Page 144 of Niccolo (Mafia Kings #7)

S ofia wrapped up nicely.

“No… Aurelio acted alone… and now he’s dead. The guilty party has paid for their crimes. I urge you to remember that… and not to punish a grieving father for the sins of his son. Fausto Rosolini has already suffered enough.”

With that, she yielded the floor.

“Your witness, Niccolo,” Don Severino said.

I walked over to within five feet of Fausto.

It was the first time I had seen him this close since Adriano and Bianca’s wedding. Even earlier, during the shouting match in the corridor, he had been almost 50 feet away.

He gazed at me neutrally – a blank mask – as though to tell me, You won’t be provoking ME into something stupid, boy.

My reply?

We’ll see.

“Signorina Toscani covered quite a bit of ground with you earlier,” I said. “I’d actually like to start a bit earlier. You were my mentor. You trained me to be a consigliere, didn’t you?”

“I was,” Fausto said. “And I did.”

I expected some sort of insult, but my uncle resisted the urge to respond. He was playing this one close to the vest.

Okay… time to draw him out.

“Do you remember what you told me was the most important job of a consigliere?” I asked.

“No,” he said in a bored voice.

“Would you like to guess?”

He shrugged. “Providing counsel to one’s don?”

“No. The words you told me are seared in my brain because of the great passion with which you spoke them. You said, ‘A good consigliere will always fall on his sword for his don.’”

I noticed there were quite a few approving nods from the various consiglieres in the room.

I continued. “You also said that the consigliere is a shield for his don. He is 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 the consigliere, so that the don and the family can continue to go on.’

“At the time, I asked you if that meant the consigliere was a scapegoat.

“You said, ‘In a way – but a scapegoat is forced to take the blame. The consigliere takes it upon himself willingly. It’s part of the job – a crucial part of the job, maybe the single most important part. In case of disaster, the consigliere sacrifices himself for the good of the family. So it’s not being a scapegoat for the don…

it’s being the hero for the family.’ Do you remember telling me that? ”

“Vaguely,” Fausto replied.

“‘Vaguely,’” I repeated in disgust. “It’s too bad a speech that meant so much to me apparently meant so little to you.”

I could see Fausto’s eyes narrow the tiniest bit, even though his expression otherwise stayed the same.

Still, though, he didn’t take the bait.

“Let me ask you about another time,” I said. “Do you remember the scandal with the judges and politicians in Florence about five years ago?”

“I do.”

I turned back to the dons and consiglieres.

“I’m sure most of you remember, but just in case you don’t, here’s a brief summary: a police detective who wasn’t on my family’s payroll found out about our network of political bribes.

The detective was able to nab one of our bagmen.

It was a huge scandal. So big, in fact, that someone in our family was going to have to go to prison – or everyone would. ”

I turned back to Fausto. “Do you remember what you said during the meeting when we discussed who would take the fall?”

“I said I would take the blame.”

“No, you didn’t,” I snapped. “You refused and said, ‘I won’t survive San Vittore. We all know it.’”

There was a murmur in the room.

The idea that a consigliere would NOT take the fall for his don…

Let’s just say it was a shocking concept to every single person in the room.

Fausto sighed like I was a fool who needed to be corrected. “If you’ll recall, I agreed with your argument that it was my duty, so I said I would – ”

“My argument?” I interrupted. “Why would I need to argue with you if you agreed from the very beginning to do your job?”

Fausto clenched his jaw.

He knew he’d been caught out.

However, he kept his composure.

“But I did offer to take the fall,” Fausto said coldly. “Until Dario offered to step in and take my place.”

“Dario? The same nephew you accuse of being a conniving, greedy bastard? THAT nephew was the one who willingly agreed to take your place in San Vittore, knowing full well that it might mean his death?”

“He didn’t die,” Fausto growled.

“No thanks to you, certainly, even though you were too much of a coward to do your job.”

That really made Fausto’s nostrils flare.

“He’s insulting the witness!” Sofia yelled.

“Niccolo,” Don Severino warned me. “Keep it civil.”

“Actually, I withdraw the comment about you being a coward,” I told Fausto, “because what I really believe happened was you used your guile to manipulate my brother into taking the fall for you.”

“He offered freely,” Fausto snapped.

“Out of the goodness of his heart?”

Fausto paused.

After all the insults he’d hurled at us during Sofia’s questioning, he couldn’t exactly reverse himself and say that Dario was a man with good intentions.

“He had his own reasons,” he finally muttered.

“Just like you had your reasons to abandon the single most important job of a consigliere – to protect his don?”

More murmurs from the crowd.

“I offered,” Fausto snarled. “It was rejected. Dario offered. Your father agreed. Moving on.”

“I just want to establish for everyone here that you were more than willing to use a… surrogate, I guess we can say, to take the fall for you.”

Fausto glared at me. “I wouldn’t agree to that characterization at all.”

“Well – you were supposed to take the fall for the family… you didn’t… Dario did… so you used a surrogate to take the fall for you! Seems pretty simple to me!”

“I didn’t – ”

“You refused. I shamed you. You gave in. Dario offered. Papa agreed… and the surrogate took your fall,” I snapped. “Moving on.”

Then I turned and walked away from Fausto, contemptuously giving him my back.

I had used his own words – or at least his own syntax – against him.

I’d made him look like a coward, and a conniving one at that –

Plus I’d cut him off with no chance to respond.

I knew Fausto was inwardly seething by now –

And I wasn’t wrong.

“I’d like to say something,” Fausto said angrily.

“The accused responds to my questions,” I reminded Don Severino. “He’s not allowed to make speeches.”

Don Severino gave me an annoyed look.

