Chapter 2
NICO
Palazzo Alighieri isn’t merely a mansion—it’s a statement of opulence, history, lineage, and, yes, authority.
From the street, it keeps its power quiet—Renaissance lines, sand-colored pietra serena, arched windows set deep like watchful eyes.
The symbol of the House of Alighieri hangs everywhere in this palazzo—carved into stone, etched into glass, woven into rugs and drapery—a half sun caught mid-rise.
How this half sun became the crest is a story about a myth that’s now become fact.
In the late thirteenth century, when the first Alighieri vineyards were being cut into Tuscan hills—Chianti, or Montalcino, depending on who’s telling it—a plow struck something buried deep in the earth.
It was an Etruscan artifact—a sun disk, broken cleanly in half.
The Alighieris took it as a sign, named themselves not for what they found whole, but for what survived being shattered.
The half sun became their mark—endurance over perfection, legacy over symmetry.
Only later did I understand what it really meant: the House of Alighieri has always believed that supremacy doesn’t need to be complete to be absolute. It only needs to endure.
Tourists pass by, point their phones, and don't understand what they’re photographing. Locals don’t pay it much mind. Florentines are used to being surrounded by history and dynasties.
Inside, the palazzo breathes old money and old control.
Marble underfoot—worn smooth by centuries of silk and leather soles. Frescoes overhead, saints and allegories watching with serene indifference. Corridors that turn twice before they reveal their destination, like the building itself is trained to keep secrets.
The air smells faintly of beeswax, paper, and polished walnut. A fountain murmurs somewhere in the inner courtyard, softened by stone and citrus trees.
This place is the headquarters and home. Michelin-star restaurant and wine tasting room.
The south wing is family: suites, salons, private staircases, a chapel no one uses unless death is involved. The Alighieris live here when they want to be seen as one unit, and hide here when they don’t.
I live here, as do several other family members.
My wife lives in Tenuta Pietra Alta in Bolgheri—she’s never really lived in the Palazzo since she was a teenager, preferring to live in estates as she learned winemaking.
She’s the only Alighieri to attend university to study vineyard management and winemaking.
The east wing is the hospitality arm with Alighieri, the estate’s first two-Michelin-star restaurant, and an elaborate wine tasting room and cellar.
The south side of the palazzo is where the stately garden sits with a view of the Arno. This is where Alighieri weddings take place—where I was married.
The west wing is corporate: legal, finance, export, investor relations—glass doors and muted voices, modern muscle installed inside an ancient skeleton.
Cesare’s office is on the piano nobile*. Mine is across the hall.
That’s not an accident. Nothing in this palazzo is accidental.
Cesare is chairman of the board. I am only the CEO.
The distinction matters. He remains the visionary, the steward of legacy, while I’ve been tasked with execution—running the company, integrating the merger, turning ambition into numbers that hold.
No one inside the House of Alighieri is confused about where authority ultimately sits. The hierarchy is visible. Intentional.
I’m fine with it.
I’ve only just stepped into the role of chief executive officer.
Give me time, and I’ll take the chair as well.
That was part of the understanding—promised, not written.
In exchange, I brought Cantina Alarico into the Alighieri fold, along with our estates in Burgundy, Sicily, Umbria, and the Colchagua Valley in Chile.
Not just labels or distribution rights, but land. History. Leverage.
The Alaric and Alighieri families have been allies for more than a century. This marriage isn’t simply strategic—it’s consolidative. A merging of bloodlines and balance sheets, legacies braided together until separating them would cost too much to attempt.
Cesare and my father have been close friends for as long as I have been alive, and remain so. My mother still refers to Cesare’s wife, Giulia, who passed away a decade ago, as her sister in all but name.
My sister, Perla, lives in France with her husband, who runs an IT consultancy, which is as far from the wine business as you can get.
When I told her I was marrying Alessia, she’d been one of the few who had said it could be a good match.
She met her a few times, and according to her, she has a good head on her shoulders, whatever that means.
Our families have known each other for years—if not intimately, then professionally—through boardrooms, harvest dinners, charity galas, and the quiet spaces where alliances are reinforced. The daughters have always existed at the edge of my vision.
But we were never friends.
Now Alba looks at me like the villain in her sister’s story, her judgment open and unapologetic.
Antonella—the youngest, Toni—is barely aware of me at all, buried in her studies at the Politecnico di Milano, dreaming of architecture and of one day designing a new modern headquarters for the House of Alighieri.
