Chapter Text
They're late. Frank's eyebrow twitches-- more, it jumps with his impatient pulse. His annoyance is written across the lines of his face, but Frank doesn't complain aloud to the mobsters in the room with him; he's an outsider, a gun they pay when they want their work done with a precision they can't quite manage. He isn't family. His opinion is worth jack shit around here.
"They're late!" A wiry woman with red-blonde hair and dark circles under her eyes raps her fingertips on the table, all but the pinkie, which is muffled by the cloth napkin beside her plate. Dodie Esposito. Somebody's wife, not only tolerating the life but enthusiastic about its benefits.
Benefits like meetings in a timely fashion. Frank can relate, but he's far more patient.
"They just turned off Grand, Ma," This from a shorter woman with her own blonde hair styled in loose ringlets, studs punched all along the shells of her ears. Maureen Esposito. "Give 'em a minute." She'd had the good sense to eat in her car before she'd come inside the restaurant, something Frank had caught her doing while he was, himself, taking a smoke. She'd nodded conspiratorially at him when it happened, like they were in on it together. Like he'd be inclined to tell the family that she'd expected the delay. Fucking everybody had; Rocky can't fucking drive.
Dodie hisses, but she says nothing else. The family shift and resettle in their chairs, and Frank tries not to resent the fact that he's stuck here at the table when he'd much rather be in the office with the muscle.
Nearly every head snaps around when the bell above the door rings in the dining room. Ornate double doors hang between the Espositos' private room and the restaurant proper, muffling the civilian chatter, and everybody watches them expectantly now.
Dodie's clenching one thin fist over her empty salad plate. Rocky's going to get an earful, and Frank's going to need to hear about it later.
The rightmost door swings open just wide enough to accomodate Rocky as he slips inside, after which he turns to hold it for a second man that Frank doesn't recognize.
"Anthony!" Dodie snaps, catching Rocky and the newcomer off guard. Frank hides a smirk behind his hand, pretends he's covering a yawn. Dodie levels one of her ring-laden fingers at Rocky and flexes it with intention. "You're late! "
Rocky is raising his hands in surrender when the unfamiliar man straightens his back, tightens his grip around his cane, and says, "My apologies, Mrs. Esposito, but Anthony and I got a bit turned around."
The restaurant is gently lit, and the windowless private room even more so, but he wears a pair of tinted glasses all the same. Red, some shades darker than his hair. The cane he worries between his hands is long and white, red-striped.
The family doesn't quite know how to react to the fact that their new man is blind, and the tension is almost tangible in the air. That he's maintaining a polite smile is, then, a credit to the man's self-control. Frank would've been throwing punches.
It's Dodie who breaks the silence by doing what she does best: criticizing her children. "I can't believe that you got lost driving ten blocks! And to get Mr. Capurso to cover your ass when you finally arrive--!"
The man-- Capurso --splays his fingers around the handle of his cane like he might placate Dodie, "Mrs. Esposito, it was my fault, I assure you! I'm not one for directions."
"Don't you start defending him! My son has been driving in this city since he turned fourteen, and he still can't drive worth shit!" She addresses Rocky again, gesturing to an empty seat at the table, "Anthony, get the man seated before I have an aneurysm!"
Rocky grabs Capurso by the bicep and steers him to his chair, frazzled by his mother's poor mood and unsure how he's meant to direct the blind besides. Another credit to his patience, Capurso goes without argument and he's soon settled behind an empty salad plate of his own. Rocky rounds the table to sit at his mother's side, exchanging incredulous glances with Maureen on her opposite.
The boss will know that Rocky and Capurso have arrived, which means that the dinner will proceed in short order. Frank is grateful. The sooner everybody's debriefed, the sooner everybody can leave.
His eyes level on Capurso, who seems remarkably at ease in this room with these people. The Espositos are a tight-knit, exclusive club, but Frank has seen a couple of newbies taken into the fold in his time with them. They hadn't been so composed.