After all, I was making him play the bad guy by forcing him to rule against Fausto.

But he grudgingly agreed with me.

“You’ll answer the consigliere’s questions,” Don Severino instructed Fausto. “You can say whatever you want in your closing arguments.”

My uncle fumed a little more, but he remained silent.

I began again. “Now that we’ve established you’re more than willing to use scapegoats to take the fall for you – ”

“I did no such thing!” Fausto roared.

“ – I’d like to move on to the next scapegoat you used. Your son, Aurelio.”

Just like Claude Rains in Casablanca, Fausto was shocked – shocked!

He also added in some disgust and contempt for good measure.

“That you would suggest such a thing about my son, whom I loved – ”

“So you’re saying you didn’t plan Venice?” I asked, which I already believed to be the truth. “That you didn’t hire Russian mercenaries? That you didn’t plan the kidnapping of Donna Fioretti’s granddaughter? That you didn’t have a hand in any of it?”

“No! I didn’t plan any of it!”

“So… Aurelio isn’t taking the fall for you this time, like Dario did before?”

“No!”

“I mean, Aurelio’s the perfect patsy. He’s dead, after all,” I said flippantly. “You can’t exactly testify when your head’s bashed in from a hundred-foot fall.”

“Niccolo!” Don Severino shouted angrily –

But it had the desired effect.

Fausto bolted up from his chair and pointed a finger at me. “Because your brother MURDERED HIM!”

“My brother Massimo murdered your son?” I asked.

“YES!”

“To paraphrase your consigliere’s speech from earlier: don’t you mean Massimo appropriately judged the guilty party?

“The guilty party – your son Aurelio – who hired Russian mercenaries to attack Donna Fioretti and try to abduct her granddaughter, Lucia Fioretti –

“The guilty party who paid the bounty hunter Friedrich Zollner to kidnap Lucia and take her to the Isle of San Michele, where Aurelio held her captive at the top of a bell tower –

“Until my brothers Massimo and Adriano and my family’s Enforcer Lars, plus 14 of our brave foot soldiers who gave their lives trying to rescue Lucia, attacked the island and stormed the bell tower –

“At which point my brother Massimo nearly died securing Lucia’s release –

“By throwing your son off the bell tower to his death?” I gloated.

I knew I was running an incredible risk.

My vicious behavior could turn the dons against me and make them sympathetic to Fausto.

But I took the risk because my performance was calibrated for one specific purpose –

And I achieved it.

Fausto lost control.

“YOU LITTLE FUCKING SHIT – HOW DARE YOU!” he screamed, nearly frothing at the mouth.

“NICCOLO!” Don Severino roared as he jumped up from his own seat.

“Or was your son just stupid?” I asked with a laugh.

“So stupid he would hire a bunch of mercenaries and attack the most powerful woman in the Cosa Nostra? So stupid he would hire someone to kidnap her granddaughter, prompting my brother to step in and try to save her? So stupid that he wouldn’t even – ”

“MY SON WAS NOT STUPID!” Fausto roared.

“Quite the contrary, because it was actually a good plan, wasn’t it?” I shot back. “Audacious, yes – but brilliant!

“If he killed the Widow, Aurelio would control Venice!

“Failing that, if he took Lucia Fioretti as a hostage, he’d control the Widow!

“And through intelligence supplied by the man he hired, Friedrich Zollner, Aurelio knew that Massimo and Lucia were in love –

“So if Aurelio had Lucia, he could draw my brothers out in order to kill them!

“It was actually a brILLIANT PLAN worthy of a genius consigliere – someone who had been a consigliere for DECADES – wasn’t it?!”

Fausto stopped, confused.

I’d given him a terrible choice, and he knew it.

The Venice attack was actually an idiotic mistake. Before Venice, Fausto had framed me and my brothers for the death of the Agrellas. He had made everyone in the Cosa Nostra believe we were traitors and murderers.

But Fausto couldn’t exactly admit to that, could he?

After the attack on Venice, the Widow vouched for our family because of everything Massimo did to save Lucia.

And everyone realized Aurelio was a treacherous son of a bitch who absolutely would go after one of the most powerful members of the Cosa Nostra.

So:

Was Fausto going to publicly agree that his son was an idiot who died because of his own incompetence and stupidity?

Or was he going to try to salvage his son’s reputation and say that the plan was good –

Thereby implying that maybe, just maybe, Aurelio had had some help?

My argument was mostly innuendo.

However – as Sofia had demonstrated when she questioned my witnesses and effectively discredited them – innuendo could be a powerful weapon indeed.

The entire room was quiet as they waited for Fausto’s answer.

My uncle remained silent, which was damning in and of itself.

“Well?!” I demanded. “Was your son a fool? Or was he just a patsy who… took a fall?”

I smirked as I said, Took a fall.

I meant both ‘to take the blame’…

And to literally fall.

Like out of a bell tower.

Fausto knew exactly what I meant –

And he exploded.

“YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!” he screamed as he rushed at me.

“FAUSTO! STOP!” Don Severino shouted as he gestured at his men to intervene.

“Fool or patsy, Uncle? Fool or patsy?” I yelled as I quickly backed away.

“I’LL KILL YOU, YOU GODDAMN – ”

Severino’s foot soldiers grabbed Fausto and barely held him back as he lunged at me, screaming like a rabid animal.

“I’LL HAVE YOUR GODDAMN HEAD!”

“I think I’ll let the witness compose himself,” I said with a smile.

I turned to face my brothers and Lars –

Who were all staring at me in shock.

“The Council will recess immediately!” Don Severino shouted, then turned to face me. “Dario and Niccolo Rosolini – my private office – NOW!”