“I swore to her, Niccolo,” he said darkly. “I swore on our family’s name that my children would not follow in my footsteps. That they could be doctors, or artists, or anything else they want to be… but notmafiosos.Not like us.”
Ah.
A deeper layer had revealed itself.
“And now that Elena will arrive in a matter of months,” I said, using the name he and Alessandra had picked for their baby, “you feel the weight of that promise more than ever.”
“Yes.”
“It sounds to me like you swore your children could be anything they wanted to be, and that they wouldn’t follow you into the family business. Not that it had to happen by some arbitrary deadline.”
“Alessandra won’t see it that way,” Dario said wearily.
There was something else at play.
He sounded like a man who was trapped…
Forced into a position he didn’t want to be in.
I knew that he loved Alessandra with all his heart and soul.
She was the single thing that made him happiest – that gave his life meaning.
And yet…
“Could I make what might be an unpleasant observation?” I asked.
Dario gave me a dark look. “When have you ever letthatstop you?”
“I’m going to say something that, on the surface, might sound like I’m annoyed with your wife, but I assure you – ”
“Not a word against Alessandra,” Dario warned me.
“Don’t worry, it’s not againsther. It’s againstyou.”
Dario frowned…
But now he was intrigued, and he waited to hear what I had to say.
“You and I were trained to be very specific things,” I said. “I was trained to be a strategist – a manipulator – a trickster in service of the family. Despite how I feel about Fausto, I freely admit that he was one of the very best at what he did, and he trained me well.
“You, on the other hand, were raised to be a leader… and akiller.”
I delivered that final word with great emphasis –
And its effect on Dario was instantaneous.
His eyes sparked with an inner light, and he tensed at the electricity in the air.
I continued. “Only when you needed to be, of course. But Papa trained you to be a killer, and to be a leader of killers. You’ve taken many lives, and ordered them to be taken – all for good reasons, I might add.
“Themafiososwho attacked our house when we were younger… Aristide Caproni in San Vittore… the Turk and his men… Mezzasalma… Fausto and Aurelio… all of them died either at your hand, or at the hand of someone following your orders.”
I noticed Dario didn’t say,I didn’t tell Massimo to kill Aurelio.
No protest of,I didn’t order Adriano to kill Mezzasalma.
He knew that, as Don, the responsibility for those deaths lay at his feet – and he fully accepted that responsibility.
