Page 20 of Niccolo (Mafia Kings #7)

W e went to my hotel room. I let him in first and followed him with the stiletto gripped tightly in my hand.

Once I closed the door, I said, “Alright, ten minutes. Go.”

He chuckled. “Do you want to set a timer?”

“I’m counting it off in my head. Go.”

“Does that come from playing chess?” he asked. “I guess you learn to keep track when you play in so many tournaments.”

I froze.

He had obviously done his homework –

And he decided to show off.

“Sofia Toscani,” he said with a genial smile. “One of the highest-ranked Italian grandmasters in chess, and the highest-ranked Italian female grandmaster – until you were banned from the International Chess Federation last year. I have to ask: did you actually cheat?”

“No, I did not,” I seethed.

“What happened, then?”

“A narcissist couldn’t handle being beaten, especially by a girl. When he framed me and accused me falsely, the old boys’ club backed him up.”

The man in the suit tsked . “That’s too bad.”

“What, that I was humiliated and blackballed for something I didn’t do?” I said acidly.

“That, obviously. But I meant the part about cheating.” He gave me a devilish smile. “You should try it sometime. I highly recommend it. In fact, it’s why I want to hire you. Because hiring you would be my way of cheating.”

I stared at him for a moment, intensely curious.

“Alright,” I admitted. “You just bought yourself an extra ten minutes.”

“My name is Fausto Rosolini,” the man said as we sat down – him on the bed, me on the only chair in the room. “I work as an importer/exporter.”

“So you’re high-ranking mafia.”

Fausto looked surprised. “Why do you say that?”

“First, there’s your expensive suit, your soft hands, manicure, and pricey haircut. You haven’t done a day of manual labor in your life. Which means you’re either old money, a financier or banker, or mafia.

“The fact that you handed me a stiletto down in the lobby rules out anything legal. No old money or financier would risk being caught with an illegal weapon. But you’re not a street thug, and your hands show you didn’t work your way up through the ranks.

My guess is you were born into a mafia family, you’re now at the top of the game, and you’re comfortable with weapons and illegalities.

The importer/exporter thing is just a front. Am I correct?”

He chuckled. “Right on the money. Does it bother you what I do?”

“Not at all. Unless you’re here to threaten, extort, or kill me.”

“As I said, I’m here to hire you.”

“Then it doesn’t bother me at all.”

“Why not?”

Hm…

How to explain?

My father had been a professor of game theory.

He was also a philanderer and a liar.

All those things probably explain why he’d drilled certain self-serving principles of game theory into me from a young age.

One of his favorite sayings was, There is no right and wrong; there are only choices.

He’d told me there’s the law…

And then there’s ethics.

In real life, they’re supposed to intersect. Note the heavy emphasis on ‘supposed to.’

But in game theory, ‘law’ and ‘ethics’ were just sets of rules that players could abide by if they wanted… or ignore if it served their purposes.

If they violated ethics or the law, players might face repercussions…

If they got caught.

But if they successfully got away with it, the benefits could be enormous.

In Papa’s opinion, ethics and the law weren’t immutable principles to be followed at all costs, but things you could ignore – as long as you were prepared to pay the price if you got caught.

For example, what the Danish grandmaster and the chess federation had done to me was ethically indefensible and probably illegal. Slander and fraud, most likely.

If I sued them and won, then they wouldn’t get away with it…

But that was a chance they were obviously willing to take.

According to the lawyer, the odds were high that they would get away with it.

I’d noticed that men got away with a lot in life, whether it was ethical or not. In general, women were held to a much higher standard.

Another of Papa’s sayings was, In chess, there is no right or wrong – there is only the game.

Judging by his willingness to run around on my mother, he thought the same thing about his personal conduct.

It’s important to note that in Italian, to cheat at a game is imbrogliare, or ‘to confuse.’

But to cheat on a spouse is tradire – ‘to betray.’

Personally, I thought cheating at a game like chess showed weakness.

A great chess player would never need to cheat because she could beat an opponent without breaking the rules.

Betraying someone?

That was more complicated.

I despised my father for cheating on my mother –

But if my mother knew about it, and she wasn’t prepared to stand up for herself… then wasn’t she at least partially to blame?

According to game theory, my father had played the game perfectly. He’d broken all the rules, acted unethically, and gotten what he wanted –

Yet he’d suffered no repercussions at all.

According to game theory, he’d won.

I guess he’d lost me… but as it turned out, he never cared that much for me anyway. So it was no great loss for him, I imagined.

I hated him for that… but I could at least understand it.

I guess my point was that – as a result of my father’s tutelage – I didn’t see the world in black and white. I saw it as an infinite spectrum of grey.

But how to convey that to Fausto?

In the end, I replied, “Let’s just say I was raised with an appreciation for moral relativity.”

He laughed. “So what you’re telling me is you’re… morally flexible?”

“Yes, but I’m also impatient. I’m happy to take your 10,000 euros, but I’d like to eventually find out why you’re giving it to me.”

“Alright – but answer this first: are you ‘morally flexible’ enough to work for the mafia?”

I considered that for a moment.

Working for a mafioso would be illegal…

Unethical…

But the rewards could potentially be enormous.

However, I had limits.

