Chapter 10
Not only was Niccolo in the parlor, but so was his new wife, Sofia. They sat across from each other at a chessboard, halfway through a game.
Dante, the new capo of Tuscany, was present as well, standing over by the wall.
I still didn’t trust him entirely.
I’d only been working for the Rosolinis a couple of months when Leonardo died and Dante left to follow Fausto. I’d liked Dante before that, but afterwards it felt like he abandoned the brothers in their moment of greatest need.
Not to mention that when Fausto turned out to be a traitor to his own family, Dante had stayed with him.
And then he had betrayed Fausto in Rome.
I didn’t like it.
If you’re going to leave, leave.
Don’t fucking stab people in the back.
I knew Dante’s switching sides helped Don Rosolini and his brothers, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth.
Dante felt like an opportunist to me – someone who only looked out for himself.
But the deed was done. In exchange for conspiring against his old boss, he had taken over Fausto’s old territory.
Nothing I could do about it…
But I didn’t have to like it.
At least he ruled over his territory on behalf of the family, in exactly the same way that Adriano controlled Florence.
Roberto sat on a nearby sofa watching Niccolo and Sofia’s chess game. Unlike his twin brother and new sister-in-law, who were both dressed stylishly but casually, Roberto wore a three-piece suit with a tie.
“You’re late,” Niccolo said jovially as we walked in, though he didn’t look up from the chessboard. “And from the whiff of barnyard I detect in the air, I’ll bet you were down playing Fight Club in the basement.”
“First rule of Fight Club is we don’t talk about Fight Club,” Valentino said.
“It’s the second rule, too, I hear,” Niccolo replied.
“I hear that YOU fight with your mind, not your body,” Adriano said mockingly.
“Damn straight,” Niccolo said with a grin.
“Dante,” Adriano said, though not exactly in the friendliest tone of voice.
My boss had never said anything about it to me, but I was pretty sure he agreed with me about his fellow capo.
“Adriano,” Dante replied.
“Hey, Sofia,” Adriano called out.
She smiled, more polite than warm. But then again, that was Sofia for you.
“Hello, Adriano. Hi, Giorgio. Who’s this?” she asked about Raffaelo.
“Raffaelo Carabello,” he said with a jaunty little wave. “Resident gunshot expert, at your service.”
“Oh,” she said in surprise. “That’s unusual.”
“Not in our line of work,” Niccolo said as he continued to study his chess pieces.
Raffaelo shook hands with Dante and Roberto, and they exchanged pleasantries.
“You joining us in the meeting, Sofia?” Adriano asked.
“Yes.”
Adriano frowned. “Why?”
“She’s not just my wife, she’s a highly capable strategist,” Niccolo said as he finally moved a black bishop.
Without any hesitation, Sofia moved one of her white pieces.
“Shit!” Niccolo hissed, then turned to Adriano and gestured at the board. “Case in point.”
“What are you, a fuckin’ masochist?” Adriano asked. “You know you’re never gonna beat her.”
“One day,” Niccolo said confidently.
Sofia gave one of her tight-lipped smiles. “One can always dream.”
“Ha ha,” Niccolo said without laughing. Then he explained to Adriano, “We play poker, too. I’m teaching her how to bluff better.”
“While I’m teaching him how to actually play chess,” Sofia added.
“Ow!” Niccolo scowled. “Harsh!”
“But accurate.”
Suddenly the door opened and Lars, freshly showered and dressed, walked in with Rachel.
“What, she’s gonna sit in, too?!” Adriano asked in exasperation.
“She was a former MI6 agent. She might have something to add,” Lars said sardonically.
“I was just asking,” Adriano snapped.
Rachel looked at Adriano coolly. “You think women shouldn’t attend the meetings?”
Adriano sighed. “It’s just it was nobody but my brothers, my father, and my uncle for years. This is… new.”
“Fair enough,” Rachel replied as she sat down on the sofa next to Roberto.
“Are your wives sitting in, too?” Adriano asked Roberto and Massimo sarcastically.
“Well,” Roberto said mildly, “seeing as Mei-ling was the daughter of one Hong Kong gangster and the business partner of another, I’m sure she would have some insights. But she’d rather distance herself from the less savory aspects of our business.”
“And Lucia’s the Widow’s granddaughter,” Massimo said. “When the old lady passes, Lucia will probably take over Venice. If she wasn’t helping Bianca today, I’m sure she’d want to sit in.”
