“Now we have to wonder about Berat Polat, Eren’s next oldest brother. Who we will all assume is going to take over the organization,” Emilio supplied. “Did you figure out anything about Berat while watching Eren?” he asked, looking over at me.
“He wasn’t really my focus,” I reminded him. “I do know that he was close with Eren. He was constantly at one of the restaurants, the apartment, or out on the town with his brother. Doesn’t seem as flashy as Eren was. Or as extroverted as Eren or the younger brother.”
“Quiet is never good,” Emilio said, sighing a little.
“We are going to need to set up a meeting after the funeral. So whoever gets the information on that first, let me know,” Lorenzo demanded.
“What about the wife?” Salvatore asked, and I could have sworn his gaze flickered over to me for a second as he started to say that.
“What about her?”
“Wouldn’t she get the money and the restaurants?” he asked, making Lorenzo and Emilio share a concerned look, like they hadn’t considered that possibility.
“Pretty sure the brothers are partial owners to the restaurants too,” I supplied. “Never saw the paperwork, but I’m assuming.”
“But the wife would still inherit too,” Lorenzo said, dropping down into his seat. “What does that mean for us? What do we know about her?”
“She isn’t like the Polats. A criminal, I mean,” I said, shrugging. “Seems more like she was coerced into the marriage.”
“Coerced how?” Emilio asked, stiffening, likely thinking about his own sister. Even though that ended up working out for Isabella, the fact that it had ever happened clearly still ate at Emilio.
“I don’t know,” I said, tapping my fingers on the back of the chair I was standing behind.
“Well, we need to know,” Lorenzo said.
“Okay. I’ll get on it. You want it in an official capacity?”
“For now, no. Happenstance run-in, maybe? I don’t want Berat to know we are sniffing around already. But we need to know if we have to have an official meeting with the wife…”
“Ezmeray,” I supplied.
“Ezmeray,” Lorenzo repeated.
“And we need to figure out who did in Eren in the first place,” Emilio piped in. “We need to know if there is another player in town we should be worrying about.”
“And Christopher, Ant, I want the two of you on the Polat brothers. Know you can’t move around much yet,” Lorenzo said, looking at Ant who had a new bloodstain on his tee from his pulled stitch. “But you can make yourself useful doing some online research.”
“I’m on it,” Ant agreed, nodding.
“Anything else we need to discuss?” Emilio asked, looking around at the men gathered around. All capos, of course, made men, each leading their own small group of men.
“We need to revisit that shit with the Lombardi Family,” Salvatore piped in.
“What shit with the Lombardi Family?” I asked, confused.
“Yeah, you’ve been MIA lately,” Salvatore said. “They jacked one of our shipments from the Jersey port.”
“What was in the shipment?”
“Clean guns,” Salvatore said. “Not a huge amount, but that’s not the point.”
“Why would the Lombardis be escalating?” I asked.
True, when Lorenzo took over, the relations with the Lombardi and Esposito Families took a nosedive, one that eventually led to the forced marriage of Emilio’s sister to Primo Esposito. But the Lombardis had seemed to settle down when they realized that not only were the Morelli, D’onofrio, and Costa Families allies, but now so was the Esposito Family.
“We have no idea,” Lorenzo admitted. “So everyone who isn’t on this Polat shit, is on the Lombardi shit. What’s—“ he started as whining sounds got closer and closer, and then there was Mira holding Lorenzo’s baby as far outward from her body as she could manage.
“I bopped and I cooed and I went all maternal and shit and it isn’t helping. Plus, there is a smell,” she added, wrinkling her nose as she handed the baby off to Lorenzo. “I’m tapping out,” she added. “I’m going out for a grown-up drink if anyone is interested,” she added, tossing her keys toward Salvatore who was still on Ant-watch. “Get that back to me sometime tomorrow,” she demanded before she headed out.
“Alright. I guess that is it then,” Lorenzo said, moving around the table then down the hall to, presumably, change the baby’s diaper.
With that, everyone started to file out. Christopher and Emilio rushed to catch up with Mira, while Salvatore helped Ant back out of the house and to the car.
“Yo, no,” Salvatore said when I tried to walk past. “You’re not avoiding me,” he demanded, closing the door on Ant, then taking a few steps toward me.
Salvatore might not have been with this new leadership for long, since he’d been locked up for fifteen years, but he was as serious a member of the Family as anyone else. Maybe even more so.
He was old school.