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“I never knew,” Tony said. “I’m sure Dad didn’t either.”
“He was so ashamed of himself, and he promised he would stop. He did…for a while.”
“Obviously, he started back up,” Luca said, prompting Aunt Berta to continue.
“By the time I realized he was gambling again, he’d racked up a substantial debt with the casino.”
“The Russos don’t own casinos,” Liza pointed out, trying to figure out how Matt’s name ended up on this marker.
“But the Eddingtons do,” Tony said. “Isn’t Russo dating Patricia Eddington? Obviously, the Russos pulled in a favor with their country club buddies.”
Liza swallowed deeply, trying to dislodge the lump there. None of this made sense. But…maybe it did. Had Matt discovered the debt and bought it as a way to help her family?
She glanced at the document again, that too-wonderful-to-be-true dream dashed when she saw that Matt had purchased this marker fifteen years ago. He would have been twenty-two at the time.
Why would he buy something like this?
Liza scoffed at herself. She might be an idiot in love, but she wasn’t stupid.
Matt had seen the debt as a way to hurt her family.
What didn’t make sense was why he’d decided to cash it in now. The man she’d spent the last two weeks falling head over heels for wouldn’t do something like this. He just wouldn’t.
“Why didn’t you tell us we were in debt to Matt Russo after Uncle Renzo died?” Luca asked.
“I didn’t know who the debt was to. Renzo never told me. I knew he owed the casino quite a lot of money. We took out a second mortgage on the house, but?—”
“When you sold the house, you told me you didn’t know why Uncle Renzo took out that second mortgage.” Tony looked as confused as Liza felt.
“I shouldn’t have lied to you, but…” Aunt Berta wiped away another tear. Liza reached over to the end table closest to her and grabbed a box of tissues. Her aunt gave her a grateful smile as she took one. “You loved your uncle, looked up to him, and I didn’t want you to think less of him. He was a good man, but he wasn’t perfect.”
“So some of the debt has been paid?” Liza wondered if perhaps this was a moot point. If the second mortgage had covered it.
“Renzo went to the casino to give them the money. It wasn’t enough to pay off the loan, but he hoped it would buy him time to figure out how to come up with the rest. He even considered selling his half of the business, but it still wouldn’t have been enough.”
“But he paid some of it off?” Luca asked, seeking clarification of exactly what they were up against.
“Renzo was gone a long time that day, and I worried he’d bypassed the cashier window and hit the tables again. When he returned, he still had the money. Said that the marker had been bought by a powerful man.”
“Matt Russo,” Tony spat the name in a way that made Liza’s chest hurt.
“Renzo refused to tell me who, but I could tell that whoever it was…it was bad.”
“Did he give Matt the money?”
Aunt Berta shrugged. “I don’t know. Renzo never talked to me about what happened that day, and while I knew that marker existed, this is the first time I’ve ever seen it. But not a day went by that Renzo didn’t think of and worry about the debt. Whenever I asked him about it, all he would say was the loan hadn’t come due yet. I didn’t understand what that meant. All I know is he lived every single day of his life waiting for that knock on the door.”
“That must have been unbearable,” Liza murmured.
“His blood pressure had always been high, and he’d taken medicine to keep it under control from the time he was in his twenties. But with the added anxiety of knowing we could lose everything in the blink of an eye, well, the doctor increased his dose shortly after.”
Liza felt sick to think her uncle had spent so many years—an entire decade and a half—waiting for a phone call that could destroy him, Aunt Berta, their family, the business. Sure, he’d dug the hole, but this debt was clearly exploited—it was obvious from the high interest rate.
When she attached Matt’s name as the person who tormented Renzo, a wave of nausea left her light-headed.
“When he died, I waited, certain I wouldn’t be able to settle his estate until the debt was cleared. But it didn’t show up anywhere in the bank records and no one came looking for the money. So I hoped that maybe it was forgiven,” Aunt Berta said, though it was apparent she didn’t believe what she was saying.
“Loans aren’t forgiven, Aunt Berta,” Tony said. “Obviously, Matt sat on this until the interest on the principal was high enough he knew we couldn’t afford to pay it.”
