C3 Chapter 2 - Matteo

Enrique doesn’t rip them off, the total comes out to 10.1kg, which is good enough for Matteo. They let the guy leave through the back because people are already starting to fill up the driveway. He can see familiar people from the window in the hallway which faces the driveway, and he gets excited because he knows his best friend is also just about to pull up.

He sees Vinnie climb out of the car with Eddie, their sister and two other girls he can’t quite place. The one in the red catches his eye first, before he looks at her friend and recognizes Aleksi’s sister, Raisa.

They had sex once at the end of the school year, before Matteo flew to Palermo for the summer and she did god knows what- Matteo doesn’t really text any girls because most of the time he feels like he’s wasting his time, and when he doesn’t have anything to entertain himself with, that’s when he opens messages. Raisa doesn’t seem to mind though, or at least not judging by Matteo’s standards.

Aleksi is not with them though, which means Matteo will have to wait just a little longer. A text from the pilot that they’ve just departed from Capo d’Orlando and they’re on their way comes through just as Matteo is on the way downstairs to greet his friends.

The pool area is packed already, and he goes straight for the bar by the pool where he knows he’ll find Vinnie. He grabs a drink from the kitchen upstairs first, just to make sure his throat doesn’t dry up on the way down to the bar.

Sure enough, he’s there, toasting with Raisa and the girl in the red dress. “We didn’t bring our bathing suits with us.” The girl says and takes a sip of her drink.

“It’s not the end of the world.” Matteo interjects just for the fun of it, before he greets his friend. “Vincenzo, how are things? I haven’t seen you in weeks, you son of a bitch!”

He really missed Vinnie. They’re used to being around each other all the time ever since childhood, and he’s also in on the fact that their fathers are “business partners”. The two girls don’t slip his mind though, so Matteo turns to look at them. He studies Raisa’s face for a second, and she doesn’t look like she’s carrying any resentment. Then he looks at the other girl.

She has deep brown eyes and her hair falls over her bare shoulders in a way that makes her look very sensual. She’s also looking at Matteo a bit confused, like she doesn’t even know they’re at his place. And even though Matteo knows for a fact that they both went to the same school before he graduated, he has no idea what her name is or any other information except for the fact that she likes to party. He has seen her around before, for sure.

“Cheers.” He says at toasts with the girls, just as his phone starts ringing. It’s Aleksi. Without saying anything else, he winks at Vinnie and then walks away, answering. “Where are you?”

“Just landed, in the car now.”

“Just come through the back.” Matteo tells him, then stops in the middle of the garden to look around for Marco or one of the Barone brothers. He sees that both his brother and Vinnie are coming up to him, sensing that he’s doing something shady.

“Aleksi is coming in fifteen, one of you has to get him inside through the back.”

One of the things their father taught them early on is that all shipments, all “cargo” doesn’t go inside the house. If it does, it goes through the back. The back is usually a door in the back of the garage that no one should ever notice besides the people who know it's there.

Matteo and the Barone brothers go upstairs to his bedroom to wait for Marco. “How’s it going with Sophia?” Matteo asks Vinnie.

He knows Vinnie and Sophia have always had an on-again-off-again relationship, and every time the answer to this question is like a kinder egg surprise.

“We decided to take a break over summer. She’s in Spain with her parents.”

“And you haven’t seen her since the semester ended?”

Vinnie shakes his head. “She’s just…exhausting, man. She thinks I cheated on her because I went out with you that night and didn’t invite her.”

Matteo snorts, crossing his arms. “And you’re okay with that?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m definitely happier and have more energy when she’s not around, that’s for sure.”

“I think you need to hook up with someone new.” Matteo places a hand on Vinnie’s shoulder, looking towards the door to the suite, waiting for Aleksi to come in at any moment.

Finally, the door opens and in comes Aleksi, followed by Marco. He has a backpack, in which he holds ten baggies of two grams each. Matteo never knows where he gets it on such short notice from, whether he keeps it in his house or if he’s got a guy, or if he’s mafia too, but he doesn’t care that much to overanalyze the guy.

