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“But we got to keep Florence,” Roberto pointed out. “That’s the most important thing.”
“And we got the house and the grounds,” Massimo added.
“It still fuckin’ blows,” Adriano groused.
Niccolo smiled wryly. “That’s the mark of a good compromise – when everybody walks away unhappy.”
“At least we got rid of Aurelio,” Valentino said.
Everyone laughed – including me.
“I take back everything I said,” Adriano joked. “That alone makes it worth it.”
When Fausto and Aurelio left the next day to start their new empire, they took half the staff with them: half the servants and half the foot soldiers.
I noticed that the vast majority of the soldiers who went with Fausto were old-timers – the ones who had bitched and moaned on the first day of training, and whose efforts since then had been half-hearted at best. Only a couple of younger guys went with them.
Unlike the brothers, I was extremely pleased. We kept all the best men and got rid of a lot of dead wood.
Good riddance.
It was a win/win, as far as I was concerned.
A few days later, Adriano, Massimo, and Valentino went to see Dario in prison. They flew on the family’s Gulfstream, which took off from a runway hidden amidst the olive groves and vineyards.
Niccolo and Roberto stayed behind at the mansion. With the family’s new don in prison, it was unthinkable to also put the consigliere and the money man in danger as well. Despite their obvious reluctance, Niccolo and Roberto did the smart thing and stayed home.
But as head of security, I was very aware that an enemy might decide to make a move against the brothers when they visited San Vittore. Maybe someone from the Camorra – like an old associate of Aristide Caproni.
Which meant I didn’t trust anyone outside our inner circle, and the only cars I would trust were those from our own garage.
With Niccolo’s blessing, I assembled a team of the best men I’d trained to drive a convoy of four bulletproof Mercedes up to Milan. We had to leave hours earlier than the jet so we would be there when they arrived at the airport.
All of the men I chose were under 30. Most hadn’t even been working as foot soldiers when I’d arrived. But after five months of intensive training, they were ready. I would have gone into battle with any of them.
The trip took four hours. I sat in the passenger seat as Giorgio drove. He didn’t say much, which I liked about him. A man of few words and decisive action.
It also gave me time to think.
If someone had asked me a week earlier, I would have said Leonardo would live for a long time to come. He might have been stressed, but he seemed to be healthy and full of vitality.
His death reminded me just how fleeting life is. And his sons’ grief reminded me that, in the end, life is all about the ones we love.
As a result, I thought a lot about Rachel on the drive to Milan.
I wondered what she was doing… if she’d married her fiancé…
And bitterly wished it could have been me.
We picked up Adriano, Massimo, and Valentino at the Aeroporto di Milano Malpensa on the outskirts of Milan. Niccolo had called ahead and arranged it so we could drive out onto the tarmac to retrieve them once they landed.
The original plan was to put one brother in each car, with me in the lead vehicle. But Valentino wanted to ride with me, so the fourth car just trailed along behind us.
“What a fuckin’ name for an airport,” Valentino muttered from the backseat as we drove off the tarmac.
“What?” I asked.
“‘Malpensa,’” he said. “Mal pensa literally means ‘bad thoughts.’ I was like, ‘Why the fuck would you name an airport that,’ so I looked it up on my phone when we landed. Turns out the land they bought to build it on had a farm named Malpensa – and they kept the fuckin’ name. Can you believe that shit?”
