Page 25 of Romeo

I’d been alone in this house with the cooks and the maids for a week, and I enjoyed it to a point. The food was great, and I thought I had gained a few pounds around the middle with lack of exercise, sex being my main focus for now. On my discovery tour of this old renovated well-kept house, I found a gym in the basement. The same basement I thought Dante would drop my ass in. That was what you’d get for overanalyzing which I did often.

On my to do list.

Stop overthinking everything and everyone except Nico. I’d always concentrate on him because he was a viper in a den of snakes. I went along with him because he was charming at first, wore an expensive shiny blue suit when I first met him, not unlike a viper.

But what does that make Dante? There I go again.

I got a chance to search around the house to discover what the Bonetti family was all about. When did they come to this country? Had they gone through Ellis Island like most of the immigrants from Italy? I found the answer in a drawer in one of the empty bedrooms.

Through my discovery, I located a family album, tucked underneath a soldier’s uniform, which resembled one I’d seen in the movies.

Dante and Nico’s grandfather had served in World War II. He had served in Patton’s regiment, repaired the Jeeps, and drove the trucks filled with supplies and gasoline for the tanks. He came back home to his wife and son where they lived in a modest home in Jersey when another son was born, and that was Nico and Dante’s father.

Through newspaper clippings, Nico and Dante’s father became influential in the area and amassed a fortune in the garbage business. It was then the mafia came calling and he answered the call, and from that time on, his sons found their way into the casino business when licenses were handed out to build casinos in Atlantic City. With their wealth they took advantage of what had been offered them and their influential silent partners. It occurred to me as I read and fumbled through these papers that I could be kicking a hornets’ nest. But I dismissed that as I had done many things, because I didn’t want to think about it at the time.

Nico, the oldest, had been involved in all kinds of shenanigans with some sleazy businessmen, but Dante had, at the time, taken a different route, gone to college, and had been hesitant about following Nico. I wondered when he’d given in to Nico’s way of life, when I found a letter in Dante’s room from Nico, one he never had destroyed:

Dear Brother, Don’t waste your time and money getting a degree and going to college, because it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. What are you going to do, spend your time working at a college and never making enough money to afford a ring for that girl you said you love? What’s her name, Mary? What kind of straight life is that where you can’t even buy her a dress without blowing that meager salary of yours?

You said she’s a painter, and unless she can paint houses, she’ll never make a dime. If you want to have the finer things in life and be rich beyond your wildest dreams, then follow me and you can buy Mary an engagement ring and a Park Avenue apartment and she will be the envy of her girlfriends, who will have an education, but nothing else. Do you want that to be you? You know as father said, “Money doesn’t last and that’s why you should keep making it.”

Your brother,

Nico. Now destroy this letter.

For some reason Dante never did. Was he talking about Mary? The Mary? I thought. He must have loved her a lot. He appeared to give up his life to make her happy. I then wondered what kind of woman Mary had been. Jealousy crept through me, but Dante had made his choice and I should be happy about that, but somehow I wasn’t.

A week of being away from Dante had me climbing the walls, and knowing how he felt about Mary wasn’t making my life better, but a living hell.

Valentine’s Day had finally arrived, and Dante had ordered a car for me to visit him and stay there in his penthouse while he conducted business. I’d hope for a long stay. I had to pinch myself because I couldn’t believe my luck so I rushed to get dressed, because I’d set out everything earlier in anticipation of my big day like a girl going to prom with her favorite guy.

The number of things in my wardrobe was limited. I had few changes except for two pairs of black jeans, a black tee with writing that said, “I can’t get no satisfaction,” I’d bought at the Walmart store in Texas on sale. I did have a black leather jacket I’d borrowed from Dante’s closet. I threw it on, although it had been a little large around the shoulders, but I liked the smell of it, and it made me feel as if Dante had wrapped me in his long arms.

The drive to Atlantic City had been quick because of the time of night, and the driver had been professional. Not like Nico’s men. When we turned into the Hotel, The Golden Palace, where the façade had appeared to have been constructed in gold-colored steel, and the building rose high above the Atlantic Ocean, where I could smell the fresh sea breeze, the driver pulled to a stop at a side entrance leading to the hotel rooms.

There were high-end cars, Ferraris, Mercedes, Lamboginis, and Maserati’s were parked where people could be discreet when gambling or having business meetings.

“Wow,” I murmured. This is going to be great, I thought. When I stepped out after the driver opened my door, I felt like royalty. I’d been brought up to the penthouse on arriving in the hotel by the driver and a hotel employee by a private elevator. All I had was a ratty-looking backpack with all my belongings, which wasn’t much.

When the door opened into his suite, the first thing I did was stand and gaze out into the dark sky over the ocean, and the lights surrounding the boardwalk and thought, How did I get here? And how lucky I was.

Then I was always known for my shortsightedness. I went into everything without thinking and preparing for things because I thought no matter what, I was smart enough to get out. Smart when it came to things like school, but a relationship always kicked my ass.

The time I fell in love with a writer and all the signs were there. He had pictures of his wife and I settled for his answer she was his sister. I never had a sister and if I did, I wouldn’t carry her picture around in my wallet, have it on my computer and phone screen as a screensaver. I thought I was in love and it wouldn’t matter who she was because I knew I was the one. I was the one alright. The one gay guy he’d ever fucked and even that had to be another mistake I’d made.

In the cabin he’d rented for the season, there were pictures of his sister in the bedroom and living area. It was like an homage to her, and when he lied and said she was his dead sister, I bought that lie hook, line, and sinker, as my father would say. Never did understand that saying until the man who had been fucking me and using me left without a word, sold the place, and it was then my friends finally told me the truth. They even said that they thought I knew because I appeared to be so smart and had a heads-up on things.

Just because someone thought they were smart, and the next fellow did too, it was because you’d lied to them, and ‘they’ve fallen for your bullshit too,’ my father had said to me.

My father had been proud of using that expression, hook, line, and sinker and he never failed to drop it on me when I told him I was going to New York and I would make it without his help, and I could take care of myself and wouldn’t need him for anything again.

I settled down and watched television, listened to music on YouTube and waited for Dante to call me to tell me he was coming to join me for our Valentine’s Day dinner.

After a few hours passed and I became restless and no Dante, I called to find out what floor his office was on. It was only two floors down and I took the elevator, entered the floor, and opened the first door I could find. A woman who stated she was the secretary stood from behind her desk.

“May I help you?”

“Is Mr. Bonetti inside?”

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