Chapter 6 - Luca and Bianca had been business partners without calling it that
My family had legitimate businesses.
Hotels.
Restaurants.
Event venues.
Commercial real estate.
Food distribution.
There were also parts of the Moretti name I will not romanticize.
Years earlier, I benefited from people who treated intimidation as a business tool.
By the time Emmie was born, I had been trying—imperfectly—to separate legitimate companies from those relationships.
Luca resisted.
Not because he wanted to be a gangster in some movie sense.
Because informal family arrangements made money.
A lot.
Luca controlled procurement for several hospitality properties.
Bianca owned:
Verde Social House
A boutique event-planning and luxury-vendor company.
It arranged:
Flowers.
Furniture rentals.
Lighting.
Catering supplements.
Entertainment.
Luxury favors.
Private transportation.
For years, Moretti family functions often used Bianca automatically.
No competitive bids.
No independent review.
Nobody questioned it because:
May you like
“She’s family.”
Those two words can hide extraordinary accounting.
