Page 14 of Niccolo

“He shouldn’t HAVE to!”

“You’re right; he shouldn’t have to,” Fausto said sadly. “But we both know what would happen to me. I’m fat and slow. My strength is in my brain, not my fists. Within days of setting foot in San Vittore, I’d be gutted like a fish.

“But Dario’s young. He’s strong – a fighter. He’ll come out the other side without a scratch.”

Everything inside me rebelled. “Whatever happened to ‘in case of disaster, theconsiglieresacrifices himself’?! What happened to it being ‘the most crucial part of the job – maybe the singlemostimportant part’?!”

Fausto patted me consolingly on the arm. “…only if he has to. And Dario has graciously made it so I don’t have to.”

I stared at him in shock and revulsion.

When I didn’t remove my hand from his arm, Uncle Fausto pried my fingers off him. “Come. We should be there for the others.”

Then he walked out of the parlor.

I stood there, looking after him with hatred and disbelief.

That fucking coward –

That goddamn hypocritical bastard!

So much for falling on your fucking sword.

I can’t say that I ever forgave Fausto, but I gradually stopped despising him. More or less.

However, a tiny ember of hatred stayed buried in my heart, waiting to be fanned into flames again.

I saw what he did that day as an unforgivable weakness and the height of hypocrisy.

But I never once considered that it might be a harbinger of outright betrayal… until it was too late.

7

Iwas there in Milan the day Dario walked into San Vittore, as were all my brothers.

Papa and Fausto stayed at home, and rightly so. They would have unnecessarily made themselves targets of our rivals.

Still, it broke Papa’s heart not to be there.

Fausto… not so much.

Dario said his goodbyes to us in the parking lot of San Vittore, hugging us and reassuring us that he’d be just fine.

When he got to me, he grinned. “Don’t be so glum, futureconsigliere.This is a minor setback. One day, we’re going to rule the world.”

I comforted myself with those words as he walked inside and was taken into custody by the guards.

One day, we’re going to rule the world…

The next time I saw my brother, it was behind a scratched plexiglass barrier in the prison visiting room.

Although we’d bribed the warden to give Dario a private prison cell and basic amenities – like supplies, pans to cook his own food in, and bottles of wine from our vineyards – we were all scared to death that something would happen to him. Papa had plenty of enemies locked up in San Vittore, and any one of them would have loved to kill one of his sons.

Imagine my surprise when he was not only in good spirits inside that hellhole, but seemed to bethriving.

We had to go in one by one to see him. I was the last.

The others had told me what to expect, but even then, I didn’t believe how good he looked.

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