OWN HER: A Dark Mafia Romance(18)

Carla sighed. “Fine.” She reached out to take the chopsticks from him, but he pulled them away, grinning.



“Ah-ah,” he teased. “No hands.”



She rolled her eyes and leaned forward, taking the tuna with her mouth and chewing it. “Okay,” she said briskly. “It's good. Thank you. Now can we get back to discussing the restaurant?”



“Fine,” he agreed, taking several long gulps from his Sapporo bottle.



“With regard to purchasing it, do you have any personal assets you can claim to have used to pay for it?”



“Sure,” he said. “I got about twenty grand from a truckload of electronics I hijacked with some guys a couple months ago, and I get a weekly slice of Little Tony Parisi's take from selling pot on the North Side, which should be good for another—”



“Legal assets, Gio,” Carla interrupted him wearily. “Things you can justify to the IRS.”



Gio bristled visibly. “I was getting to that stuff before you fucking cut me off,” he snapped. “Don't do that, okay? I hate it when people can't wait for their goddamn turn to talk.”



Carla remembered how he'd cut her off just a few minutes earlier, and kept quiet.



“So anyway, I got my '78 Corvette, and I got my house. My dad bought me both of those with the profits from his legit businesses, so they should be fine. Hey, you should come by and see my place sometime,” he sneered. “I got some nice stuff there, I bet you'd get a real kick out of it.”



“What are the house and car worth?” she asked.



“Well, last time I checked, the 'Vette was worth about twenty-five thou,” Gio said, “and the house is probably worth about a quarter mil.”



“Okay, so you've got plenty of above-board collateral to take out a business loan from a bank,” Carla said. “Good. That should make this relatively simple. You won't have to worry much about interest, either—with the cash that'll be coming through this place, I'm betting you'll be able to pay the loan back very quickly. And how do you intend to use this establishment to launder your illegal profits?”



“You know, the usual way, I guess,” he said. “The money goes into the restaurant dirty, it comes out clean, boom. Like that.”



A long, uncomfortable silence passed between them.



“You don't actually know how money laundering works, do you?” Carla guessed. She suddenly realized why he'd been trying so hard to distract her and keep the conversation away from the business. He didn't know anything about it, and he was too embarrassed to reveal his ignorance to her.



For the first time, she felt a small stab of pity for him. It surprised her, and she quickly suppressed it.



“Hey, I already told you, I'm not stupid,” Gio said through clenched teeth. “I don't know if my father said something to you or what, but I don't need to be talked down to like some kind of fucking kid. So you can knock that shit off right now.”



“Fine,” Carla agreed. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean any disrespect. I'm here to help you in any way I can. If that means you need me to walk you through the process of funneling your profits through this place, I'm happy to do that.”



Gio leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head and favoring her with a winning smile. “Nah, I don't need no walk-through,” he said, “but why don't you go ahead and tell me anyway? You've got a sexy voice, and I like listening to it.”



Jesus, this guy just won't let up, Carla thought. If it were anyone else, she might have even found it charming. In this situation, though, it only put her nerves on edge even more than they already were.



“Okay,” she began, “hypothetically, let's say that this week, you get five thousand dollars from...who was it on the North Side? Little Timmy?”



“Little Tony,” Gio corrected her. “And that ain't too likely. That asshole rarely kicks up more than a couple grand, tops. Lazy motherfucker's probably too busy smoking that shit himself.”



“Right,” she nodded, “so you get two thousand from Little Tony. You write up a handful of receipts for imaginary customers, and you've got a perfectly legal explanation for where the money came from. Maybe the restaurant had a particularly busy night, or some big group reserved this back room for a private party. Restaurants are some of the only businesses left that still take in lots of cash instead of relying on credit cards, so when you bring a big bushel of small bills to the bank for a deposit, who's to say it came from selling marijuana instead of miso soup?”



“Okay, that makes sense,” Gio mused. “But my father told me no one ever comes into this place. Ain't the Feds gonna see how empty it always is and know that something ain't legit?”