Chapter 13
Niccolo
Once the parlor door closed, it was just me and Dario.
Now it was time for the truth to come out –
To say the things I couldn’t in front of the others.
“What’s this really about?” I asked in exasperation.
He glared at me. “About not becoming pimps and drug dealers.”
“We already bribe politicians and judges to subvert democracy and justice for our own personal profit,” I said with fake cheerfulness. “I fail to see how keeping teenagers alive and protecting women from getting beaten up makes us any worse.”
“I love how you can always put a positive spin on the most despicable things,” he said sarcastically.
“And I love how you want to wash your hands like Pilate and just walk away.”
Dario looked like he wanted to strangle me.
I realized I might’ve gone too far with that one, so I tried a different tack. “Look, I get it. You’re an idealist. You always have been. But when idealism meets reality, you have to admit, reality generally wins. And in this situation, reality decidedly has the upper hand.
“You asked for our opinions, and eight people agreed: for various reasons, it’s best if we make sure a bunch of lowlife assholes don’t fuck up Florence and its citizens. It’s not like any of us were arguing to get back into drugs and prostitution because we want to.”
“Roberto seemed to,” Dario snapped.
“You know that’s not true,” I said calmly. “He’s simply saying that if we’re going to expend a lot of time and effort, we should at least turn a profit, because that time and effort could have been spent making money elsewhere. That’s all.
“You know he thinks in terms of profit and loss. That’s his job – just like mine is to give you the news you don’t want to hear, and your job is to make the best decision for the family, no matter how painful it might be.”
Dario did his best thousand-yard stare into the distance.
“I know you find these things personally distasteful,” I continued, “and so do I – but there are other aspects of our business that are equally as bad, or worse. So what in particular bothers you so much?”
After a moment of silence, he finally spoke. “The night I proposed to Alessandra, I promised her that we would be legitimate in two years. And this is a step in the wrong direction.”
Ah.
There it was.
“If Fausto hadn’t gone to war with us,” I said, “and Lau hadn’t betrayed Roberto in Hong Kong, we probably would have been legitimate in two years. But life happened. Things changed. Alessandra will understand.”
Dario scowled. “She’ll understand about us becoming pimps and drug dealers? I doubt it.”
“She’ll understand if you tell her people are dying,” I said in irritation, “and that we would prefer to keep them alive.”
“I swore to her, Niccolo,” he said darkly. “I swore on our family’s name that my children would not follow in my footsteps. That they could be doctors, or artists, or anything else they want to be… but not mafiosos. Not like us.”
Ah.
A deeper layer had revealed itself.
“And now that Elena will arrive in a matter of months,” I said, using the name he and Alessandra had picked for their baby, “you feel the weight of that promise more than ever.”
“Yes.”
“It sounds to me like you swore your children could be anything they wanted to be, and that they wouldn’t follow you into the family business. Not that it had to happen by some arbitrary deadline.”
“Alessandra won’t see it that way,” Dario said wearily.
There was something else at play.
He sounded like a man who was trapped…
Forced into a position he didn’t want to be in.
I knew that he loved Alessandra with all his heart and soul.
She was the single thing that made him happiest – that gave his life meaning.
And yet…
“Could I make what might be an unpleasant observation?” I asked.
Dario gave me a dark look. “When have you ever let that stop you?”
“I’m going to say something that, on the surface, might sound like I’m annoyed with your wife, but I assure you – ”
“Not a word against Alessandra,” Dario warned me.
“Don’t worry, it’s not against her. It’s against you.”
Dario frowned…
But now he was intrigued, and he waited to hear what I had to say.
“You and I were trained to be very specific things,” I said. “I was trained to be a strategist – a manipulator – a trickster in service of the family. Despite how I feel about Fausto, I freely admit that he was one of the very best at what he did, and he trained me well.
“You, on the other hand, were raised to be a leader… and a killer.”
I delivered that final word with great emphasis –
And its effect on Dario was instantaneous.
His eyes sparked with an inner light, and he tensed at the electricity in the air.
I continued. “Only when you needed to be, of course. But Papa trained you to be a killer, and to be a leader of killers. You’ve taken many lives, and ordered them to be taken – all for good reasons, I might add.