Both double doors swing wide and the boss steps through with his arms thrown wide, a solid wall of hulking fat and muscle in a cheap pair of slacks and a cheaper button-down. "Mike Capurso!" Cesar Esposito has the image of the man with everything who needs nothing, a real man's man who's seen every success but still shares airspace with the rubes. His people adore him as much as they fear him, and the destitute caught up in his money laundering empire think much the same.
"Mr. Esposito. It's a pleasure." Capurso stands and extends his hand, which Esposito takes in both of his own meaty fists.
"He's so freakin' polite!" Esposito laughs heartily, and after another moment he releases Capurso to take his own seat at the table. "What happened to that, eh? What happened to the rest'a you?"
Capurso, splaying the fingers of his once-held hand against the arm of his chair (Esposito sweats, and doesn't Frank know it), expertly downplays the compliment. "It isn't them, surely. You wouldn't speak to your employer the same way you would an aunt or an uncle."
Frank's brow twitches, because in gangs like this your employer may well be your aunt or uncle and the distinction doesn't mean shit.
But he's talking to Esposito, and the man's almost deluded himself into thinking his criminal enterprise is really a family. After a moment's silence he cracks a wide, open-mouthed smile and bellows, "Ain't that the truth! Eh, Natalie?"
At the far end of the table, a maroon-clad Natalie Esposito nods her agreement, but says nothing. Cesar's wife, and Frank's willing to bet the real brains of the business. Gangs don't operate on a basis of forgiveness, and Natalie's got that look in her eye that says she understands that.
"Mr. Capurso, we're happy that you could join us." Natalie says. Capurso inclines his head in her direction. "You come highly recommended, but your portfolio almost speaks for itself."
He hasn't gotten a good look at the man since he'd sat down, but when Capurso shakes his head Frank can see the bashful smile on his face. He's struck by something that he can't place, something that follows even after that smile is out of sight, when Capurso starts speaking.
"Please, Mrs. Esposito. I'm humbled you would think so."
"Modesty doesn't suit you, Mr. Capurso."
The meeting is interrupted as servers push carts of dishes into the room, leaning across the family to set them along the center of the table. Esposito jokes with a server who looks like they'll keel over, one who is herded out of the room again by an older woman; senior staff.
The doors shut again. The meeting continues, though now the famished Espositos seem in brighter spirits. The atmosphere is lighter.
"We've been needing a professional, since Miss Greenwich left us. God rest her soul." This from a mid-sized man on Capurso's left, Jacob 'Double' Fratelli.
Jessica Greenwich, the Espositos' former fixer. Caught with her fingers in too many pots, if Fratelli is to be believed. Skimming off the top.
Capurso's hand twitches around his fork, but otherwise he doesn't react to the news that his predecessor is dead.
"Jake," Esposito wipes his mouth with a cloth napkin and the fabric comes away smudged with pesto sauce, "Your own man's standing right behind you. Manners."
Frank watches Capurso's head cock to one side, something that his mind tries and fails again to make sense of.
"Is there somebody behind me?" Capurso asks curiously.
"Shit." Fratelli pauses (and under his breath he apologizes for his language at the table) before he answers, half-turning in his seat to gesture uselessly at Frank. "Mike. Mr. Capurso, this is Frank Castle. He's been runnin' hits for us since we lost Jessica."
Capurso turns, himself, and pauses once they face each-other. If he were anybody else, Frank would assume that he was being sized up. As it stands, Frank isn't quite sure what he's doing.
Capurso finally extends his hand, and Frank takes it. The grip is strong, solid. Maybe harder than it needs to be.
"Mr. Castle." Capurso smiles.
"Frank's all yours now, Mike," Esposito explains, "You point, he shoots. And then you clean up after him."
Capurso's smile widens until it's a full smirk, gums and all. That's the second Frank understands why he's been misfiring tonight, why he's been trying to place this guy.
"It's nice to meet you, Frank."