“I won’t help you hurt innocent people,” I said coldly. “That includes extortion, blackmail, or – ”

“I can stop you right there,” Fausto interrupted, “because none of the targets are civilians, and none of them are innocents. They’re all in the mafia.”

I raised one eyebrow. “So it’s dangerous, then.”

He smirked. “Only if you fail.”

Hmm.

The repercussions could be terrible…

However, they might be worth the risk if the rewards were enormous.

“It depends on the price, then,” I said.

“That’s the only consideration?”

“It’s a big one.”

“How about 10 million euros? Paid after successful completion of the job, of course.”

I froze.

Ten million euros was a lot of money. A LOT.

More money than I could earn in a lifetime of chess, unless I became the greatest player in the world…

And probably more than I could earn in years and years of poker, even if I became one of the greatest players in the world.

More than enough to fund the lawsuit against the Dane and the chess federation.

Despite my surprise at the amount, I kept trying to deduce what he wanted. It was an interesting exercise.

“So you don’t want my help to kill anyone, then.”

Fausto frowned. “How did you come to that conclusion?”

“You must employ hired killers in your line of work. I imagine you pay them – what, 5000 euros a month? Ten thousand? Twenty? You wouldn’t give someone 10 million euros to shoot someone unless it was – I don’t know, the Pope or an international leader.

And I would be utterly incompetent at something like that, so you can’t possibly want me for that . ”

“What if I said I wanted you to be a party to killing someone?”

I stared at him for a few seconds… and then it all clicked into place.

“You want me to help you plan something,” I realized. “Something big. Like wiping out a bunch of your enemies all at one time… like in The Godfather.”

Fausto nodded. “Exactly like The Godfather.”

One of the most famous scenes in the movie involves the coordinated assassinations of five mafia leaders…

Which ironically happens during the baptism of the main character’s infant daughter.

As his enemies are simultaneously killed in different locations across the country, Michael Corleone responds to the words of the priest:

Do you renounce Satan?

I do renounce him.

And all his works?

I do renounce them.

I didn’t believe in the devil, and his ‘works’ were nothing more than ‘choices’ in the context of game theory, so I didn’t really care about that part –

As long as mafiosos were the only targets.

But there was a bigger question.

“Why me?” I asked. “Surely you have people in your organization who could help you plan this sort of thing.”

“Actually, I don’t. My ‘organization’ is fairly new, and I don’t have all the pieces in place yet.

Even if I did, this operation is of the utmost secrecy…

which is why I want to bring in a total outsider.

Not only that, but I need a peerless strategist – someone who can think ten steps ahead of everyone else.

You’re a genius. That much is obvious. You beat the world champion of chess. ”

“He was only Number Two,” I pointed out, then added bitterly, “And it was wiped off the record.”

“Well, he was still Number Two in the world – and you beat him, no matter what the record says. Without cheating.”

“But I’m not sure I could beat him a second time. Especially not in a regular match instead of speed chess.”

Fausto shrugged. “If I wanted him, I would have approached him instead.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Fausto’s smile reminded me of a crocodile’s. “Because I also need someone who’s… morally flexible.”

“He had me framed, disgraced, and thrown out of the International Chess Federation. I’d say that’s ‘morally flexible.’”

Fausto shook his head. “No, that’s being petulant and a whiner. He’s weak.”

I had to admit, he scored points with me on that answer.

Fausto continued. “More importantly, I need someone who doesn’t care about the flimsy trappings of reputation, because they have nothing left to lose.”

“Someone desperate,” I said, finally understanding.

Fausto smiled again. “Someone desperate.”

The truth stung my ego…

But the old man wasn’t wrong.

So I gave serious thought to what he was proposing.

I felt no moral pangs about potentially agreeing to Fausto’s deal.

If the world had a few less murdering, thieving mafiosos in it… wasn’t that a good thing?

Yes, I knew that rationale was absolutely self-serving –

But as long as no innocent people got hurt, I didn’t care.

A voice in my head whispered, But what about their wives? What about their children?

I could have argued my way out of that moral conundrum if I wanted to –

But I wasn’t sure I could live with myself if I did.

“Are they married?” I asked. “Do they have children?”

“No, and no,” Fausto replied, to my relief. “They don’t even have significant others, so far as I know.”

Good.

I thought about it some more.

I knew that if I agreed to Fausto’s deal, I would be doing it as a sort of substitute revenge.

On an emotional level, I’d obviously found it abhorrent to seek revenge on my father…

And though I would have gladly destroyed the Danish grandmaster and his chess federation cronies, the odds were against it.

But aiding in the deaths of a bunch of thieves and murderers –

Who also happened to be men who preyed upon others?

Who lied and cheated and abused the innocent?

Not the worst thing in the world to destroy them.

Potentially very dangerous, yes –

But honestly, it was also kind of exciting.

This could really be interesting…

A challenge unlike anything I’d faced before.

A real-world application of every principle I’d ever learned in chess.

Plus, 10 million euros would solve all my problems for the rest of my life –

Or at least the monetary ones.

“One more question,” I said. “Who exactly are these people you want dead? Enemies? Business rivals?”

“All of the above,” Fausto said with a smile. “But more importantly… they’re my nephews.”