Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 75737 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75737 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
"It must be nice to have such a big family," I told him, moving closer, sitting down on the chair on the other side of the island from him.
"It is," he agreed. "Do you miss your family? In Venezuela," he clarified.
"Yes. I mean... I didn't grow up with them. I didn't meet them until I was an adult, so the dynamic was different, I think. But, yes. It was nice to always have someone around, someone who cared about you."
"You've been alone a lot."
It wasn't a question, but I answered anyway. "Yes. But that was my choice."
"You don't have friends? A man?"
"I have colleagues and neighbors. It is harder than they tell you to make friends as an adult. I mean, what are you supposed to do, walk up to someone and ask if they want to go get manicures together? You'd get pepper sprayed."
"A man?" he asked again.
"No."
"Why not?"
"I don't know. Why is anyone single? I guess because we don't find the right person."
"What is this right person like?" he asked, unwrapping the lasagna, tenting the top, then turning to grab a cup of water, pouring it in the sides of the lasagna, then pausing to look up at me when I still hadn't answered.
"I, ah, I don't know."
"How can you get something if you can't, first, define it?"
"I don't know. Someone smart and driven. Someone loyal and kind. My father used to beat the hell out of my mother, so I don't want someone who gets too angry."
"Does this hypothetical person want children?"
"Yes. I think I'd like a couple. Do you?"
"Yes. Several."
"So you want someone in your life too."
"Of course. What?" he asked, head tipping to the side.
"Nothing. It's just... I don't know. I can't say I've known a lot of men who are so sure that they want someone serious in their future."
"I want a family. I think when you are raised with your family values as a large part of your personality, you don't have all that wild oat sowing shit going on."
"What would that woman be like?"
"Someone not intimidated by my lifestyle. Someone who could integrate in with my family. Maybe someone who knows how to cook," he added with a boyish smile as he lifted up the lasagna, turning to slip it into the oven.
"That's not asking for too much."
"I think the first part of that list will be the hardest to find."
Someone who wasn't intimidated by his lifestyle.
Just a quick internet search told me who the Grassi family was, so I imagined women from the area would know who he was and what he did. It couldn't have made dating easy. Because who in their right mind wanted to date someone who could get caught up in some street war some day? Someone who might bring the federal government into the house they had built, tearing apart their lovely life?
"Maybe you just work too much to meet someone," I suggested.
"I've been accused of that more than a few times," he admitted.
"Your family owns a lot of business in this area, right?"
"Yeah. Famiglia. Lucky's pizza places. Some laundromats. A dive bar. The list is long," he added, shrugging it off.
"How long?
"It's a big family. Everyone runs something."
"You mostly handle the restaurant. Fam.."
"Famiglia. It means family," he told me. "And yes and no. Famiglia is my father's pride and joy. These days, he'd rather handle the inner workings of that than do all the dirty details about the family as a whole. So, yes, I am an owner. But I don't do much there personally. The docks are where I spend most of my time. And then going around and visiting the other businesses to make sure everything is running smoothly."
"Can I ask what happens at the docks? Like what is your job there?"
"Creating new connections with importers, deciding which containers to search, hiring and firing, employee issues. The usual workplace kind of thing. Do you like wine?" he asked, reaching up into a cabinet. "I'd ask if you want whiskey, but I don't think you were a fan of that," he added, giving me a smirk.
"Wine is my drink of choice," I told him. Even though I was pretty sure he was not someone who kept my favorite three-dollar bottle of cab sav in his million-dollar home. "If you inspect the containers, how is it possible that someone could traffick people in?"
"We don't inspect every container. You've been watching. You know how many come in on the average week. It's impossible to inspect more than a small fraction. Some we... choose not to inspect," he told me as he handed me a wine glass, and I knew what he was telling me. That part of their business was being paid to look the other way, to inspect other containers. Because what was in some of them couldn't be seen. And that was likely where they made a large chunk of their money—from other criminals who paid them to walk past their containers. "And sometimes containers come from very reputable sources, so there is no need to check them."