Games We Play - Round 1: Never Have I Ever (18+ dark mafia romance)

Chapter 9 & 10 (Matteo)

Matteo

Chapter 9

Palermo, Sicily, Italy – December 24th, 2019

Waking up on Christmas Eve in Palermo always makes Matteo feel nostalgic. He loves the smell of cheesecake mixed with the cigar smoke coming out of his father's lounge while he has guests over, the sound of his mother cooking downstairs while also trying to teach Aurora something, and the continuous flashing Christmas lights outside his window.

When he was younger, he would go outside and play with Marco until it was time for dinner, then they'd get into bed and fall asleep thinking about the presents they'd unwrap the next day.

Once he got older, he started going out with his friends and would only come back after curfew, then go right to sleep. For the past couple of years though, he would spend some time talking to his father about the past year in their business before going out and coming back whenever he felt like it. As long as he was ready for dinner with the entire extended family nobody would complain.

The landline in his room starts ringing, which can only mean that it's his father. He groans and gets out of bed to grab the phone off the wall.

"Yes."

"Can you come in the lounge please?"

"Do I really have to?"

The silence on the other line makes him want to groan and swear under his breath, but he just hangs up and walked over to the bathroom.

His father is in the lounge with a man Matteo has never seen before. They're smoking cigars and drinking coffee, which is usually a sign that his father is in a relaxed mood.

"Francesco has a problem with his store." His father goes on, urging Francesco to explain the problem to Matteo.

"Do we know who they are?" Matteo asks.

Francesco shakes his head. "They're not from around here."

"What do you mean?"

Francesco shifts in his seat and throws a look towards Matteo's father.

"They have accents."

"What kind of accents?"

"Eastern European. Polish, maybe?"

Matteo looks at his father, silently asking why he's here in the first place.

"Paulo needs someone to watch over Francesco and drive into town so he can talk to those men." His father clarifies.

Paulo Barone is a tall, muscly guy with tattoos who could intimidate just about anyone who dared to look at him. For the first sixteen years of Matteo's life, Paulo used to be Uncle Paulo - Vinnie's dad. He was also his father's best friend, ever since the two of them were kids growing up in Palermo. Sometimes they would tell stories about how their own fathers (Matteo and Vinnie's grandfathers) also grew up together, and how they managed to turn the family business into the empire it is today.

As Matteo and Vinnie both came to realize, "the family business" wasn't just waste management, insurance, and real estate - it was also organized crime.

"Why can't Vinnie do it?" Matteo asks even though he knows the answer. Watching the shakedown of some European wannabe-gangsters isn't one of the things he'd like to do on Christmas Eve.

He knows that once he starts getting involved in this type of shit it will all go downhill. He likes taking care of the club and taking his cut without having to get his hands dirty. It's easy like that.