“The mafiosos who attacked our house when we were younger… Aristide Caproni in San Vittore… the Turk and his men… Mezzasalma… Fausto and Aurelio… all of them died either at your hand, or at the hand of someone following your orders.”
I noticed Dario didn’t say, I didn’t tell Massimo to kill Aurelio.
No protest of, I didn’t order Adriano to kill Mezzasalma.
He knew that, as Don, the responsibility for those deaths lay at his feet – and he fully accepted that responsibility.
Which gave me a bit more confidence in what I was about to say.
“Alessandra is different. She is not from our world,” I said, then added hastily, “Which is wonderful.
I treasure her innocence and her innate goodness.
It makes her a better person than you and I could ever hope to be, and a joy to be around.
A diamond in a pile of coal – a shining oasis in the desert.
“But I fear that out of your love for her, and your desire for her love and acceptance, you are denying your essential nature: that you are a killer.
“It was what you were trained to do. It is what you are – and you are very, very good at it. You never shied away from it before you met Alessandra… and I think the longer you try to deny that part of yourself, the harder it will be for you to lead the family going forward.”
“Being a killer, and being a pimp and drug dealer, are very different things,” Dario growled.
He didn’t object to what I’d said about him being a killer.
That much was cause for celebration.
“Most people would say that being a killer is more objectionable than the other two,” I said.
“The other two are beneath contempt,” he said angrily. “At least when I kill, I do it to protect the family.”
“The people you love,” I said softly.
“The people I love,” he agreed.
“But maybe you’re worried that the people you love won’t love you back… if you’re doing something they wouldn’t approve of.”
Dario was quiet for a moment.
I thought I might have gotten through to him –
But I was wrong.
“This has been an interesting therapy session, consigliere,” he said sarcastically, “but the fact remains that I swore an oath to my wife that our family would be legitimate within two years. That is my priority above all others.”
I repressed a sigh.
I might not have gotten the result I wanted, but I consoled myself that maybe I had sown the seeds for a future harvest.
…maybe.
At any rate, my job was not to argue endlessly with my Don. My job was to present my opinion, listen to his decision, and then act on it.
“Alright,” I agreed. “I’ll have Roberto make it his number one goal to replace the income we would have gotten from Hong Kong.”
“Thank you,” Dario said coldly.
“And the drugs and prostitutes?” I asked.
Dario was silent for a moment before he spoke.
“Reach out to our old suppliers,” he said grumpily, “and see if we can restart the supply pipeline. Enough to cover both Florence and Tuscany.”
I was overjoyed he’d come around, but I hid my happiness behind a veil of neutrality.
“Excellent. And the prostitutes?”
Dario sighed bitterly. “My offer of the 5000 euros still stands, but tell the foot soldiers they can stop asking the women to accept it.
“Put the word out to the pimps that they’re allowed back in our territory… as long as they agree to all our conditions.
“Number one: if any of them raise a hand against the women, they’ll get a bullet to the head. Their responsibility is to make sure the women are safe. No exceptions, no excuses. And make it clear I’m eager to make an example out of the first man to step out of line.
“Number two: tell the pimps their cut is capped at 20%. The women get the rest. Tell the pimps that our foot soldiers will be checking in regularly with the women, and if there’s even the tiniest bit of doubt that the pimps are following our orders, the Tuscan countryside will be littered with shallow graves. ”
This was better than I could have possibly hoped for! The harvest had come early!
“I’ll get on it right away,” I said mildly.
“We do this at cost, consigliere,” Dario warned me. “No matter how much Roberto protests, I don’t want to make a fucking cent on this.”
“At cost,” I agreed happily. “We’ll do this to save lives and safeguard the women in our territory – nothing more.”
“And for the time being,” he said dourly, “I don’t want a word of this breathed to my wife. I’ll tell her when I’m ready.”
I wasn’t entirely happy to hear that part, but only because I was worried for my oldest brother.
“It stays under the radar,” I agreed. “And you’ll tell Alessandra when you’re ready.”
Dario nodded and looked away.
When I left the room, he was still standing there, staring morosely out the window.
Whether he was pondering the future he wanted, or the future he felt he was being forced into, I didn’t know…
And I wasn’t entirely sure he knew which was which.