The way Juliet makes eating her bread look like foreplay is driving me crazy and I stir in my soft chair. I notice the wine is hitting her pretty hard. She must not drink much. She’s so young,mama mia, I remember that age. College was my time to have fun and play harder than I studied.
Conti not calling isn’t good, so I send word to all the capos that I want boots on the ground for intel on any unusual movements from Conti. He’s like me, we’re both skilled at moving in the shadows, but he’s been doing it longer.
The plane ride is easy, and the private jet is made for quick travels with none of the fuss. I’ve played for a day and now it’s time to get back to work in my office. I have meetings about condos that need permits and I’m sure tons of calls to return as I check messages on my phone and make some texts.
Juliet is rather quiet during the flight after I told her about her father. She looks surprised when I have her sit in the back seat while I sit in the front for the ride from the airport to my home. It’s a little late to think of that now, but it’s better if I don’t mix business with pleasure again.
We enter the house and I head to my room to change into a fresh shirt and pants and a different pair of leather shoes without a word to Juliet. I call my secretary and have her line up meetings for the rest of the week.
No sooner am I off the call than my phone dings and it’s Conti. He wants to meet his daughter, and I tell him tomorrow is good as I don’t want to give him too much time to prepare. Now, I have to get Juliet ready for the meet. It’s not the typical father-daughter reunion that most kids dream of, just the opposite. She’s letting someone worse than the devil in and I’m the one who set up the reunion—a reunion that I’m now regretting.
I knock on her door, and as it’s already open a crack, I push it the rest of the way open. She’s standing in a cute swimsuit that shows off her body and I can’t decide if I want to run to her or far, far away.
“We’re meeting Conti tomorrow,” I inform her.
She bends over to slip on her sandals. “What are they going to do to me?”
“Hopefully nothing. Maybe he simply wants to meet you after all these years. But, trust me, he’s not the Micheli family.”
How can I warn her about the worm of a man she’s going to meet?
“I don’t understand,” she meekly replies. I get it, this has all been thrust upon her completely quickly. She barely knows anything about my world, her father’s world, and suddenly, she’s been dropped right into the middle of it.
“I’ll catch up with you later,” I say. As I turn to go, she asks me to wait and for some reason, I stop in my tracks.
Fuck. Why did I do that?
“You’re sure you’ll be able to keep me safe?”
“Yes,” I lie. There is always a first for something, but I want tomorrow to go as planned.
She nods. “Umm . . . thank you for the sketchbooks and stuff.” She shrugs her shoulders matter-of-factly like her life is normal.
But we both know we’re kidding ourselves. This relationship is nowhere near normal and neither is the magnetic energy between us. I need to abort.
“Hmm.” And I really leave this time, as Riccardo is waiting at the door.
I walkinto an old building on the corner of a street that’s around the corner from a secret condo I have in Florence. It’s registered under my grandmother’s maiden name and no one will ever guess that I’m hiding certain assets under her name as in Italy, it’s not normal for women to own such expensive pieces of real estate, especially if they are married.
Riccardo opens the door for me, and I walk into our office. It just has the bare necessities. I’m not here enough to justify extravagance, and anyone visiting me here knows what I have, so there’s no need to impress.
It’s easier to hide my wealth in plain sight, in assets and mergers and land, rather than rubbing the elite’s nose in it and showing off. Being low key and flying under the radar is the best way to hide from prying eyes.
“Ciao,” I greet Maria, a woman in her forties who has been my secretary since the day I took over. She’s quiet and loyal and does a good job. She’s married, not that that keeps men from hitting on her daily. It’s Italy—it’s what we do.
“Ciao,” she responds with a smile. “I sent your messages to your email. I’m trying to find out when the next city meeting is for zoning.”
“Great,” I respond, wondering who’s looking for a payday this time.
“Ciao, come sta?” Looking up from his laptop, my brother, Sal, greets me. He’d better not be surfing porn sites like he normally does when he’s supposed to be working.
“Va bene,” I reply mechanically, but he’s observant and notices something is off and follows me to my office at the end of a long hallway. I like being where I am because I can keep my back to the wall and see trouble coming. Take a corner office, and you’ll never be cornered.
We’re not as hands-on as we used to be, and it’s easier to make legitimate money when we’ve been bankrolled by illegal gains. Like the hotel in Milan—it used to be run down, but the location was perfect, so I had it redone by our guys’ construction companies as well as giving out a few contracts to non-connected companies as well.
I laundered the street money though the bar downtown by reporting the money as sales and then paying the taxes on it. I have more than one bar, so it adds up quickly.
I sit in my leather swivel chair and idly wonder what Juliet is doing right now, but I’d be a pussy to check on her.