Chapter 87
Lucrezia Caproni
After a five-hour drive the night before, we finally arrived in Tuscany at dawn.
We’d brought along nearly two-thirds of our men. The rest had remained in Naples to guard the Amatos’ castle.
Once in Tuscany, I split our forces into two groups.
Half our men continued on to Florence, where they were to lie low and await my orders.
The other half drove to an isolated farm in the countryside. That group included me, Cesare, and Romeo.
When we arrived, the farmer who owned the place came out to ask why a dozen Cadillac Escalades were parked in front of his house.
Cesare shot him in the head with a silenced pistol, then walked inside and killed the rest of the family at their breakfast table. Tiratore and some others took care of the farmhands out in the barn.
Now Cesare, Romeo, Ciro, and I stood on top of a hill while the rest of our men waited by the cars.
I’d chosen this particular farm for one reason only: because of the direct line of sight down the cypress-lined road that led to the wall around the Rosolinis’ estate.
Google Maps was such a useful tool.
We were five miles away, but with the high-powered telescope we’d brought from Naples, we could spy on everything the Rosolinis did.
It was one of those telescopes that stargazers used to look at the planets – Jupiter and Saturn – and it cost over a thousand euros. There was a long, bulky tube with an eyepiece jutting up from it so you didn’t have to squat down to look up at the sky.
Romeo was currently watching the property.I’d taken a peek earlier and had been very impressed. The main gate looked so close, it was like you could reach out and touch it.
Tip the lens just slightly, and you could see the entire mansion on a distant hill.
I didn’t look too long, though, because it required me to take off my sunglasses –
And I fucking hated taking off my sunglasses.
So I had Romeo keep watch. I didn’t trust Ciro, and Cesare was too ADHD to pay attention for longer than ten seconds.
Earlier that morning, he’d spotted several cars leaving the mansion and had wanted to go after them like a dog running after a squirrel.
“No,” I’d said. “They’re headed the wrong way. We want them going into the compound, not out of it.”
We waited.
The entire time, Cesare became even more impatient.
He was wearing his customary jeans, wifebeater, and black leather jacket – except with a bulletproof vest. He seemed to be itching to test it out.
Nothing happened for hours…
Until a single car drove up the cypress-lined drive and through the gates.
“Now?!” Cesare demanded.
“No.”
A single car meant nothing. It could’ve just been someone returning from an errand.
I wanted to see a whole fleet of cars racing back in a hurry. Only then would I know the time was right.
Romeo was still manning the telescope.
“Do you see anything?” Cesare asked angrily as he paced back and forth.
My brother always paced when he was impatient. He’d whetted his appetite by mowing down the family inside the farmhouse, and now he was antsy to get more blood on his hands.
Specifically, Dario Rosolini’s blood.
“No,” Romeo replied calmly as he remained crouched over the telescope. “So, why am I watching this place again?”
“Just shut your fucking mouth and do what you’re told,” Cesare barked.
He was still pissed at Romeo for not capturing the Amato girl.
She apparently had snuck off in the middle of the night, because we never found her. Whether it was dumb luck or because she’d sensed something amiss, she’d never returned home.
I hated having a loose thread out there. I was worried she would call somebody.
However, no cops – or Cosa Nostra – ever showed up at the Amatos’ castle.
Which told me the daughter hadn’t contacted anyone.
I wasn’t angry at Romeo for what wasn’t his fault, so I used a far nicer tone of voice than my brother.
“Just keep watching,” I said. “You’re on a need-to-know basis, and you don’t need to know quite yet.”
“Okay,” he replied calmly.
I turned to Ciro. “Any word from Mazzacane, Puorco, or Zoppo yet?”
“No.”
Mazzacane meant ‘dog killer.’
Puorco meant ‘pig.’
And Zoppo meant ‘the limping one.’
Those were the nicknames of the three men I’d sent to burn down the Rosolinis’ dress shop in Florence.
They’d arrived in Florence two days earlier to scope everything out – a full 24 hours earlier than the rest of us.
I hadn’t told them anything other than they were supposed to firebomb the dress shop – ideally with a Rosolini brother inside. But they didn’t even know why.
I didn’t want them to know too much in case one of them got captured.
In fact, I’d partitioned off all information on a need-to-know basis.
Only Cesare knew the whole plan – and I was constantly having to tell him to shut up to stop him from blabbing.
Romeo was our highest-ranking lieutenant, and even he didn’t know about the Russians. All he knew was that we were going to storm the family’s compound when the time was right.
“You want me to call Mazzacane?” Ciro asked.
“No,” I replied.
“What about Puorco or Zoppo? They could swing by the shop and see if – ”
“They’ve either done it by now, or they’re dead,” I interrupted. “Those are the only two options.”
Ciro nodded and went back to standing there in silence.
“We should just go ahead and call them,” Cesare snarled as he paced frantically.
He meant the Russians, not Mazzacane.
“Not yet,” I said patiently. “We’ll know when the time is right.”
“Wait,” Romeo called out. “I see something.”
Cesare wheeled around and froze, waiting.
“What do you see?” I asked.
“Five black Mercedes and one blue Bugatti. They’re driving up the road towards the main gate, and they’re moving fast.”
“That’s it,” I said confidently. “That’s the sign.”
“Mazzacane pulled it off!” Cesare said with a howl of joy.
“Obviously,” I said as I walked away from the group.
When I was far enough away from the others, I pulled out my phone and dialed.
A Russian voice answered. “Da?”
“It’s time.”
“It will take us approximately one hour to get there.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “We’ve waited four years… we can wait another hour.”