Page 184 of Vita Mia

“Uncle Domi and Gino both agree with me. Ryder’s interview is over. The rest of it is mine.”

The phone rang. Mirabella walked over and picked it up. She glanced to her daughter as Dominic explained the change in plans. She hung up the phone.

“Okay little girl. You want to know who Papa was? Really was? I’ll tell you.” Mirabella walked back over to her chair and sat. “And it’s not the story you think.”

***

1996- NAPOLI ITALY

Antoni Fassino preferred to dine alone. His home was modest, but his taste in food, clothes and women remained quite expensive. It was why he settled into the bachelor life instead of marriage like his colleagues. Orphaned at the age of eight he’d fought and clawed his way out of poverty to be a man of respect. And he commanded respect along with his solitude. He couldn’t afford or tolerate the dependency a family would bring.

“Signore Antonio, I’ve, ah,” his housekeeper stammered. “I-I-I-ah—“

“Speak woman,” he mumbled as he tossed his keys to the picture stand.

“An early dinner has been prepared,” his housekeeper said. She was a foot shorter than him but managed to help him out of his blazer and neatly fold it over her arm. He picked up the mail that waited for him on a silver tray. Sylvia had been under his employment for nearly a decade and he rarely took notice of her. If he had he might have suspected the way her hands shook or the way she perspired as she stood at his side with his blazer draped over her arm.

Instead, he focused on his mail, as he walked toward the kitchen. He was led by the sweet aroma of roasted meat and bubbling sauce. Sylvia did not follow. But someone else did. The footsteps matched his own but landed with more authority. He was used to the silence in his home. He knew every disturbance. Antoni paused and pretended to open his mail. His focus was on the noise. There was none. Whoever was behind him stopped. The gun he kept was in the kitchen and there was one in the bedroom. Antoni considered running for the stairs.

Then a voice, with a deep grave accent rose above his thoughts. He said in Italian: “Keep moving.”

Antoni didn’t bother to look back. He imagined whoever it was had a weapon to support the threatening tone he used. And he imagined that if he did try to run for the kitchen he’d take a shot in his back. He had many enemies. So many that even the Mayor had offered to give him the protective security of the polizia. But he lived his life uncompromising and fearless. Even at the moment of surprise he couldn’t summon any fear.

“Move!” barked the man.

Antoni walked into the dining area. Seated in his chair at the head of the table was a dead man.

“Carlo Altoviti?” Antoni asked.

Carlo ate from his plate unimpressed over Antoni’s late arrival. To his left stood a tall muscular black man in a leather jacket, jeans and black leather gloves. Clasped in his hands that were cuffed in front of him was a gun. To the right stood an equally menacing fellow dressed the same way with a gun in his hand. It was then that Antoni realized the men who guarded over the butcher were twins, identical. Antoni glanced behind him and found his shadow. Another assassin with a gun pointed at his face. He too was African, and totally opposite of the company he expected the Battaglias to keep. Before he could remember his cook and personal servant Sylvia, she appeared with another man. Her eyes stretched with horror and fear. Antoni returned his gaze to the Butcher. In all the years of his tyranny in the Campania, Carlo Altoviti never graced his prison doors. He had hoped the bastard would. He knew all too well, the terror he struck in people in the Campania.

“You’re back from the dead?” Antoni asked.

Carlo’s head didn’t lift but his gaze did. He chewed slowly staring at Antoni. He said nothing. The man behind him delivered a hard blow to the back of his head with the gun. He nearly collapsed. Instead, he was forced into a chair at the long dinner table.

After a final swallow, Carlo picked up his wine and drank the glass clean. He sat back and smiled at the terrified woman in the room.

“It’s a helluva day when a piece of pie is the second most exciting thing that has happened to you,” Carlo said.

“What was the first?” Antoni asked as he touched the back of his head and drew his hand away to see blood on his fingertips.

“You’re coming home,” Carlo replied.

“Wait. Wait a second. This won’t work. I know you know who I am. If anything happens to me they will immediately link it to your boss. It’ll be a certain conviction for him.”

Carlo chuckled.

Antoni put up his hand. “Think on this, your boss is under constant surveillance. The world is watching him. If I’m killed or harmed in any way you condemn him to death.”

“You’ve said that twice now. Is that all?” Carlo asked.

“Think about it! Think!” Antoni shouted. He wasn’t a man prone to fear. In fact, he fed off of it. That’s why he was so good at his job. He knew the dangers and the risks, but no one dared even attempt to come for him. The consequences were real. The Camorra ruled southern Italy because they had a rightful fear of law enforcement. It was an unspoken code. Hell, he’d taken down dozens of Dons of the clans without even the slightest attempt at retribution. Giovanni Battaglia was far too smart to fall into this trap.

“The case against Giovanni is weak. You can gain more by killing witnesses than killing me,” Antoni reasoned. “My death is a death sentence for your boss.”

Carlo picked up the knife from the table. He twirled it in his hand as if thinking over what had been said. Antoni seized the moment. “Why did you return here Butcher? How? You disappeared. People think you are dead. How does any of this end in your favor? I’ll tell you how. I have a safe upstairs. I have enough money for you and your comrades to make this job go away. Take me hostage. Release me when you are out of the country and then remain free. Even if I was to turn on you no one could prove it. You’re dead. Remember? This gives you a free pass. Something the Camorra has never done for you.”

Carlo smiled.

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