“Okay, okay, everybody’s qualified to be here, I get it,” Adriano said defensively. “Jesus.”
At just that moment, Don Rosolini walked in wearing a suit. Unlike Roberto, he wore no vest or tie. A few of his tattoos were visible at the open neck of his dress shirt.
“Alright, everyone’s here,” he said. “Let’s begin.”
Adriano turned to me. “Alright, Giorgio, you’re up.”
Every eye in the room turned to me.
“…I am?” I asked nervously.
“Yeah. Tell them exactly what you told me last night: what the puttana said, and what happened with the guys from Le Piagge.”
I swallowed.
Talking to Don Rosolini was nerve-wracking enough, but speaking in front of the entire family was worse.
Still, I forced myself to start talking. After a few minutes, I gradually calmed down.
I went through everything Luna said, then described my encounter with the two drug dealers in the alleyway.
When I was finished, Adriano nodded at me approvingly. Good job.
Niccolo asked a few questions about DBA – the di Brozzi Assassini – then fell silent.
All eyes turned to Don Rosolini, who in turn addressed Dante. “Are you seeing this sort of thing in your territory?”
Dante winced. “Unfortunately, yes, Don Rosolini. Every day, we hear more and more about small-time gangs pushing drugs on our streets. When we catch them in the act, my men break a few bones and send them packing, but we can’t be everywhere at once.”
The Don sighed. “Well, it’s not good news, but – ”
“That’s just the half of it,” Adriano interrupted. “Wait till you hear from our gunshot doctor.”
“And what do you have to report, Raffaelo?” Don Rosolini asked in a weary voice.
“Nothing good, I’m afraid,” he replied.
Raffaelo was far more casual in addressing Don Rosolini. I admired Raffaelo’s sense of ease – and at the same time, was slightly annoyed at his lack of formality.
The Don deserved respect, but Raffaelo treated him as an equal. And yet, no one reprimanded him for it, which astounded me. But if Don Rosolini was fine with it, then there was nothing I could say.
“What do you mean?” the Don asked.
“I may not practice medicine anymore – at least not in the traditional sense – but I still have a lot of friends who do. ER doctors, mostly, since that’s what I used to be. They talk about what’s going on… and they’re worried.”
“Worried about what?”
“Drugs. More precisely, bad drugs. Tainted shit. It seems that the vast majority of heroin making its way into Florence these days has fentanyl in it.
“You probably already know about fentanyl, but for anyone who doesn’t, here’s the crash course: it’s a synthetic opioid.
It’s far cheaper to make than heroin, because you don’t have to harvest poppies and process them.
You just cook it up in a lab from a bunch of chemicals that are legal and fairly easy to get.
And you don’t even need a lab. Any stovetop will do.
“What’s worse is that fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more potent than heroin. Someone with no opioid tolerance will overdose from roughly a gram of heroin. The same person would only need about two percent of that to die from fentanyl – the same weight as a few grains of sand.
“Which leads us to the main problem. Overdoses in Florence are up 500% from this time last year. The morgues are filling up with dead bodies – young dead bodies. Kids under 20 are dying at a much higher rate than any other age group.
“This has been a huge problem for the Americans for years. Drug dealers in the U.S. started adding fentanyl to drugs back around 2013, and the number of fentanyl-related deaths jumped something like 2500 percent over a span of ten years. It’s gone down a bit in the last year or two, but not by much.
“You know me. You know my history. So you know I don’t judge. I don’t care about the ‘morality of the situation,’ whatever the fuck that means. I don’t give a damn about who uses drugs, or who sells them, or any of that. I only care about the health crisis I see going on.
“All I know is that the ‘American problem’ has come to Florence. And unless somebody does something soon, a lot more people – a lot more young people – are going to die.”
Don Rosolini was somber. He stood there for a moment staring into the distance, then finally looked at both Raffaelo and me. He smiled wearily.
“Thank you both for what you’ve said. You’ve given me a lot to think about, and now I need the counsel of my family members.
“My wife and Caterina were in the kitchen before I came in here. I’m sure Caterina would love to fix you something to eat. Giorgio, if you would show Raffaelo the way – I don’t believe he’s been to the house before.”
Raffaelo shook hands with Don Rosolini, and then I led him out of the parlor.
“How do you think it went?” Raffaelo asked me in a low voice once we were out of earshot of the parlor.
“You did very well,” I told him.
“Thanks – but do you think it’ll change anything?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, “but I’m sure that’s what they’re talking about now.”