Chapter 5.1 - Matteo

"License and registration?"

"Is there a problem?" Matteo asks as he looks through the glovebox on the passenger's side for the registration and insurance.

"Is this your car?" the policeman asks.

Matteo hands over his license and the papers.

"It's my father's."

The officer reads the top of the paper then double checks the license.

"You were speeding up the hill." The policeman says before handing the papers back to him. "Have a good day."

And just like that, Matteo watches the guy get into his car and leave. It takes him a couple of minutes to come back down from the adrenaline, and then drives the past few hundred meters into his driveway.

The door of the garage in the back is already open and his father is waiting inside, pressing the button to close the garage as soon as Matteo's inside.

"What happened?" his father asks, stepping aside and revealing Romeo behind him.

"His partner started shooting so Paulo killed him." Matteo says. It comes out colder, like a matter of fact, like he's telling his father about what he did in school today, not how his "uncle" just shot a guy dead and then beat another one unconscious.

"Did anyone see you?"

Matteo shakes his head. "But a policeman stopped me on the way here." "That's Russo. He's keeping an eye out for who might come to our house."

"But he's police." Matteo says, confused.

"He's a friend who's in the police." His father corrects him, before pointing to the trunk and looking at Romeo. "Let's take care of this."

While Romeo struggles to get the guy out of the trunk and carry him into a room just off the garage, Matteo's father places a hand on his shoulder.

"Make sure any evidence that you were there is gone."

It's too much for Matteo's head. "What evidence?"

"Anything that could link you to that location at that time."

"Okay?"

There's so many questions Matteo wants to ask but doesn't want the answer to, so for now he decides to just go along with what his father says.

He finds himself alone in the garage a few minutes later, going over everything he's done since he woke up today. Then he takes out his phone and opens his conversation with Vinnie.

Matteo: delete the whole conversation

Matteo: now

***

His father doesn't come home until the next day, not even by the time Matteo, Marco and Aurora are getting ready to leave for the restaurant. Their mother already left an hour ago to go help with the setup, and the Barone family is already there, judging by Vinnie's "where are you?" texts and Isabella's I*******m story.

"Come on Aurora what's taking you so long?" Matteo yells up the stairs.

"In a minute!!" she screams back.

"Every fucking time." Matteo scoffs and looks at his brother in the mirror.

They both look like they put some effort in looking presentable. They're wearing their special occasion tailor-made suits that they get done once a year every January, black Italian dress shoes and their hair is gelled back, like his father taught them to at a young age.

"We do look stupid." Marco jokes as he checks himself out in the mirror.

They would never dress like this anywhere outside the family, but tradition and customs are very important to their parents, so they go along with it on special occasions.

"We look like dad." Matteo says. The suit and gelled back hair with a strand poking out are his father's signature look. Throw in a hat if it gets cold and you've nailed it.

"And I look like Nonna Angie." Aurora whines, and the boys turn their heads towards the stairs. She's wearing a green long-sleeved dress that goes down over the knees, which is their grandma Angelina's signature look.

They used to see her more often when they were kids living in Palermo where the restaurant is, because she had an apartment across the street. Now they only see her occasionally or when they're in town, but she's always very well dressed and tops it off a fur coat. She also wears makeup and looks ten years younger than her actual seventy-seven years.

She had their father, Lorenzo, when she was twenty-three, and Matteo was born when his father was only twenty. Matteo is pretty sure that their grandmother was against abortion, otherwise he wouldn't have been born. But the occasion never came up to really ask her point-blank, and he hasn't seen her in over a year because he's always been somewhere else on vacation. He feels bad and knows the proper thing to do is apologize for missing out on her birthday, Easter, and Liberation Day.

Maybe part of the reason Matteo has so much love and respect for his grandmother is because she is the only person in the world that can control his father.

"You look fine." Marco tells her and takes one more look at himself in the mirror.

Aurora is still on her phone by the time they get into the car. It's a small van with tainted bulletproof glass that has six seats facing each other in the back.

"Who are you talking to?" Marco teases, trying to get a look at his phone. She pulls her phone away towards her chest. "None of your business."

"Are you hiding something?" Marco continues, trying to get to her phone. Matteo watches the two of them as they struggle for the phone.

"I don't check your phone, leave me alone." Aurora pouts and Marco pulls back, handing over the phone.

Their whole extended family from all across the globe is already there by the time the three of them greet security outside. Grandma Angie is already sitting at one end of the table across from their father, chatting to one of their aunts on their mother's side. Her expression tells Matteo that she's gossiping. The Altieri's are also present, and Matteo looks towards the adolescenti table, as their grandma likes to call it, happy to see Isabella already sitting there.

They go over to their grandmother first, kissing her on both cheeks, telling her she looks like she just stepped off a runway in Milan.

"You all love to kiss my ass at Christmastime, don't you?" She laughs and smacks Matteo over his arm. "You didn't come see me for my birthday, Matteo." Her voice isn't serious, because she's a fair woman, but Matteo still feels bad.

"Sorry nonna, I'll come to your next one. What are you turning, fifty?" he asks, smirking at the obvious flattery, which makes her exclaim and smack him in a loving way once again.

"Go away before I stand up!" she threatens, eyes glimmering. She's happy to see him. "Now go, say hello to everyone."

Ten minutes later he sits down next to Vinnie and grabs a glass and the bottle of red wine from the table. It's that table at the family functions where Matteo and his siblings always sit together with the Barone kids and Isabella, ever since they were classified as teenagers and not children. Besides, the kids table has also slowly been filled over the past decade with a bunch of second- and third-degree cousins Matteo is always obliged to talk to even though he only sees them a few days a year.

"What happened today?" Vinnie asks, lowering his voice. Matteo knows Isabella is listening and checks to see if their younger siblings are too. They aren't.

"Had some sanitation business to do for my dad." He explains.

"Bullshit." Isabella hisses and leans over the table so she can whisper without being heard. "I heard that shot on Facetime."

Matteo looks at Vinnie, then at her. "That was a car backfiring, I don't know what you're talking about."

She rolls her eyes. "I'm not stupid, you know. I'm aware of what's going on in our house." She speaks out the last words, casa nostra, in a way that makes the first 'a' sound like an 'o'.

Matteo chooses to change the subject, pretending that he didn't even understand her innuendo. She always thinks she's so clever.

"Let's talk about New Year's plans, shall we?" Matteo smiles.

The annual Christmas dinner always starts when Lorenzo stands up from his long twenty person table filled with the adults of the family he considers close, facing the rest of the packed restaurant as he raises his cognac glass and gives his recap-of-the-year speech. Matteo never listens, because it's always mostly the same, and it's not directed at their table anyway.

It's directed at the other part of the restaurant, filled with people who work for him and who have been there since Matteo became aware of his existence. They make up the extended family of his father, which he treats (almost) equally to his blood relatives.

"Who came from Sanitation?" Vinnie asks, leaning back in his chair when people start applauding.

So, he knows.

"Paulo."

Vinnie nods. He knows.

"Did you know before?" Vinnie asks.

"Know what?"

Vinnie tilts his head towards him with a 'bitch please' look.

"Let's go for a cigarette." Matteo suggests, standing up and grabbing his wine glass.

---

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