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“Vincent isn’t going to be there?” I asked as we began the drive. Alessio drove while Caterina and I sat in the back seat. She lounged with her legs crossed as if this meeting wasn’t of any significance, and it gave me a little more confidence as we neared the location Alessio had put in his GPS. Then again, Caterina seemed entirely unstable. It wouldn’t have surprised me to see her riding into a war similarly.
Alessio replied this time. “He has business elsewhere today. As his underboss, I can represent him whenever it’s necessary. Plus, I like going to these meetings. I’m a little more personable than Vincent, so it goes more smoothly.” I could understand that. From my encounters with Alessio, I’d noticed far more smiles and light-hearted conversations than I could ever imagine with Vincent. None of the smiles or conversations had been directed at me, but I’d seen the way he’d interacted with Caterina and others, and it was a sharp contrast to Vincent’s demeanor.
“If he’s not here, I don’t understand why I am.”
“Beats me,” Caterina said, picking at her nails. “He just insisted we bring you. I imagine it’s so you can get a better look at what we do here.”
“It’s not like he plans to keep me here,” I told her. “It doesn’t matter if I see what you do.”
She gave me a scrupulous look and chuckled lightly. “You really are blind, aren’t you?”Blind?She didn’t say it as if she meant it as an insult, but I wondered if that had been her intention. Caterina was so hard to read, and I could never be sure where I stood with her. Though I had a feeling she’d make her thoughts known if she truly disliked me. But how could she not after my father had taken so much from her boss?
Alessio pulled to a stop outside the building, and we all stepped from the car. The building looked entirely ordinary. It sat in between a nail salon and a tax place, but it didn’t have any particular sign to mark it as a business. The plaza itself didn’t seem outwardly bad, but without a sign, I made sure to stand behind Caterina and Alessio as we all made our way inside. We passed the empty reception area and marched toward the voices in the back of the building. I didn’t know what I’d expected. My father had wanted me to kill this man for his gross and horrible misdeeds, but I hadn’t seen a sign of anything innately horrible. But a part of me still anticipated the worst from the meeting. A part of me wanted to be able to justify killing Vincent and giving my father what he wanted.
When I heard a child’s excited voice, I deflated. I knew Vincent was decent, but hearing the child’s voice only reminded me that the side I’d picked—my father’s side—may not have been the right one after all. We walked into the room, and I looked around at all the people inside. A woman and two young boys sat at one end of the table, and they wore their bookbags on their backs as they sat on the floor and played with toy cars. A few gruff-looking men wearing mafia colors sat at the table, talking to one another. Then, intermingled among them, stood a handful of ordinary people. A man with well-groomed facial hair and a cane. A plump middle-aged woman with a manilla envelope. A few young men who looked like textbook business owners.
Everyone’s eyes veered toward us as we entered, and Alessio immediately greeted a few of the people, making small talk as Caterina and I took our seats in the center of the table. She looked around as if scanning for threats, and I wondered if she was acting as a guard today. It wouldn’t surprise me if that was her role here, especially given the gun holstered at her hip and the knife she constantly wore there, too—the one she pulled out and began twirling in her hands as she waited for Alessio to take his seat. What kind of meeting was this?
Alessio finally took his seat and looked around the table. “I’m opening this meeting for conversation before I get started. Is there anything anyone would like to say?”
One of the businessmen in a suit and tie stood. “I just wanted to thank you and Vincent for contributing to my accounting firm over the past year. We’re indebted to you. We were drowning at the beginning of the year, and your business alone brought us afloat. And all the referrals you’ve given have helped us thrive. Thank you.”
“You’re the reason we’re able to contribute so much, Harold,” Alessio says. “Claiming so much of our money on our behalf and doing our books has kept everything under wraps.”
Another person stood and thanked Alessio for something similar, claiming that Vincent saved his business, too. Caterina leaned into me and whispered quietly enough that nobody could hear, “This is how he launders his money. He makes generous contributions in exchange for them giving him a position in their companies in name only.”
I whispered back. “What’s the point?”
