Chapter Twenty-Four
Milo
“You’re not fucking leaving,” I snapped when Dom informed us that he had to get going.
“Sorry, Remo. Know you got shit going down. But it seems like I do too now.”
I glanced at Remo, who looked as lost as I did.
“You can’t just wander the fuck off without Luca’s permission,” I reminded him.
“This is gonna be one of those ‘ask for forgiveness, not permission’ things,” he said, making his way to the door.
“Get your ass back here,” I called as he made his way to the door.
“Look,” Dom said, turning back to us. “I was just kidnapped and held prisoner by a woman I’ve never seen before in my life. One who is really fucking pissed off at me about… something. I gotta go find out what it was.”
With that, he was gone.
It seemed that both Milo and I decided in unison that Domenico was not in the mood for us to physically detain him.
“You fucking Navesink Bank guys,” Remo said, sighing. “Is it ever not a woman with you?”
“Honestly, no,” I said, sighing.
“I like her,” he said, nodding toward the bedroom.
“I like her too.”
“Your ma is gonna love her.”
“All I’m gonna hear is how pretty our babies are going to be.”
“Well, she wouldn’t be wrong. Though, you might want to wait to make the introductions until after her face heals up. Yo,” he called when there was a loud rap on the door.
The family resemblance was strong. Same height, builds, facial structure, same green eyes. The only real difference was a scar cutting through this guy’s lip.
Clearly, another of his brothers.
“Milo, this is my brother Santino. Santo, this is Milo Grassi. Our cousin somehow or another.”
Santino shifted his paperwork to shake my hand. “Nice to meet family,” he said.
“You got something?” Remo asked, nodding to the papers in his hand.
“I got the mortgage paperwork. Don’t ask,” he added at Remo’s curious look.
“You know what I do; gotta ask…”
“No, I won’t get caught for it.”
“Then show me.”
He waved toward the dining table and we all went to sit down.
“Alright, so. He bought it in foreclosure originally. For twenty,” Santino said, passing his brother the paperwork.
“Twenty?” Remo asked, stiffening. “Why the fuck wouldn’t he take my forty then? The second mortgage?”
“You’d think. But no. That was only for five.” More paperwork was passed.
“So the place is worth twenty-five. Still doesn’t make sense.”
“From what I can tell, that five wasn’t used to infuse into the casino. It was used to pay back a debtor.”
“Pat,” Remo said.
“Yeah, Pat. Those were Pat’s guys. He wouldn’t have his hand in that unless he had skin in the game. So, what I’m thinking is… Pat is invested. He gave the five mill, but instead of getting it back simply in installments or a lump sum, he has an unofficial stake.”
“You’re sure it’s unofficial?”
“All the paperwork only lists Frank.”
“That’s good.”
“What’s your move then?” I asked.
Remo sat back, inhaling deeply, then letting it out slowly.
“That’s the thing, ain’t it? If I kill Pat, his stake goes away. But Frank has no reason to sell to me.”
“A protection racket?” I suggested. “If nothing is official, you strong-arm your way in instead. Tell him you’ll protect him from Pat and his guys.”
“Still won’t want to sell to me.”
“This might help,” Santino said, passing more papers to his brother. “His house back in Colorado is about to go into foreclosure. So is his condo here. And his Ferrari? Suddenly missing. He can’t stop spending. It’s all going up in flames.”
“What are you saying is my solution here?” Remo asked.
“I think Pat dies, no matter what,” Santino said, shrugging. “He’s been nothing but a menace anyway. His last girlfriend was in a coma from how badly he beat her. Think family had to take her off life support after three months.”
“Jesus,” I mumbled.
“How does Pat dying help me?”
“Well, how do you feel about being a partner to Frank?” Santino asked.
“Disgusted,” Remo admitted.
“I figured. But his only way out of this, legally, is to get a partner to infuse cash back into his pockets, so he can pay off his debts. His credit is shit now. He can’t get a loan.”
“I don’t want to pay off the asshole’s debts.”
“Look, this would be a long game. You partner with Frank. Make sure it is somewhere in the paperwork that the place goes to you if Frank dies or goes missing.”
“Then he goes missing.”
“For five years. Then you can have him legally declared dead. But in the meantime, you’re in your rights to renovate, run, do whatever the fuck you want.”
“What do you think I should be offering?”
“Twenty-five for a fifty percent stake.”
“Why wouldn’t he just fucking sell the place and make my life easier?” Remo grumbled.
“Short answer? Pride. Longer answer, his dad was a real sonofabitch. Didn’t believe in failure. He gave him the money for this place. Selling would be a failure. So no matter how logical it is, he’s fucked in the head about it.
“The twenty will give him more than enough to pay off his house debts and buy another car. The five mill from Pat… disappears.”
