Page 126 of Niccolo (Mafia Kings #7)

Sofia

T he morgue attendant – the man Dante had garroted – presumably became roommates with another corpse in a coffin.

As for Aurelio’s body, we transported it back to Modena.

A couple of foot soldiers dug a grave in the field behind the farm, and Fausto had them lower the body bag into the hole.

No casket, no priest, no service. Not even a crowd – just me, Fausto, Dante, and the two gravediggers.

Fausto watched with red eyes as the foot soldiers filled the hole back in. Then he went back to the farmhouse without a word.

“Go get cleaned up,” Dante ordered the two sweaty foot soldiers.

Then it was just Dante and me left standing there over the grave.

“Jesus,” Dante muttered.

“What?” I asked.

“I wasn’t the kid’s biggest fan, but that’s no fuckin’ way to end up,” Dante growled as he pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

“What do you mean?”

Dante looked at me like, Are you fucking kidding? “With your head bashed in and buried out in the middle of nowhere like a two-bit chump.”

I could sense there was something he was wrestling with. I wanted to know more, so I decided to exploit the smoker’s bond yet again. “Could I get one of those?”

He gave me a cigarette and lit both his and mine.

“Thanks.”

“No problem,” he grunted.

After I took a puff, I said, “So you weren’t Aurelio’s biggest fan.”

Dante gave a short, gruff bark of a laugh. “No.”

“You know how he got his head bashed in, don’t you?”

Dante clenched his jaw as he stared at the grave. “…yeah.”

“And what do you think about that?”

Dante looked at me sideways.

“On my mother’s life,” I said, repeating the oath I’d given him the first time.

Dante looked back down at the patch of dirt. “Some people might say he got what was coming to him.”

“Because he went after Massimo?”

“Because he went after all of them,” Dante growled. “Adriano, Lars – the guys who worked for them – all of them.”

“What would you do if Fausto ordered you to go after them?” I asked.

Dante stared at the grave for a long, long time.

“I guess I’d do what I had to,” he finally said.

“Why?”

“Why do you think?” he replied angrily. “Because it’s my job. Because I need the money.” He paused, then added, “And because I’d get whacked if I didn’t.”

“By Fausto?”

Dante gave a dark chuckle. “Not by him, no. He doesn’t like to get his hands dirty.”

“That’s why you killed the morgue attendant back at the funeral home? It was your job… you need the money… and because you’d get whacked if you didn’t?”

“Of course.”

“He was an innocent civilian.”

Dante smirked. “Innocent civilians don’t take money from mobsters.”

Ouch.

“So what’s the difference between killing Fausto’s nephews and the morgue attendant?”

Dante glared at me. “Because that asshole was just some fuckhead, and not six guys I watched grow up from the time they were kids.”

“What about Lars? You didn’t watch him grow up.”

Dante stared back at the grave. “I respect Lars. I wouldn’t want to pull the trigger on him, either.”

“But you would if you had to,” I suggested.

He angrily threw his cigarette down and ground it out in the fresh dirt. “What is this, an interrogation?”

“Like I said last time, if we’re going to take this all the way, I need to know where your head’s at.”

“You said the ‘rank and file’ last time.”

“And you’re not part of the ‘rank and file’?”

Before he could say anything, I heard Fausto’s voice bark from far behind me. “Sofia!”

Dante and I both turned to see Fausto walking towards us.

Dante turned much faster than I did – like a guilty man might.

Fausto walked up to us, his eyes narrowing. “What are you two talking about?”

I could almost feel Dante’s body tense up beside me –

Until I said, “How much of a fucking asshole Massimo was for what he did to your son.”

Fausto looked at his foot soldier suspiciously… then nodded his approval.

Dante relaxed.

“What did you need?” I asked.

“Pack for a couple of nights away,” Fausto said, then glanced at Dante. “You, too – and choose your 20 best men.”

I frowned. “Why?”

“Because we’ve been summoned to Rome. We’re going before the Council.”