Page 58 of Niccolo

I made note of the jealousy he exhibited towards Niccolo and wondered if it was mutual.

I doubted it. I bet that Niccolo rarely gave his cousin a second thought… which was probably part of what enraged Aurelio so much.

“Do you mind if I cut these up?” I asked Fausto as I held up the pictures.

“Do whatever you want with them.”

“Do you have any scissors and tape?”

Fausto rummaged through the desk drawers until he found what I wanted.

I began cutting out pictures of the nephews and Lars – full-scale body shots from head to toe, as long as they were only two to three inches high.

“What are you doing?” Aurelio asked, his curiosity overcoming his anger.

“You’ll see.”

Ignoring the pawns, I taped the pictures of the brothers to the major chess pieces.

Dario was the king…

Adriano and Massimo were rooks…

Roberto and Valentino were bishops…

And Lars was the queen.

“Theconsigliere’ssupposed to be the don’s right-hand man,” Aurelio sneered.

“The queen is the most powerful piece on the board. The Swede fits that definition.”

“That’s cute. You made him a woman,” Aurelio said with a laugh –

Like it was an insult.

I ignored his misogyny. I already knew he was a fool; that much was obvious.

“It’s about capability, not gender,” I said neutrally.

“Interesting that you’ve made Lars the most dangerous piece,” Fausto said.

“No, I made him the most powerful…notthe most dangerous.”

“Ah,” Fausto said, and smiled. He understood the distinction.

“Then what’s the most dangerous?” Aurelio asked, angry at being left in the dark.

“Depending on how you use it…”

I taped Niccolo’s picture to one of the two remaining pieces.

“…the knight.”

“Theknight?!”Aurelio scoffed. “I don’t know much about chess, and evenIknow the queen and the rook are worth more than a knight!”

“That’s when you’re assigning points purely to tally who’s ahead. But for pure deviousness, the knight is the winner.”

I put Niccolo’s piece in the center of the board.

---