“In a lot of it.”
She should’ve known there was more to the Gotti Family than their Mob ties. A family that had survived as long as theirs had to have legitimate businesses and investments outside of the streets.
“Jio…”
“He had cash when banks wouldn’t lend it and he was the bridge to a lot of connections because he knew everybody,” he humbly bragged.
Jio left out the part about his granddad also being protection when white people tried to fuck with them for buying all the land up. There was a thin line between builder and enforcer, and Jiorgio Sr. tap danced all over that mother fucker.
“I want to get into real estate,” she shared.
“I got you for Christmas.”
“What?”
“Some apartments or something, I don’t know. I’ll get my cousin on it when we get back.” He made a mental note.
Nina wasn’t shocked. That’s just the type of man that she was dealing with. Fuck a Chanel bag, her baby said he was putting land in her name.
“My Pops believed in ownership. Land is the one thing that you can sit on forever and cash in on if you need to.”
“Did you acquire his properties when he passed?” she questioned.
“Big time.”
He thought about it before answering but she was his future wife, so if he couldn’t tell her shit, it was pointless in wanting a future with her. “I own about eighty properties and counting. It’s all going to my kids one day.”
She loved that. “We’re a power couple in the making.”
Marcelle & Co.had taught Nina to respect what could be built with discipline, brilliance, and patience. The Bluff wasteaching her to respect what could be built with audacity. Jio connected everything in between.
“We been that baby.” He slowed as a group of children crossed the street with fishing rods balanced over their shoulders.
“I can’t believe I never knew this existed,” she said again.
“That’s lowkey why it still exists if you ask me. The Bluff is a hidden gem.”
She looked at him so he further explained so she didn’t take it the wrong way. “Some places survive because nobody tries to make them famous,” he said. “The wrong kind of attention ruins things.”
Nina knew he was talking about more than The Bluff.
She was still learning that visibility came with a cost. The moment people knew your name for some reason they automatically believed they were entitled to a piece of your story. Success widened rooms, but it also removed walls. Nina was still getting used to it all. She’d always been a private person, but now she felt like she had to fight to keep people out of her business, especially when it came to her relationship. The first question in any interview that she’d done lately seemed to be, “Soooo curious minds want to know, are you dating anyone?”
Like why the fuck does it matter?She wanted to respond sometimes.
It’d reached a point where she was thinking about telling her publicist to make an off-limit topic list to send to anyone wanting to interview her. Soon, she was going to say no to all press, but she knew that she was just reaching a place where the world was curious as to who she was. She had to soak it all up while the momentum was present.
They passed another stretch of homes, and Nina noticed the way some of the gates displayed family crests or initials. One house had a plaque near the driveway that read CampbellHouse, est. 1968. Another had a stone marker with Hightower carved across it. A third sat behind a row of oak trees, it captured her eye and made her ask him, “Do people ever sell here?”
“Barely.”
“Why?”
“Where they going?”
The answer was so simple that she laughed. “I mean eventually.”
“Eventually, somebody’s child is going to move in or their niece, nephew, cousin. It may end up with the grandchildren. If they do decide to sell its quiet like family to family.”
