Page 3 of Niccolo (Mafia Kings #7)

G rowing up, there was Mama, Papa, my brothers…

And Uncle Fausto and my cousin Aurelio.

They had lived with us for as long as I could remember.

Aurelio was a year older than me, the same age as Adriano.

I barely remember Aunt Felicia, Aurelio’s mother. I’d only been five years old when she passed. She died giving birth. The baby had been severely premature and hadn’t survived, either.

Fausto never remarried, though I found out later that he carried on a series of clandestine affairs with much younger women. I didn’t discover that fact until I was in my teens.

None of us thought it odd that Aurelio didn’t have a mother. It just was the way things were. We had Mama and Papa, and Aurelio had Uncle Fausto. End of story.

Although everyone liked Uncle Fausto, my brothers and I would have been glad if he’d found another wife and moved out –

Because we hated Aurelio.

I might have been annoying as a child, but Aurelio was a vicious little shit: arrogant, cruel, sarcastic, and a complete asshole.

The only positive thing about him was that he made me look like an angel by comparison. No matter how much I annoyed Adriano and Valentino, I could always count on Aurelio to do something to really piss them off and take the heat off of me.

Uncle Fausto would occasionally scold Aurelio, but he never disciplined him. He told me once that whenever he looked at his son, he thought of his deceased wife. Maybe that was why he could never bear to raise a hand to him.

Mama and Papa seemed to pity Aurelio because he’d lost his mother and did their best to treat him with love – though he mostly returned their affections with sullen scorn.

Maybe it was growing up without a mother…

Or maybe he was just born bad.

Whatever the case, we all fucking hated Aurelio – and he hated us in turn.

In contrast, I loved Uncle Fausto.

My other brothers were fond of him, but I adored him nearly as much as I did Dario and Mama.

My relationship with Papa was a bit fraught. He loved me in his own way… and he went to great lengths not to play favorites… but I was a perceptive child. I could tell he gravitated towards my more rambunctious, rough-and-tumble brothers, probably because they reminded him of himself.

Dario, Adriano, and Massimo got the lion’s share of his attention (although he was brutally hard on Adriano because of his temper and lack of emotional control). Valentino got coddled because Val was the baby.

But Papa never quite knew what to do with me and Roberto. We were the oddballs. Roberto, the kid who loved playing Accountant with his pencils and pens lined neatly in a row – and me, the little Know-It-All.

But Uncle Fausto delighted in me.

I would see a twinkle in his eye whenever I made a particularly clever joke or pun.

He might have been able to tell me apart from my twin when I imitated Roberto – but he played along when everyone else just got exasperated.

He would interrogate me, asking me questions, trying to get me to stumble and make a mistake.

It was because of Uncle Fausto that I became an expert at imitating Roberto.

And he chuckled every time I infuriated my brothers with one of my annoying schemes.

I was 13 years old when he laughed after one of my con-man escapades and said, “My little Machiavelli.”

“What’s a Machiavelli?”

“He was a Renaissance philosopher and political advisor. The two of you share your first name – Niccolo. He was one of the smartest men who ever lived.”

“Like Albert Einstein?”

“No. Einstein was a scientific genius. He discovered the secrets of the universe: matter, energy, and time. Machiavelli plumbed the depths of men’s minds and hearts: why they acted the way they did, and how to manipulate them.”

“Like Tom Sawyer,” I suggested.

Fausto laughed. “Yes, I suppose so. Italy’s own Tom Sawyer.”

That sold me. I immediately went to my father’s study and searched his books for anything by Machiavelli.

The only thing I found was an old copy of Il Principe – ‘The Prince.’

I devoured it. It was tough going at first, but it became easier as I grew accustomed to Machiavelli’s old-fashioned language.

Fausto came upon me reading it the next day.

“Ah,” he said, impressed. “I see you found your namesake’s most famous work. What do you think?”

I thought about how to sum up everything I’d read.

“…I think he makes a lot of sense,” I finally said.

Fausto regarded me in silence for a moment. Then he said, “You know, I consider Machiavelli to be the first consigliere. Do you know what that is?”

Of course I did. I wasn’t stupid.

Though Papa took pains to keep the details of his business from me and my brothers, he still told us stories about Nonni – Italian for ‘grandfather’ – and how he had come over from Sicily to make a better life for his family.

I learned that Nonni had been part of a group of businessmen called the Cosa Nostra – ‘Our Thing’ in English.

Papa and Uncle Fausto were part of the Cosa Nostra, since they’d inherited the family business from Nonni. One day, my brothers and I would be part of the family business, too.

There were always men in black suits and ties who worked for our family stationed throughout the mansion’s hallways.

‘Bodyguards,’ Papa called them… though I later learned the real term for them: foot soldiers.

Not to mention the time that Mama had led us children out through a secret passageway when armed men attacked the house.

Only Dario had stayed behind to help my father and the foot soldiers defend the mansion.

I was 11 at the time. Adriano had been 13 and complained bitterly for months afterward that he hadn’t been allowed to stay with Papa and Dario.

Our father and uncle taught us the rules from an early age:

Never talk to a policeman.

Never betray a family member.

If you swear on something you love, you never, ever break that promise. EVER.

And while I didn’t know the exact mechanisms of my father’s business, I knew that he was what was called a don – the old name for a master or lord.

His advisor, his right-hand man, was called his consigliere. The don’s counselor.

“You’re Papa’s consigliere,” I said.

Fausto cocked his head. “I never told you that.”

“I hear things.”

My uncle gave me a wry smile, then said, “Come with me.”

I followed him to the parlor at the front of the house. Uncle Fausto knocked once and walked right in without my father saying, Come in.

Which was unthinkable for anyone else. We children were forbidden to interrupt our father when the door was closed unless it was a matter of life and death –

Like men with guns attacking the house.

My father looked up from his desk and squinted at me. “Ah, Fausto… has my son been naughty?”

“Quite the contrary. Show him what you’ve been reading, Niccolo.”

I held up the copy of The Prince.

My father’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s pretty heavy reading for a kid your age.”

I just shrugged. “It’s okay.”

“What’s your favorite part so far?” Uncle Fausto asked me.

I thought for a second. “I like the part where Machiavelli says, ‘Everyone sees what you appear to be, but few really know what you are.’”

“Why do you like that part in particular?” Fausto asked.

“It’s sort of like when I play Roberto, and nobody knows who I really am.”

“And what do you like about it?”

“Fooling people.”

Uncle Fausto gave a sly look at my father, then asked me, “What would you say the main message of the book is?”

“Machiavelli’s trying to help the Prince be a good ruler. But to be a good ruler, sometimes you have to do bad things. Or, at least, things other people think are bad.”

“From what you’ve read so far, would you want to be a ruler one day, like the Prince?”

“Not really.”

“Why not?”

“It seems like a really hard job. Plus everybody’s always trying to kill you.”

Papa chuckled, though I didn’t understand why.

“What would you rather do, then, if you weren’t the Prince?” Uncle Fausto asked.

“I think I’d like to be like Machiavelli.”

“And why is that?”

“Because he’s good at getting people to do what he wants. Fooling them. I think I’d like that, too.”

Uncle Fausto smiled proudly, then turned to my father. “I think it’s time I took an apprentice.”