Page 193 of Niccolo

I walked back towards the house so I didn’t have to speak so loudly to be heard. “This stays between you and me, understood? Don’t go telling anybody else. I mean it.”

Dante nodded. “Understood.”

“…yes,” I confirmed. “We’re going after Dario.”

He looked bewildered. “Why?!”

“Now, THAT youwillhave to ask the boss about.”

Dante didn’t say anything, but I could see the anger on his face.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

He looked at me suspiciously.

“I could get in a lot of trouble for telling you what I just did, you know,” I said.

From the look on Dante’s face, he seemed to grudgingly acknowledge that fact.

“What are you thinking?” I asked again.

“I’m not happy about it,” he said dourly.

“Why not?”

He still looked at me warily.

I walked back up the steps towards him. “Can I have one of those?” I asked, pointing at his cigarette.

I occasionally had a smoke when I went out for drinks. It had started with my coworkers in the restaurant business. So I wasn’t exactly a smoker, but I indulged every now and then.

I also knew that smokers tended to bond quickly, a connection not shared with nonsmokers. Walk outside any business in Italy, and you will always find a group of smokers huddled together, alone against the world.

I intended to use that to my psychological advantage.

Dante pulled out a pack from inside his jacket.

I put a cigarette between my lips, and he lit it for me.

“Whatever you say, it stays between you and me,” I said as I blew out a mouthful of smoke.

He looked at me distrustfully. “Oh yeah?” he said, but it sounded more like,Yeah, RIGHT.

“I swear it on my mother’s life,” I replied.

I didn’t think he’d care about my oath to Niccolo –On all my hopes and dreams for the future, and on the revenge I wanton the men who betrayed me– but I figured swearing on my mother’s life might do the trick.

It did. He looked suitably impressed.

But he still wanted to know more.

“Why do you care?” he asked.

“If we’re going to take this all the way, I need to know how the rank and file feel about it.”

That seemed to placate him.

“We were never told we’d be going up against Dario,” he said bitterly. “That was never part of the deal.”

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