“I’m still out, though. I pay twenty-five, it is mortgaged to twenty-five. He spends twenty-five. I just pissed away that money.”
“True. That money would be gone. But you hold onto the extra fifteen mill.”
“It’s not enough to pay off the mortgage.”
“Again, true. But you’d have a fifty-percent stake in the company. I would put his take-home revenue at around fifteen?”
Christ, he was spending fifteen million a year? More, if he was still in debt. What kind of shitty-ass businessman was he?
“So you get seven-point-five. You take that seven-point-five. You invest it in the market. Roll everything for five years. You can, reasonably, if we’re smart, make a ten percent return.”
“Santino, you know I’m not the stocks guy. Plain language.”
“After five years of investing your income, you’re looking at a cool forty-two million. You could pay off the whole mortgage, keep your fifteen mill, declare Frank dead, and own it all, Scot-free.”
“Look, I know it’s five years. But five years are gonna pass anyway. And Frank will be outta the picture in under a year. You will be the only owner on paper.”
“And it won’t look shady as fuck that he’s missing and I profit from that?”
“Well, you play nice for a while. Ham it up. You’re the best of friends. Then he goes missing. And you’re worried at first. Then getting pissed. Making public pleas. Offer a reward for any information. All the PR shit.”
“Or,” I said, cutting in, “you shorten this by four years and just… have him crash his fancy car or a plane or a ship. Something that could be excused by being drunk. Or, hell, high. He now has it in his medical records that he overdosed on drugs. There’s no proof anywhere that you stabbed him with it. ”
Remo looked to Santino for his opinion.
“It would be smartest to have more than just one incident of an overdose. But if you’re close to him, that wouldn’t be hard to make happen.”
“That could be done. But how do we crash his car, boat, or plane without hurting anyone else?”
“I’m sure someone in the family would know,” I said, shrugging it off. “Or he has a fall.”
“The thing is… we have to make sure the paperwork is ironclad.”
“Meaning?”
“There has to be a buy-sell agreement.”
“And that does what?”
“It says that if one partner dies, the other must buy out their stake. You would have it. With the fifteen, if you don’t renovate right away, plus your salary, you would have it.
Only thing to watch out for is making sure you get a fucking shark of a lawyer to make sure that shit ironclad and airtight.
So if Frank’s second cousin twice removed doesn’t come out of the woodwork and try to fight it. ”
“Does Frank have extended family?”
“He’s got a great aunt that is old as dirt.
He hasn’t paid a dime to her nursing home care.
And there is a cousin out there that lives off-grid in the middle of nowhere Alaska.
Doesn’t have a phone or mailing address.
He’s paranoid that the elites are listening to him via drones. He’s a nut job. But not a threat.”
Remo sighed.
“Wouldn’t it just make sense to kill the bastard and buy the place at auction?”
“Five years ago, maybe. But investors are sniffing. Not for casinos. For more luxury real estate. Gentrification is making its way here, slowly but surely. It would be a nightmare of a bidding war. There’s no way we can afford it.”
“Do you really need the casino this much?” I asked. “It’s worth all this hassle?”
Remo raked a hand down his face.
“Yes.”
“To wash the money?” I asked.
“It’s a big part of it, yeah. Alright, say I do this, how am I approaching Frank?”
“Best chances? You do it soon. He’s gotta be scrambling and paranoid about Pat.”
“And looking for protection since he’s a sniveling little fuck,” Remo said. “Okay. Alright. Am I going in as who I am? Tell him I’ll take care of Pat the way I’m going to?”
“Be vague. He doesn’t need to know. He probably wouldn’t want to know.”
“Okay. You got names of lawyers who can draw this up quickly?”
“Well, we have our shortlist of lawyers we’ve been working on for the past year. You’re going to need to decide.”
“Alright. Let’s get this moving.”
“Do you want me to introduce you to Frank?” I asked, making Remo give me a blank look. “I played poker with him, remember?”
“Right. Yeah. That might be a good in. I hate to make you leave Roe, but it shouldn’t take more than a few hours. And I can have all my brothers here protecting her.”
“Just tell me when.”
“Tomorrow at the latest. But I’m hoping we can track him down today for the meeting. I’ll have someone grab your shit from the other hotel so you’re ready.”
“Sounds good.”
“Go spend some time with your girl. I’ll be in touch as soon as I know the next move.”
With that, he and Santino left.
I took ten minutes to give Luca a much-needed update.
Then, finally, I made my way into the bedroom.
“Everything okay?” Roe asked, turning onto her back where she’d been staring out the window.
“Yeah. I might have to leave for a few hours later, but you’ll be safe. Until then, though, we’re alone.”
“Oh, really?” she asked, her eyes warming. “I can think of a way to spend our alone time,” she added, sitting up, reaching to frame my face, then pressing her lips to mine.