Chapter 5.2 - Matteo

There's a special smoking room inside the restaurant but there's always someone there so they go outside, a far enough away from the security guy until they're sure he's out of earshot. No one says a word until they've both lit their cigarettes and are completely focused on each other.

"Did you know before?" Vinnie asks.

"Know what? Explain."

"That they kill people and then make the bodies disappear."

Matteo shakes his head. "Never."

"Have you ever wondered what's in those shipments we've done recently?" Of course he has.

"It's either drugs or something valuable but illegal, right? Otherwise they wouldn't have us do it."

'They' was the entire organization, and even though Matteo's father was the boss, there were thousands of people who were willingly choosing to get involved and made their own decisions because they had the authority and have been doing so for decades. No one genuinely even thought about blaming Lorenzo Giudice, not even Matteo.

"Is this bad, you think?" Vinnie continues, anxiously puffing on his cigarette.

Matteo sighs. "I don't know. I mean, I don't think this is the first time this happened, and it won't be the last. The only thing that's changed is that now we're consciously aware of it. If

you're talking about the guy who died, then yes, it's bad." He's trying to joke about it, as he always does when the discussion is more serious than comfortable. "Do you feel guilty?"

"Me?" Vinnie asks, surprised. "No."

"In a weird way, neither do I."

Vinnie looks at the couple passing them by, so engrossed in each other that they don't even look at the two of them.

"The only thing-nevermind."

Vinnie makes a face. "Tell me."

"The only thing that bothers me is that it doesn't bother me. A man died, Vinnie. He was murdered, and now he's probably on a way to a crematorium to never be found."

"Yes, but didn't they also have guns on them? Weren't they the ones who pulled the gun on Francesco? My dad showed me the footage from the store because I asked him the exact same thing."

So Vinnie does know everything, and Matteo could just as well go and talk to his father. The problem is that sometimes ever since he turned sixteen, the line between father and boss became very thin and Matteo decides to let his father come to him rather than the other way around.

"You're right."

Maybe I don't feel guilty because I always knew this was my reality.

They put their cigarettes out on a trashcan nearby, then throw them in the trash.

"Hey." Vinnie says and points at him, making sure Matteo is listening. "No matter what, we always have each other's back, okay?"

Matteo holds out his hand without hesitating and Vinnie shakes it, looking up at Matteo's gelled back hair, styled exactly like his own.

"We look like assholes." Matteo concludes the conversation.

They look at each other for a moment before they both start laughing, taking the last steps towards the entrance.

***

The party goes on until the early hours in the morning, with people dancing and excitedly screaming over the music while drinking wine. Matteo gets bored a bit after 2am because Isabella already left, leaving him alone with a drunk Vinnie at their table. Their younger

siblings left an hour ago with their grandma to go home, and soon enough Matteo notices that only a few men are left in the restaurant, including him and Vinnie.

His father is always the last one to leave these kinds of events, but it's the first time Matteo has ever stayed long enough for them to go back home together. Sometime around 3am, his father comes over and tells him they're about to leave. Matteo is relieved. With no cocaine or any other drugs to keep his body awake, the red wine is getting to his head.

The car ride home is silent, and Matteo feels like he wants to talk to his father about what he witnessed yesterday but doesn't bring himself to it if the driver can hear them, so he decides to wait until they're back home.

"What's going to happen to the body?" he asks his father as soon as they set foot inside their house, closing the double doors at the entrance behind them.

His father looks taken by surprise by the question. "What do you mean?" "The guy Paulo killed. What's going to happen to him?"

"Why do you care?" his father asks as he takes off his dinner jacket by the door and places it on the coat hanger. The question makes Matteo angry.

"What do you mean, why the fuck do I care?" he raises his voice, which furthers seems to baffle his father. "A man was killed, stuffed in a trunk, and now you won't tell me what's going to happen to him."

"You didn't answer my question: why do you care?"

"Because killing a man and getting rid of his body is not what I thought your business was about."

"Take off your shoes, let's talk in my office."

Matteo huffs but listens anyway. He's tipsy but nevertheless, he's going to stand up to his father. He gets handed a glass of whiskey and proceeds to sit down on one of the chairs in front of the desk.

"What do you think my business is about?"

"Sanitation? Construction? Real estate? I don't know, but not killing people." "And you're right."

"So why is that man dead?"

"Because he chose his fate the moment he pointed that gun at Francesco and threatened to kill him if he didn't hand over the store. Paulo reacted correctly when he chose to shoot first."

"What if that man had a family?"

"He was-"

"I don't give a shit if he was a gangster or whatever. You're an Italian gangster and you have a family as well."

His father looks at him and Matteo can't say for sure whether it's with pride or disappointment. His father is a difficult man to read.

"If someone came into my office one day and threatened me to take our house away with a gun to my face, what would you do?" Matteo's silence is everything that his father needs to continue. "Those two Russians that have been causing problems in Palermo are part of a very dangerous organized crime family, they were there to take the store owned by one of our companies by force. They had revolvers so they didn't come to play. If Paulo hadn't reacted when he did, Vinnie wouldn't have a father and our company would be involved in a very long police investigation that would lead nowhere."

"So it's not the first time you killed someone." Matteo concludes, trying to ignore the feeling that he understands why that man had to die. When his father doesn't answer, he goes on. "I don't want to be involved in anything bad. And how do you know they were Russians?"

"We found their IDs."

Matteo shakes his head. "Did you at least contact their families? Do you even care about that?"

"There's no good or evil in this world. People make it so."

"That's bullshit."

His father doesn't seem to be rattled at all. He's actually very calm, which makes Matteo even angrier.

"Matteo. Ninety percent of my business is legal and legitimate, but the past always has a way of catching up to you when you thought you've let it go."

Matteo makes a face. "What does that even mean?"

"It means that ever since you were born I have tried my best to protect you, but now you're older and you've seen enough to know what's going on."

"Yes. You murdering people."

"No, protecting what's ours at all costs. Those Russians that came into the store might have had families back home, but they were ill intentioned people who came all this way with guns to take something that wasn't rightfully theirs. We protected our territory when they threatened to take away our lives."

He makes everything sound so simple, and Matteo hates the fact that he understands exactly why it had to happen this way.

"You're angry at yourself because you agree with me." his father adds. "I know, I've been in your shoes when I was your age. I've been doing this for over twenty years."

"Do you have a clear conscious?"

"Yes." His father answers without even thinking about it.

"If I explain it to you, you wouldn't understand."

Matteo leans forward in the chair. "Try me."

"Do you feel guilty about what happened-" his father starts, and Matteo interrupts him immediately by saying 'yes' "-or do you feel guilty about not feeling guilty?"

Matte goes silent. "The second one." He admits, which makes his father smile. It's the first time ever when Matteo can tell that he's proud of him.

"Then you'll understand someday."

Matteo stands up from the chair. He needs to sleep. "I will never kill anyone, just so you know."

"I really hope you'll never have to, son."

When he gets into bed that night, he tells himself that things are still the same, his reality hasn't changed, it just suddenly became real.

---

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