Page 5 of Niccolo (Mafia Kings #7)

A fter I officially became consigliere, bad days came in waves, one after another.

But before I took over, there were two days that stood out in memory as particularly horrible.

One was the day my mother died.

We knew the end was approaching long before it arrived.

She didn’t want to be put in hospice to die among strangers, so Papa set up a special room for her in our mansion. He stocked it with all the necessary medical equipment and hired a team of three nurses so someone was there round the clock.

He considered having a doctor stay in the house, too, but the people he approached all told him the same thing: it wasn’t necessary. The only thing to be done was to make her as comfortable as possible.

In the end, she was too weak to play chess. Our visits were limited to me sitting by her bed and holding her hand.

When she wasn’t drifting in and out of a morphine haze, we would talk.

“…I’m worried about you, Nico,” she told me once, using the nickname for Niccolo.

“You’re worried about me?!” I said, forcing a jocular tone. “I’m not the one with cancer.”

“…be serious,” she murmured, though she smiled. “…I want you to be happy… and I worry about you more than your brothers…”

“You should worry about Roberto. He only loves spreadsheets and accounting. Or worry about Adriano – that temper of his is going to get him in trouble one day.”

“…but Roberto knows what he loves… he’s always known, ever since he was little…”

“True,” I admitted.

“…and Adriano will mellow in time…”

I scoffed playfully. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

“…but you… what do you love?”

“I love you. I love being here with you.”

“…that’s sweet… but when I’m gone… you need something else to love. What will it be?”

I sat there and thought for a moment.

I liked girls – but I’d only dated a few, and to be honest, I hadn’t come even remotely close to falling in love.

I liked being Uncle Fausto’s apprentice, but it was a lot of learning and studying with very little real-world application. So far.

And it wasn’t really that I loved the idea of becoming a consigliere…

But there was definitely something about it… a fundamental thing beneath it that fascinated me.

And just like that, I knew.

“I love the Game,” I said seriously.

“…chess…?” she asked with a frown.

“No. I mean, I like chess, yes… but I meant that I enjoy a contest with a worthy opponent. Someone to challenge me. Someone to pit my wits against. Someone who makes me sharper, stronger, better, just by playing them.”

She smiled in recognition. “…that’s a good answer…I hope you find her sooner rather than later, Nico…”

And she drifted off again into sleep.

She regained consciousness a couple more times in the days to come. A couple of times with my father and me, and once when all my brothers said their tearful goodbyes…

But not long after that, she was gone.

When she passed, I was crushed with grief. I had been mentally preparing myself for it for months… but when the time came, I realized nothing could truly prepare me. It was a dagger to the heart, and it felt like the pain would never go away.

It wasn’t her passing, specifically, that hurt so much.

It was a quiet moment after she’d been pronounced dead by the nurse on duty, and we all gathered to pay our respects. My brothers kissed her on the forehead, and Uncle Fausto squeezed her hand. Even Aurelio was somber and kind as he laid a fresh-cut rose at the foot of her bed.

My father asked us all for a moment to be alone with her.

My brothers left…

But I stayed in the hallway in case he needed me.

Through the closed door, I heard him say something.

I drew closer, thinking he might be speaking to me –

But then I heard what he was saying.

He was speaking to her, calling her by name.

“Viviana,” he said in anguish and despair. “What will I do now? Viviana… what will I do now?”

He kept repeating it, over and over, his voice wracked with grief.

It was that moment, more than any other, that destroyed me.

We buried her out in the olive groves near the house.

The funeral was somber and small, with only a few attendees.

My father, me and my brothers, and Fausto and Aurelio…

Mama’s two sisters – her only surviving relatives since her parents had both passed…

And all the household staff, who had cared for her deeply. She had always been kind to them, even when she was in terrible pain.

She was well-loved in life… and all the most important people were there for her at the end.

Every day for ten years, my father visited her grave.

He never remarried – and to my knowledge, he never so much as looked at another woman again.

After a couple of years passed, my brothers gently suggested he start dating, but he refused. Eventually, he forbade them to stop asking.

I recalled something my mother had said while we played chess so many years before:

I’ve lost my gentildonna… and I can’t go on without her.

Obviously, Papa did go on, at least in some regards.

He continued his role as the head of the family business… and he loved my brothers and me even more fiercely, treasuring every day with us.

But there was a part of him that went away when she did, never to return.

Unlike my brothers, who worried about him, I took a different view.

I want to find a woman like that.

A woman I love so completely that no one else compares…

A queen.

And maybe… just maybe…

One who can match me – and maybe even best me – in the Game.