AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He snorted. “The Bratva, they are uncivilized animals. They do not have honor, not like we do.”
“I can trust this man.” I didn’t want to say the reason for that trust was because I knew Nikolai’s secret. I could destroy him with one call.
“No man in the Bratva is trustworthy. Maybe to their own, but not to us. I forbid this.”
I tried not to get angry. My father was used to being the first and last word on a topic. But this wasn’t Ravazzani business. And this was my decision. “You are aware that I don’t work for you any longer. I don’t even live here.”
“I wish to speak with you about this. I think you should come back. Permanently.”
It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. I blinked a few times and thought of what to say. “No,” was the best I could come up with.
“Do not be foolish, figlio. You are doing the same as you did for me in these smaller countries. Using my contacts to make money. Why not do it here, where you are safe?”
“You know why.”
“Things have changed, become more progressive. That you are gay does not matter as much anymore. And I’m tired of wondering whether you are dead or alive. I’d like you here.”
I rolled my shoulders, trying to work out the sudden tension in my neck. I’d been on my own for the last four years. How could I go back to answering to my father for every little thing?
I couldn’t. I couldn’t stay here, trying to fill shoes that no longer fit.
“Papà, no. I can’t.”
He sighed heavily and walked to the fence that surrounded the entrance to the vineyard. We both leaned against the wood and stared out at the rolling hills, at the rows of vines that produced some of Italy’s best wine.
“I have worked my whole life to turn this over to you,” he said quietly. “And you would make an excellent don. Yet, you don’t want it.”
“I can’t say what the future might bring, but right now I need something that is just mine. I need to find my own path, not walk yours.”
“Mine is not so bad. All the wealth and power of your dreams, figlio. Yet you want to go and struggle instead. Make these low-level deals.”
“Hardly low level. I have almost five million Euros stored away.”
“As I said, low-level.”
I dropped my forehead onto my arms on the fence. “Papà . . . .”
He put a hand on my shoulder. “I do not mean to diminish what you have done. You have thrived on your own, stayed alive by using your wits. You killed Nino Buscetta, for fuck’s sake. I’m very, very proud of you. Never for one second think I am not.”
My chest ached at his words. But I also knew he had to be disappointed in me. Cazzo, I was disappointed in myself. “I don’t know how you could say that after the past few days.”
Using a hand under my arm, he guided me up from the fence so we were looking at one another. He rested one palm against my cheek. “You are not at fault for what happened with the sniper. He lied to you. That is the beginning and the end. It is on him, not you.”
“It’s humiliating.”
“No one knows of this but Marco and myself. The men in the dungeon were told he was caught stealing from us.”
I felt as though the earth stopped spinning for a brief second. “The dungeon?”
Fausto released me and went back to leaning on the fence. “You think someone hurts my child and I don’t make them pay in blood? Ma dai, figlio mio.”
“I told you to let him live.”
“And we did. He breathes, Giulio. He breathes.”
“Where did you take him?”
“Tunisia.”