She chuckled and leaned over a bit closer. “Have you ever heard the advice not to do more than one illegal thing at a time?” I nodded. My dad had said that plenty of times, though he never seemed to follow his own advice. He was untouchable by the law because of his position as Head of the National Commission, but Vincent wasn’t. “He has positions at these companies so that he can claim an income from them. He feeds drug money into their businesses over the span of a year, and for tax purposes he earns that same amount. That way, the business breaks even, and he can claim the dirty money he’s giving them.” That was smart. That way, all of his income streams had a taxable source.
“And he gives them a lump sum every year for their help—enough to bring the businesses out of whatever hardships they’re facing. He gives referrals out for the accounting firm, and he pays a significant amount for his taxes to be forged. For a place like an orphanage, he helps the kids who age out and donates a few hundred thousand every year to ensure they have all the things they need and want.”
“He thinks he’s entitled to the kids because he donates money?”
She snorted. “You clearly don’t know Vinny at all if you think that.” She was right. Ididknow he wouldn’t feel that way. I didn’t know why I wanted to continually think the worst of him. Maybe it was because everything would be easier if he was the bad guy I’d thought he was. He’d told me that he recruited the orphans when they aged out of the system and had nowhere to go. He helped the ones who needed help, and though he asked for them to return the favor one day, he didn’t expect it. Vincent wasdecent, and I was the evil one for considering taking him out of this world.
“I’m only here because he picked me from this orphanage and saved my life,” Caterina said matter-of-factly. I whipped my head toward her, gaping at the realization. “I tried to pickpocket him, and he offered me a position instead of taking my life. I’ll never forgive that debt.” The thought of Caterina in an orphanage was something I couldn’t imagine, and I wondered if she’d gotten her violent, knife-wielding tendencies from her time there. I wondered if she’d endured things that went far beyond the rest of us, and I wondered if Vincent really had been the one to save her life.
A toy car launched across the room, and it hit Alessio in the shoulder before he caught it and eyed it with a raised brow. He slowly moved his gaze to the boys on the floor, both wide-eyed and covering their mouths as they giggled. “Flying cars haven’t been invented yet,” he teased, holding the one small, ordinary one between his fingers. “But I have a feeling one of you is well on your way to making that happen.” I grinned as he tossed the car back, completely unfazed by the boys’ giggling. His smile remained on his face as he got back to talking to one of the other people.
“Okay, now that everyone has had a chance to speak, we have some unofficial business to discuss.” He opened a folder in front of him and glanced down at the paper. I recognized it as the list of debts I’d gone through. My handwriting was in the margin in a blue pen, and I gaped. “We have roughly twenty thousand more dollars coming in, and we need to know who can help us claim that income.”
One of the businessmen raised his hands. “Our profit margins are lower this year than last, so we can make it fit.”
Alessio nodded and added a note beside mine. “Excellent. And we anticipate another hundred thousand in profits next year. Can I assume everyone can split that number among their businesses? We can launch an advertising campaign for your businesses in order to make it more believable if anyone else’s margins are down this year, too.” A room full of nods accompanied his question. “Then anticipate an additional ten to thirty thousand depending on how business goes.”
I leaned toward Caterina. “Everyone here can be trusted?”
She only nodded as Alessio continued. “Emily,” he said, looking at the woman beside the two children. “Vincent has his eye on the three orphans aging out of the system. Are they interested in having a sit-down with him to discuss options?”
She nodded. “Two of them will need assistance to fund college, and the other had taken an interest in becoming a made man. He has nowhere else to go, and I think he’ll be a good fit.”
“Nowhere else to go?” I asked.
Emily turned her kind eyes to me and gave a half-smile. “He’s a troubled boy. He has a past that will keep him from traditional work. But he gets along with Vincent, and he’s loyal to those who help him. He’s always been a good boy, but this is his only option.”
My heart sank as I considered all the kids like that whom Vincent has helped. I knew how hard the world was for people who made mistakes in their past, and if Vincent was willing to make the lives of these people better, who was I to judge? The thought of Italian descent prodded the back of my mind, but I pushed it away. That factor didn’t matter. It didn’t need to play into what he was doing here. He wasn’t pulling people off the streets and disregarding the rules set by the Commission. He washelpingpeople, and I should have seen that before.
“For the other two, Vincent can fund three years of modest living expenses—more if they swear to return his favor in the future,” Alessio continued, clicking his pen. “Those are the matters that needed to be discussed today. I think that’s all.”
