Luca had spoken up at that. “We were helping our brother. Family, Uncle. We weren’t trying to step in your business.”
“And yet, of course, you did.”
“Why is it a problem?”
“When you interfere, you complicate our right to handle a situation in the way we see fit. That complicates our…as Nick calls it…our messaging. The ones who stole from us—we should be accorded the respect to deliver our message ourselves. And Joey made a bad mistake. One that can’t happen again. Yet what were the consequences? What did he learn—that his big brothers will ride to the rescue. I think that’s a lesson Joey has already learned well.”
Always the rebel, Luca pushed again. “He’s not a kid, Uncle.”
“No?”
Carlo was out of patience for this discussion and for Joey himself. He wanted to cut to the chase, figure out how badly he was fucked, and get on with his day. “How do we fix it?”
Uncle Ben regarded him calmly. “You understand how this works. You are both helpful souls, willing to step in where you’re needed. So you’ll help us. At some point, we’ll need you to step in. You’ll do it. When we ask, what we ask, as we ask. And you will not meddle again. Am I understood?”
“We should have let him come to you empty-handed? Uncle, I don’t understand how you would rather we turn our backs on our brother. How is that the right thing?”
“You mix family with business, Luca. If Joey had simply been mugged on the street, then of course you should defend him. But he was working for us, and we were robbed and beaten. Our money was carelessly lost. We deal with our own problems and certainly don’t need amateurs running around like idiots.”
Carlo and Luca had come out of that meeting with their coffers refilled and a heavy sense of foreboding. Knowing that the Uncles could call in a marker at any time was unsettling—more now than when Carlo had made a bargain to help Bina. Then, he’d gone in with his eyes open, making a choice to entangle himself and for a reason that had seemed—had been—honorable. Now, he felt swept up in Joey’s wake. He was having a lot of trouble finding patience and forgiveness for his baby brother these days.
At least lunch with Peter had gone well. With the office back up again, and work coming in, Pete was calmer. And Carlo had offered part of his recent windfall to buy a 3D printer. He thought he’d still do models by hand as much as possible, but the technology would be, at a minimum, a good backup.
With Pete feeling better about the company and not making more noises about leaving, they were able to focus on preparing for the Connelly meeting, and they’d enjoyed each other’s company for the first time in weeks. The meeting with Uncle Ben lingered in his mind, though. It was hard not to wonder what that future held. Funny—when he’d made a bargain for Bina, he hadn’t given much thought to the question of what price Uncle Ben would exact. He’d simply been willing to pay it.
They’d gone from lunch straight to Connelly and had sat in a conference room, waiting for the executives, for twenty minutes—long enough for Carlo to begin to pace and fume. Pete had been chill, reminding him what a huge deal this get would be, how great his design was, how important the right attitude was in meetings like this, all the while giving him specific details to focus on so that his mind could do something more worthwhile than simply storm around hating people. Pete was managing him. Carlo knew it, but he didn’t mind. He was glad. It was what he needed, and why they worked so well together.
By the time the chief officers and board members had filed in and sat around the table, Carlo was calm and focused, and he and Pete had their mojo back. The meeting went well—and Barrett Connelly, the CEO and President, even asked the kind of questions that Carlo loved to answer. Design questions. Visionary questions.
The meeting went nearly half an hour over schedule as Carlo and Connelly began to speak in detail, each of Carlo’s answers spurring on a deeper question from Connelly. Carlo was getting excited. He could feel Pagano-Cabot getting their hands around this prize. He could see his building featuring in the Providence skyline.
His phone began to vibrate in his pocket; he ignored it. When a third alert came through in quick succession while he was deep in a detailed answer, he reached in and turned the phone off completely. He’d check his voice mail after the meeting.
~oOo~
Pete drove Carlo’s Porsche all the way back to Quiet Cove, to St. Gabriel’s Hospital.