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“Heavens, Tony!” Aunt Berta exclaimed, her hand on her chest. “You startled me.”
Liza watched as Tony and Luca entered with matching expressions, though she couldn’t tell if they were angry or upset.
Tony, in a normal state of mind, would have apologized for scaring Aunt Berta. Actually, normal Tony would have knocked rather than barging in.
“What’s wrong?” Liza asked.
Tony sighed rather than respond, and she knew exactly what he was thinking. Her brothers and cousins had spent their entire lives trying to protect the females in the family—with varying degrees of success. “Liza, if you could just give us a minute alone with?—”
“I’m not leaving.” Liza crossed her arms. “So you might as well spit it out.”
“Tony? What is it?” Aunt Berta asked, clearly alarmed.
Tony gestured toward the living room. “Maybe we should all sit down.”
Liza and Aunt Berta sank down side by side on the couch, while Tony claimed the overstuffed chair to Aunt Berta’s left. Luca didn’t bother sitting down. Instead, he paced the length of the room, back and forth, like a caged lion.
Tony placed a piece of paper on the coffee table. Liza was only able to scan it for a second before her attention was distracted by Aunt Berta’s gasp.
Liza turned, panicking when she realized her aunt had turned white as a ghost. “Aunt Berta,” she said, wrapping her arm around Berta’s shoulders. “Are you okay?”
Tony shifted closer as well, and Luca stopped walking, standing on the opposite side of the coffee table, concern now mingled with anger.
“You know what that is,” Tony said softly.
Aunt Berta nodded, her hands shaking slightly. “We thought…I thought…I…” Aunt Berta lowered her head to her hands, and Liza’s panic increased tenfold. The only time Liza had ever seen her aunt this visibly shaken was when she’d learned Uncle Renzo had died.
“So it’s real?” Luca asked.
Despite the powerful emotions coursing through her cousins, Liza could tell they were trying to gentle their tones to keep Aunt Berta calm.
“It’s real,” Berta whispered brokenly.
Liza turned her attention back to the paper, trying to determine what the hell could be so bad.
Scanning the document, she saw it appeared to be…a gambling marker?
“I don’t understand what this is.” Liza could see Renzo’s name, an ungodly amount of debt, an interest rate so high that it had to be a typo, and then…
Liza’s heart stopped when her eyes landed on the name at the bottom.
Matt Russo.
“You’ve seen this before?” Tony asked Aunt Berta.
“No. But Renzo told me about it. I thought—I hoped—that maybe it had been forgiven.”
Tony rubbed his eyes wearily. “I don’t understand, Aunt Berta. Why would Uncle Renzo go to Matt Russo for a loan? Why would he agree to those ridiculous rates?”
Aunt Berta wrung her hands before lifting one to wipe away a tear. “I never wanted you kids to find out. You loved your uncle Renzo, and you should have. He was an amazing man. It’s just…”
“Did Uncle Renzo have a gambling problem?” Liza asked.
Aunt Berta sucked in a shaky breath. “He…yes, he did. But he got it under control long before he died.”
“Maybe you should start at the beginning, Aunt Berta. Talk us through this. Because if this debt is real…” Tony didn’t finish his thought. Probably because they could all do the math and figure out Uncle Renzo’s debt—given the weekly interest and the length of time since the loan was issued—was in the seven-figure range.
“He liked to gamble,” Aunt Berta started. “He always did. Shortly after he and Frank opened the restoration business, he started hitting the tables at one of the local casinos after work to blow off steam. I didn’t know at first. I thought he’d just been working long hours, but then one day, the bank called to tell me I’d bounced a check at the grocery store. I couldn’t understand how. When I confronted Renzo, he told me about the casino, about the string of bad luck.”