A future I will almost certainly be responsible for approving.
“We’re on track on merging the US sales team of Alarico with Alighieri,” Lorenzo “Renzo” Vitale, my COO and closest friend since our Bocconi* days, back when we were both hungry enough to bite, reports. He sits across from me, his ankle resting on his knee. We’re not formal, not when it’s just us.
In my office, I sit behind a desk that is older than my country, my tie loosened, my sleeves unbuttoned, staring at numbers that refuse to sit still. The merger has been signed, celebrated, and photographed. Now it has to function, which is the part no one claps for.
Renzo flips through his iPad and then glares at me. “When was the last time you took a day off?” he asks.
I shrug.
“You’re grinding yourself down,” he warns.
“I’m winning,” I correct.
Renzo’s mouth twitches. “That’s what men tell themselves when they’re afraid to sleep.”
I lean back in my chair and look past him, past the tall windows.
Florence opens below me in terracotta and gold, rooftops stacked like layers of history, the dome in the distance like a watchful God. The Arno glints between buildings.
“And…this is coming from your mother.”
I sigh.
Savina Alaric uses Renzo to get messages to me because, apparently, I am not receptive. I am not to her meddling in my life.
“Chiara,” he says tersely.
My shoulders lock. “Si*?”
“You know what it looks like, don’t you?”
I push back the leather chair and rise. I stand by the windows, my hands tucked in my pockets. “We’re not talking about Chiara,” I say, my back to him.
“We are,” he retorts, calm as ever. “Because the whole city is.”
I exhale slowly and face him. “I don’t give two shits what anyone says.”
Renzo doesn’t enjoy this. That’s what makes him dangerous and valuable. He tells the truth even when it costs him comfort.
“Savina is worried about the impact of you working so closely with your mistress on—”
“Chiara is VP of Communications. She works for me.”
“Yes,” he agrees and sets his foot down. He turns his chair so he’s facing me. “The photos are everywhere. Rome. Dinner…just the two of you, so not entirely work-related, si? A gallery event. You and her stepping out of hotels together. Your PR team is responsible for half this clusterfuck.”
I have told Chiara that I don’t want my face all over social media—but the team insists that Alighieri's face needs to be visible. Cesare agrees. The CEO before me, hope Dario’s enjoying his retirement in the Caribbean, was good at promoting the company—and so must I be.
“That’s the job, Renzo. You know that.”
My friend’s gaze doesn’t flinch. “She’s making it look like she’s your mistress.”
I drag a hand over my jaw, feel the scrape of stubble. “Out of our control how people think.”
“That’s not what I said,” he objects. “She controls the narrative, and right now it says that the new CEO of the House of Alighieri, who married the eldest daughter for the job, keeps his ex-girlfriend on his arm like a trophy.”
Heat rises in my chest—anger, irritation, the usual reflex. It’s easier to be annoyed than it is to examine anything.
“Chiara and I dated years ago. We’re now only friends…colleagues.”
“Don’t be obtuse, Nico.”
“Come on, Renzo, you know the gossipmongers will write whatever they want.”
“They will.” Renzo leans forward, elbows on his knees. “But you don’t have to hand it to them.”
I stalk back to the desk and pick up a pen. Put it down. Pick it up again.
My fingers don’t know what to do, which pisses me off more than the criticism.
“You’re not sleeping with her.” It’s not a question.
“No.”
Renzo’s eyes narrow slightly. “Then stop looking like you are.”
A laugh tries to escape me—sharp, humorless. “What, you want me to walk ten feet away from her at all times?”
“I want you to stop giving Florence something to chew on,” he barks. “Because they’re chewing on your wife.”
I know they are. I hear the rumors, too.
They’ve been there since the day the engagement was announced.
I can still hear my cousin Franco say how I’ll need to put a bag on Alessia’s head to fuck her.
I broke his nose for that. Told him if he ever brings Alessia’s name out of his mouth again, I’ll do worse.
“Alessia can handle herself.”
Renzo’s expression doesn’t change, but his voice softens a fraction. “Can she handle being publicly humiliated?”
I roll my eyes. “Stop exaggerating.”
Renzo continues, unmerciful. “They’re saying you married her for the company, and you’ll keep a mistress because you can’t bring yourself to touch her.”
I toss my shoulders. “Alessia knows what she walked into.”