Chapter 5 - THE MAN INSIDE THE FAMILY
Matteo saw Enzo’s fear.
So did I.
“Sit down,” Matteo said.
Enzo remained standing.
“I’m done being accused because Bianca finally decided to admit she has a father.”
Carlo Ricci leaned back.
“That is a creative interpretation of the evening.”
Enzo ignored him.
Matteo looked toward the door.
“Peter.”
Peter Salerno stepped away from the wall.
“Close it.”
He did.
No guards entered.
No weapons appeared.
Nothing dramatic happened.
The click of the door was enough.
Enzo looked at Matteo.
“You think I betrayed you.”
“I think you instructed my interpreter to lie.”
“I told him to translate toward an agreement everybody in this room knew we needed.”
“I didn’t know.”
“That is the problem.”
Matteo’s jaw tightened.
Enzo continued.
“You inherited Antonio’s caution without his willingness to make ugly decisions.”
Gabriel said sharply, “Enough.”
“No.”
Enzo looked at the older man.
“You spent ten years telling him patience was strength. Meanwhile Ricci bought union loyalty one crew at a time.”
Carlo smiled thinly.
“We call that negotiating.”
“You call everything negotiating when you benefit.”
Matteo stepped between them.
“This is not Bellini against Ricci anymore.”
“Then what is it?”
“Bellini against whoever decided my authority could be borrowed without asking.”
Enzo’s face reddened.
“I protected this family before you could drive.”
“And apparently you started believing that made it yours.”
Silence.
That one landed.
Enzo looked wounded.
Not because it was false.
Because part of it was true.
Gabriel sat down slowly.
“Matteo.”
“No.”
Matteo faced his uncle.
“You told them I knew.”
“I told them discussions were happening.”
“You let them believe I had approved them.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Gabriel’s face aged ten years.
“Because your father died leaving you a family already divided between old men who believed fear was authority and younger men who believed money made tradition unnecessary.”
He glanced around the room.
“I spent ten years keeping both groups at the same table.”
Matteo’s anger softened only slightly.
“And somewhere along the way, you decided keeping the table together mattered more than telling me what happened on it.”
Gabriel lowered his eyes.
“Yes.”
It was the first clean admission anyone had given that night.
I wondered whether powerful families always made truth so difficult.
Mine had managed it with one bakery and three people.
Maybe money only bought larger rooms to hide things in.
Matteo looked at Bianca.
“You said your father wants to hide whoever controls the pier from inside. Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Enzo scoffed.
“Convenient.”
“I know he meets someone from Bellini operations every Thursday.”
“Where?”
“At a social club near the produce market.”
Enzo’s expression shifted.
Dominic saw it.
“You go there.”
“So do fifty men.”
“Every Thursday?”
Enzo’s eyes sharpened.
“I have dinner.”
“With Aldo?”
“No.”
Bianca said, “My father uses the back room.”
Enzo turned on her.
“I don’t meet with him.”
Matteo watched his cousin.
“Who do you meet?”
Enzo hesitated.
That was enough.
“Who?”
“Union people.”
“Names.”
Enzo gave him three.
Peter Salerno frowned at the second.
“He retired.”
“Not from influence.”
Carlo looked toward his own men.
One whispered something.
Carlo’s face changed.
“Two of those men have been promising votes to us.”
Enzo looked genuinely surprised.
That mattered.
Matteo saw it too.
Somebody had been selling both sides the same loyalty.
Again.
“Your father did this fifteen years ago,” I said quietly.
Everybody looked at me.
Bianca nodded.
“He built his name by making each side believe the other side was taking more.”
Gabriel looked at the watch.
“And Lorenzo stopped him.”
Matteo said, “Then we stop guessing.”
He turned to Peter.
“Tomorrow morning, nobody moves a Bellini truck through Pier Twelve without my approval.”
Enzo shot up.
“You’ll freeze half our operation.”
“For one morning.”
“The produce contracts—”
“Can survive a delay.”
“And if Ricci moves while we stop?”
Carlo stood.
“We won’t.”
Every Bellini looked at him.
He shrugged.
“I would rather beat Matteo in a clean vote than inherit whatever disease Russo planted in this pier.”
Matteo studied him.
“Temporary standstill. Until noon.”
Carlo offered his hand.
Matteo took it.
It was not friendship.
It was something more useful.
A boundary.
The meeting finally broke.
Men left slowly.
Nobody laughed.
Nobody talked loudly.
I stood beside the table with my father’s watch in my palm.
I should have returned downstairs.
I should have picked up the silver coffee pot still lying in the service corridor.
Instead Matteo approached me.
“You’re not working tonight.”
“I’m fine.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
“I need the money.”
Something about that surprised him.
Then he nodded.
“You’ll be paid.”
“I don’t want charity.”
His mouth almost moved.
“Apparently that runs in your family.”
I looked at him.
For the first time, neither of us knew whether smiling was appropriate.
Then he became serious.
“You can leave Bellini House tonight if you want.”
“Am I being fired?”
“No.”
“Then why would I leave?”
“Because this became more dangerous than carrying coffee.”
I looked at the watch.
“My father spent half my life making sure I never knew this place existed.”
“Which may be exactly why you should walk away from it.”
“Did he?”
Matteo frowned.
“What?”
“Walk away because someone told him it would be safer?”
He did not answer.
Neither did I.
Bianca approached us.
She had removed her engagement ring.
It was in her palm beside the Russo crest.
Matteo saw it.
His face gave nothing away.
She said, “There is something else.”
He looked tired.
“There always is.”
“My father keeps a table every Thursday at DeMarco’s Social Club.”
Enzo had already left.
Gabriel had not.
He looked up sharply.
Bianca continued.
“I went there once when I was nineteen.”
Matteo waited.
“I saw Enzo.”
“That does not prove anything.”
“I know.”
She looked at me.
“And I saw your father.”
I forgot how to breathe.
“What?”
“Lorenzo Marino.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It was seven years ago.”
My father had been alive.
The bakery had been open.
And he had told me he had not spoken to anyone from the docks since before I finished middle school.
“What was he doing there?”
Bianca shook her head.
“I don’t know. He left before my father.”
Gabriel whispered, “Seven years ago?”
“Yes.”
His face drained.
Matteo noticed.
“Gabriel.”
The older man did not answer.
“Why does that date matter?”
Gabriel looked at me.
“Because seven years ago was when Antonio’s old settlement over Pier Twelve began falling apart.”
My father’s watch felt cold against my skin.
Matteo’s gaze sharpened.
“So Lorenzo knew the problem had started again.”
Gabriel nodded slowly.
“Yes.”
I stared at him.
“And he told nobody?”
Gabriel looked at me with genuine sorrow.
“No, Sofia.”
He turned the watch over and pressed a thumbnail beneath the leather strap.
Something small fell onto the table.
A brass token.
Stamped with one number.
12–47.
Gabriel stared at it.
May you like
“I think your father tried.”
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