Page 77 of Niccolo

The Wagner Group was a bunch of mercenaries originally commanded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, once the right-hand man of Vladimir Putin. That is until Prigozhin accused the Russian Defense Ministry of sabotaging the Wagner Group as they fought in the Ukraine War.

In June 2023, Prigozhin and 25,000 of his mercenaries mutinied and advanced on Moscow. After a bunch of back-channel negotiations, Prigozhin called off the attack… and then died in a plane crash two months later.

Since political opponents of Vladimir Putin had a way of falling out of ten-story buildings, everyone knew who was behind it.

“You can justhirethem?!” I asked incredulously.

“Of course,” Fausto said. “If you have enough money.”

“I thought they only worked for governments.”

“They don’t care about ideology – only cash.”

“And you have enough to hire them?”

“Not the entire Wagner Group, no. But we’ll only need a hundred or so.”

“We can easily pay that,” Aurelio said with a smirk, then turned to his father. “I can contact them!”

Fausto made a face. “I don’t think – ”

Aurelio threw a tantrum. “You’re not letting me do ANYTHING! I don’t have ANY job to do – I might as well be sitting on a fucking beach in Aruba!”

I thought Fausto might tell him to shut the hell up –

But no.

“Alright,” he said calmly, “you can contact Wagner.”

Aurelio beamed like a two-year-old who’d had his first bowel movement in a potty-training bowl.

“Great!” Then his smile faded. “Um…howdo I contact them?”

Fausto sighed. “I’ll get you the information. You’ll probably need to give them a down payment for their services, so I’ll get you access to our accounts.”

“Good!” Aurelio said and went back to being smug. “Wagner is going todestroythose fucking assholes!”

I hid my contempt for Aurelio as Fausto and I returned to planning.

31

Days before Adriano’s wedding, we were getting close.

Aurelio had paid a one-million euro deposit for Wagner’s services. As a result, 100 mercenaries in Belarus were ready to fly out at a moment’s notice anywhere we told them to go.

Fausto told me he was arranging the financial attack. He didn’t give me any information beyond that.

The one thing we didn’t have yet was an assassin…

Until the old man bounded into the library one day with a delighted smile on his face.

“What do you think ofher?”Fausto asked as he handed me a slip of paper.

I read through the list of credentials.

Former European intelligence agent who had spearheaded dozens of international missions…

Extensive experience in firefights…

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