets, being seen in case Frank was watching.
“His men are always watching,” I told Remo. “Seems like he’s got four or five real close guys that aren’t usual casino security. Their focus isn’t so much on the whole pit; it’s on just a handful of people.”
“Were you one of them?”
“Seemed like I had the eye of one of them. Which makes me think Frank put him onto me. It wasn’t like I was winning big or anything.”
“He didn’t make contact?”
“No. I didn’t even see him last night.”
“He was probably in his office in the back. Seems like he spends a lot of time there. Which is why I’m hoping you’re right about your girl. She would easily have access to all those spaces we could never get close to.”
“I’m right about her.”
She needed the money.
She hated her boss.
There was no reason not to trust her.
“Are you now?” Remo asked, shooting me a strange look.
“What’s that mean?”
“Monroe London, she’s gorgeous.”
“Yeah, and? That’s part of what makes this work. Frank is infatuated with her.”
“And you?”
“And me what?”
“Are you infatuated?”
“I barely know her.”
“That wasn’t the question.” Remo turned to me, leaning his weight against the bars of the balcony. “Just wanna know the right head is getting the blood supply on this one.”
“Did I want to take her out when I first saw her? Yeah. Who wouldn’t? But as soon as I saw a way in, I tabled that.”
“Alright. Just checking.”
“How’s Dom doing?”
“Having the time of his life, it seems,” Remo said, smirking. “Though I think the pit boss has her eye on him. So we’ll see how that goes.”
“Anything else you need from me?”
“It’d be good if you could get yourself another invitation to a private game. But if that can’t happen, just keep a close eye on Monroe. I know you don’t know Frank like I do, but if he suspects her, shit gets bad, and it gets bad fast.”
With that, he turned and started to make his way down.
I checked out the view for just a second—since there was no way in hell I’d willingly do the steps again—before I followed.
We were maybe a third of the way down when someone else came into view—panting, red-faced.
“What the fuck?” he exploded as soon as he spotted Remo. “You said eleven.”
“Yeah, I sure said that,” Remo agreed, smile wicked.
“You’re a fucking asshole,” the guy snarled before turning and running back down.
“Let me guess,” I said when Remo glanced at me, “little brother?”
“How’d you know?”
“Because that’s the evil kind of shit my own brothers did to me growing up.”
“Eh, keeps things interesting,” Remo, who must have used the lighthouse for many a meeting because he seemed completely unaffected by the stairs, said as he kept going down.
“How many do you have? Brothers,” I clarified.
“There are five of us. That one was the baby, half-brother, obviously. My old man was never getting out. Ma… she needed some joy in her life. Ended up with a heartbreak and a baby when she was, shit, forty.
“He’s not even of age yet, but I got a call about him being drunk off his ass at a club last night. Naturally, he needed to do some stairs this morning as punishment.”
He didn’t say it, but I got the feeling Remo was a stand-in father figure for his siblings. Especially the younger one, since he probably would have been in his teens when he’d come along.
“I remember my brothers punishing me for the first time I got drunk, and high, so we didn’t have to involve my mom in that shit.”
“Yeah, we try not to involve our ma in any of that stupid shit. She’s got MS. Getting kind of advanced. Stress can make symptoms worse.”
“You don’t think finding out you guys are rebuilding a mob presence in AC is going to stress her out?”
“Nah. Since no one is gonna be telling her that.” At my silence, he glanced back and shrugged. “She’s in a nice little apartment with care. As far as she knows, I’m working on buying a casino. And that’s all she needs to know.”
“Can I ask something?”
“Shoot.”
“Where the hell is the money coming from?”
Remo got to the landing before turning back and shooting me a smirk.
“My old man took a lot of stupid risks in his career. One thing he didn’t do was make us suffer financially.
Ma knew where a lot of the money was hidden and used some of it to raise us.
But I got a real weird letter from him on my eighteenth birthday.
Just a normal note it seemed at first. With a doodle on the back.
Took me fucking years to figure out what it meant.
I guess because we didn’t grow up in Navesink Bank like all of you. ”
“It was a map.”
“It was a map. And the note had random capital letters that gave some instructions as well.”
“Where’d he stash it? For that many years?”
“In a safe inside a wall of our old house.”
“How’d you get to it?”
“Well, I debated breaking in and just ripping the wall out while the owners were at work. But everyone’s got fucking cameras these days. So I bought the place with every last dollar to my name.”
“Shit’s expensive in Navesink Bank.”
“Fucking criminal is what it is,” Remo agreed.
“Thankfully, the owners didn’t have the money for renovations.
So the original walls were all still in place.
Ripped the wall out. And there was the safe.
Still intact and sealed. Used the code from the letter.
Then there it was. All the cash I’d need. ”
“Didn’t realize your old man was such an earner.”
“Biggest earner in the Family before he went away. From what I understand, he’d just pulled off a massive gas con. Think he was pulling in ten mill a week for a while there. Something like five months.”
Ten mill a week for five months was a quarter of a billion dollars. Granted, all of that wouldn’t have belonged to his dad. The kick-up to Luca’s old man would have been about twenty percent. And then there were likely multiple people in on the con.
Still, that would have been a crazy cut for Luigi.
“You can ask,” Remo said, sensing the question hanging in the air.
“How much was in the safe?”
“Fifty. Forty would be fair market value for that casino, considering how rundown the rooms have gotten and how slow things have been around here. And I had an offer placed anonymously. Frank turned it down.”
“Could he be in debt?”
“That’s definitely something I want to figure out. The place won’t last long without some upgrades. And he’s not making them. Which makes me think he isn’t as flush as he wants to appear. Lotta questions with Frank. Hopefully your girl can get me some answers.”
With that, he made his way out.
I waited a couple minutes for him to clear out before I left.
And on the walk around town, I couldn’t help but wonder why Remo was so obsessed with the casino.
Sure, it made sense to want to live in a place with that much security. But with that much money in his pocket, he could afford any number of buildings in the area and pay for the best security.
And, yeah, a casino was a great way to launder money.
But so was a bar or strip club.
Possibly something to bring up to Luca, just for his input on things.
Otherwise, not really my business, I guess.
And if it worked out for him, it would be a lot of money for me and my future wife and kids.
And I was going to go ahead and pretend that as I thought of those things, it wasn’t Roe’s face that popped into my head.
Because what the hell was that about?
I barely even knew the woman.