Page 238 of Niccolo

Dario looked at me in surprise. “What?!”

“I just… is it absolutely necessary?”

“Why – are you thinking of using him as a double agent?”

I’d already told Sofia.

Lazaro was useless to us now.

In telling her his name, I’d wasted him as cruelly and irresponsibly as she had.

“…no… he’s already burned,” I said.

“Then you know we can’t.”

“…I know,” I muttered.

“You don’t have to be there,” Dario offered. “At the end.”

I thought of Sofia again.

You never take responsibility for the things that you do.

“No, I should,” I said.

“Adriano and I can – ”

“You’renot stepping foot outside the house, and that’s final,” I said sternly.

“Then let Adriano handle it.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said quietly, more to reassure myself than Dario. “I’ll be fine.”

And we continued our way down into the darkness.

96

The basement was a giant stone maze with multiple wine cellars. When you own a vineyard, you tend to accumulate quite a collection; we had rooms with vintages going back 40 years.

One of the stone rooms was completely bare, devoid of anything but a single light bulb, a drain in the floor – and a man tied to a chair in the center of the room.

His face was a mess, with one eye swollen shut and the rest of it bruised and bloody. His white dress shirt was spattered with red.

Adriano stood in the corner of the room, arms crossed, watching his captive like a vengeful demon. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, though that was probably to make it easier to throw punches.

As soon as Dario and I walked in, Lazaro looked up with his one good eye and blanched in terror.

“I didn’t do anything, Don Rosolini,” he pleaded, though the words came out distorted through his swollen lips. “I swear on the Virgin Mother, I – ”

“Shhhhh,” Dario whispered gently.

Lazaro stopped speaking, though he continued to whimper.

“Do you have his phone?” Dario asked Adriano, who pulled it out of his pocket and handed it over.

I noticed that Adriano had wrapped boxing tape around his knuckles so he wouldn’t fuck up his hands as much.

Hadn’t helped Lazaro’s face any, though.

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