Oh, but there would only be a couple thousand for me for a few months, huh, Berat?
“What do the restaurants make?”
“Hard to say. It can vary a lot based on overhead, but rough guess, I’d say Erin was bringing in at least fifteen grand a month.”
“As a whole?” I clarified.
“Per open restaurant,” Brio said, making my stomach feel like it just about fell to my feet.
“The one in Manhattan probably makes more, given its location, but that’s a conservative estimate for all of them.”
Forty-five grand a month. At the low end. That was what he was bringing in. Yet he was going to beat me over a pair of shoes that I’d broken by accident.
“That doesn’t include the extortion,” Brio reminded me. “Which I can guarantee is more than that.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I know what he’s been kicking up to us based on what he claimed he was making. And I know for sure his ass is making at least double what he told my Family.”
When I couldn’t seem to form a single coherent thought about that amount of money, Brio charged on.
“I would say your husband was pulling in a good eighty grand a month. Possibly over a hundred-k.”
“Oh my God,” I hissed, shaking my head as I remembered to put back what was in my hand and reach for the next item Brio was pretending to tell me to consider.
That was what they wanted to take from me.
On the high end, up to a million and a half dollars a year. On the low, just shy of a million.
“I can’t believe them,” I hissed, nearly crushing the clamshell protecting the carrot cake he’d given me.
“Yeah, they are banking on you being stupid and a pushover,” he said, moving a foot to the side to check out the donuts.
“What happens if I don’t want to extort anyone?” I asked, thinking of my parents, of the countless people who suffered at the hands of greedy men like my husband and brothers-in-law.
“Think that is something you are going to need to discuss with Lorenzo.”
“When can I do that?” I asked, wanting all my ducks in a row.
“As soon as you are ready. Think we have all our information now.”
“As soon as… tonight, maybe?” I asked. “After dinner with Judy?”
“Yeah. I can set that up.”
“Where? How? If I’m being watched,” I clarified.
“Got any errands you could, reasonably, be running at that time of day? Something the brothers wouldn’t think of as suspicious?”
“I have a lot of old clothes I told them I was going to sell or donate.”
“That’s actually fucking perfect. I will text you an address to a pawnshop. You bring a box there. Go in. And I will sweep you up out the back in a car.”
“But won’t they get suspicious if they don’t see me inside?”
“I’ll work it out with the guy who owns the place. He owes us a fuckton of money. He will do what we say.”
“Okay,” I agreed, putting back the carrot cake and opting for a little pack of mini cheese cupcakes with different flavors: peanut butter, caramel, and raspberry.
“Bring me one of them,” he demanded, nodding toward the cheesecakes. “That fucking dress,” he added, shaking his head and closing his eyes like it was killing him.
Then, with that, and nothing else, he was gone like he’d never been there at all.
I went ahead and bought a bottle of wine to go with the dessert, then made my way back home.
An hour after dinner, I packed up a bag of Eren’s clothes—all designer, despite their hideousness—and made my way out of the building, following Brio’s directions to a pawnshop.
All the while still blissfully unaware of all the ways that aligning myself with the mafia was a terrible idea.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ezmeray
I was not unfamiliar with pawnshops.
I had distinct memories of following my mother into many a place just like the one Brio had me go to. With their rows of junk that may or may not be worth much.
But, see, I didn’t see any of it as junk.
I saw it as little pieces of people’s lives. Things they, perhaps, didn’t want to get rid of. Like the various items my mother had sold for a tiny profit while I was growing up.
I always thought that it was somewhat normal to watch things slowly disappear from our lives. Old family heirlooms, electronics, my mother’s mostly costume jewelry.
It had always been sad.
But it was sadder still to realize that they’d been forced to make those decisions not because they didn’t make enough money, but because most of what they did make went to the assholes in charge of the Polat family.
It went to line their greedy pockets.
Rage was simmering through my system as I made my way up to the counter to the man who stood there with a bruise forming on his jaw.