He’s a nice guy, doesn’t mind when people call him “Alex”, and always has interesting opinions about the people Matteo knows if they ever come up in a conversation.

Matteo hands him 2000 euros cash in 500 euro bills. They have this thing where Aleksi names the price he buys it for plus the dealer's 25% cut, and Matteo just rounds up the number. Aleksi usually comes to him, not the other way around, from other cities even, so the service should be rewarded.

“How was the flight?” Matteo asks him as they warm up a plate with a lighter before spreading two whole baggies onto it.

“Short.” Aleksi laughs, looking around. “Can I use a bathroom? I need to make a phone call.”

“I have one in my room, it’s the door by the door, but you can also use the other bathroom right across the hall.”

Aleksi nods and leaves.

“Ariana is coming up with Isabella and a friend.” Vinnie says, looking up from his phone. “Ariana Milanesi?” Matteo asks, surprised.

“Yeah. She texted me at the beginning of summer because she heard I was single again.” “Have you had sex?” Eddie chimes in, surprised.

“Not yet.”

“We’re going to go into the bathroom then, give you some space.” Marco says, grabbing another plate.

The two of them leave, so it’s just Vinnie and Matteo now.

They grew up across the road from each other in Palermo when Matteo was little and Vinnie’s parents, Paulo and Diana, were also his godparents, while Matteo’s parents were Vinnie’s. They would come into the Giudices restaurant almost every day for dinner.

They were the only kids in the restaurant, so they started playing while their parents had 'adult' talks, and so it never actually occurred to them that their fathers were almost always absent from the dinner table, nor that their mothers talked to each other in hushed tones so that their children wouldn’t hear.

Matteo always thought his classmates in Italy had very strict parents because they couldn’t hang out after school; their parents made them do their homework or go to an extracurricular activity. But Matteo was always going into the restaurant after school, where he could do whatever he pleased and eat whatever he wanted.

If he wasn’t feeling like hanging out there with his brother and the Barone kids, he would go out by himself or with a girl. He thought it was normal.

Sometimes he would do his homework because mathematics and economics came easy to him, sometimes he would get in trouble at school for not doing the mandatory assignments. His parents would get called into school and his father would talk privately with the principal before it all went away. At some point, he stopped getting into trouble for his actions. First in Italy, and later in New York.

And it wasn’t even like he was doing anything wrong; he was just using his privilege to do whatever he felt like doing and never once saying no to himself.

“Never say no to yourself. Then, never let people say no to you.” His father told him the first time he came home upset because his Spanish teacher wouldn’t let him go on the school trip to Barcelona. He did get to go to Barcelona, and he knew his father had something to do with it. But he never asked.

Matteo walks over to sit on the bed and pulls out a bill from the pocket of his shorts.

Ariana Milanesi and his best girl friend since childhood enter his room, and Matteo smiles. Every time he gets to spend some time with Isabella he feels better afterwards. He used to have a small crush on her when they first met but that went away with time, even though they both loved each other.

The sexual attraction and the romantic chemistry simply weren’t there, nor any type of desire. But they understood each other and being around each other was easy, because Isabella grew up with them. She lived in Vinnie’s building and watched them go through their own things while also having a brother.

“We’re here.”

She sits down next to him and places a kiss on his cheek.

The girl in red walking behind her catches his attention. She doesn’t look like she doesn’t know where she is nor does she act like a naïve little girl about what’s going on. She looks directly at the coke, like she’s trying to check whether it’s the good kind or not.

“You want one?” he asks and holds up his bill.

“Sure. Can you stand up and hold it so I don’t have to lean down?” she asks, holding her hair back with one hand.

Matteo is taken aback by her question. She wants him to stand up and hold out her plate so she can sniff the coke? He’s never had anyone demand anything from him except his parents.

Before he can even react, she takes the plate from his hand and asks Isabella to help. “Here you go.”

The girl in red looks at Matteo for a second before she bends down and snorts the line. “Good shit, right?” Ariana asks her and takes the plate.

The girl doesn’t look impressed.

Which sort of impresses Matteo.

“What’s your name?” he asks her.

She crosses her arms. “Valentina.”