Page 8 of Niccolo

Despite being exciting and interesting, they were heavy loads for two young boys to bear. It was drilled into us over and over that the fate of our family depended on how well we learned to do our jobs.

Perhaps that shared experience was another factor that bound us closer together as we aged.

The same way my mother introduced me to chess, Uncle Fausto introduced me to what he called the Great Game:

The struggle of life and death within theCosa Nostra.

And the same way my mother taught me life lessons, Uncle Fausto taught me the subtleties of being aconsigliere.

How to tell if someone was lying to you. That alone was an ongoing topic that spanned an entire decade.

How to convince someone to adoptyouridea and think it was theirs, so they would willingly implement your plans.

How to rise above stress and confusion so that you could best advise your don.

How to reason with others – and manipulate those who would not be reasoned with.

But one of the most important lessons I ever learned from Fausto came early on.

“A goodconsiglierewill always fall on his sword for his don,” he told me.

“What?!” I asked, completely ignorant as to what he meant.

“Back during the Roman Empire, generals who suffered a terrible defeat would kill themselves by literally falling on the tips of their swords and letting the blade run them through. That’s where the term ‘to fall on your sword’ comes from.”

“Why?!”

“Sometimes out of shame. Sometimes to reclaim their honor in defeat. But that’s not what ‘falling on your sword’ means for aconsigliere.

“Instead, it means to take the blame for a situation – to take the fall – so that your don walks away unscathed.

“Cosa Nostrafamilies are structured with the don at the top of the hierarchy. Hisconsigliereis directly beneath him.

“The don gives his orders to theconsigliere,who implements them. Theconsigliereis the one who handles all interactions with third parties, especially those involving illegal activities.

“If the cops ever arrest the don – if a prosecutor decides to try him for a crime – the don can say, ‘I didn’t know anythingabout that.’ And no one can prove otherwise because it was theconsiglierewho handled all of the details. And only the don and theconsigliereever heard the conversation where the don gave his orders.

“Theconsigliereis a shield for his don. He’s the firewall, the bulwark, so the police can’t get to the head of the family. If someone at the top has to go to prison, it’s theconsigliere,so that the don and the family can continue to go on. Do you understand?”

“Theconsigliereis the scapegoat?” I asked.

“In a way – but a scapegoat isforcedto take the blame. Theconsiglieretakes it upon himself willingly. It’s part of the job – acrucialpart of the job, maybe the single most important part. In case of disaster, theconsiglieresacrifices himself for the good of the family. So it’s not being a scapegoat for the don… it’s being theherofor the family. Now do you understand?”

“I think so.”

Years later, I had to question whether Uncle Fausto truly understood the concept, given that he had violated it so horrendously.

That was before I knew he was a traitor.

5

After I officially becameconsigliere,bad days came in waves, one after another.

But before I took over, there were two days that stood out in memory as particularly horrible.

One was the day my mother died.

We knew the end was approaching long before it arrived.

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