Page 7 of Niccolo (Mafia Kings #7)

I was there in Milan the day Dario walked into San Vittore, as were all my brothers.

Papa and Fausto stayed at home, and rightly so. They would have unnecessarily made themselves targets of our rivals.

Still, it broke Papa’s heart not to be there.

Fausto… not so much.

Dario said his goodbyes to us in the parking lot of San Vittore, hugging us and reassuring us that he’d be just fine.

When he got to me, he grinned. “Don’t be so glum, future consigliere. This is a minor setback. One day, we’re going to rule the world.”

I comforted myself with those words as he walked inside and was taken into custody by the guards.

One day, we’re going to rule the world…

The next time I saw my brother, it was behind a scratched plexiglass barrier in the prison visiting room.

Although we’d bribed the warden to give Dario a private prison cell and basic amenities – like supplies, pans to cook his own food in, and bottles of wine from our vineyards – we were all scared to death that something would happen to him.

Papa had plenty of enemies locked up in San Vittore, and any one of them would have loved to kill one of his sons.

Imagine my surprise when he was not only in good spirits inside that hellhole, but seemed to be thriving.

We had to go in one by one to see him. I was the last.

The others had told me what to expect, but even then, I didn’t believe how good he looked.

I sat down on the visitor’s side of the barrier and picked up the scarred, battered handset on its metal cord.

“Consigliere,” he said cheerfully over the phone.

“Don’t bullshit me like the others,” I warned.

He chuckled. “I wasn’t bullshitting them.”

“You look good – excellent, even – but is it a front?”

“Not at all.”

“Have you been in danger?”

He smiled wryly. “You told me not to bullshit you, so I won’t. It’s been dangerous at times.”

“Who’s the main danger?”

“Aristide Caproni.”

I swore under my breath.

Caproni was a high-ranking member of the Camorra, the organized crime group that dominated Naples and the surrounding areas.

A Cosa Nostra family named Amato had been challenging the Camorra’s rule for decades, but they’d only been partially successful.

At best, the Amatos controlled half of the city, and that was on a good day.

In general, the Camorra and the Cosa Nostra hated each other anyway – but years ago, Papa had been one of the Amato family’s greatest allies, providing money and logistical support for their operations. Which was why Aristide Caproni held a particular enmity for us.

“Has he tried to attack you?”

“Not directly, but I think he’s behind several attempts.”

“SEVERAL?!”

“Calm down, Machiavelli.”

“Calm down?! Why aren’t you more stressed?! You’re the one in danger of getting shivved, and yet you’re sitting there grinning like the cat who ate the canary!”

“As it so happens, I’ve made an excellent ally in here. A Swede.”

And that was how I first heard about Lars.

Lars was a blessing and a boon to our family.

I am convinced he was the only reason Dario survived San Vittore…

And he was a huge part of why our family was able to weather the calamities to come.

Because Lars was so valuable to us, I initially resisted when Dario asked me to have our family’s best lawyer review Lars’s case to see if it could be overturned in court.

But I did.

I cannot overstate how relieved I was when Lars himself decided not to challenge his sentence.

Selfish, I know.

But if I couldn’t be there to help my brother, I was grateful someone else could –

And a veteran of the Swedish Special Forces, to boot.

Three and a half years later, it was with great trepidation that I found out Lars was to be paroled.

I was desperately worried that Dario would be assassinated after Lars was gone.

However, my brother assured me that Lars had taught him the skills necessary to survive the final six months of his sentence.

Besides, Aristide Caproni was long dead – ‘mysteriously’ killed during a prison riot.

I never asked if it was Dario or Lars who did it, though I assumed they were both involved. I didn’t find out until later who struck the killing blow.

But at least Dario’s worst enemy was dead.

I knew there would be blowback from the Camorra someday, but at that point, we had much bigger problems.

Like making sure Dario got out of prison alive.

During the phone call when I found out Lars would be released in a week, Dario sprang something else on me.

“He had a girlfriend on the outside who seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth. I need you to find her.”

I frowned. “Does he think she died?”

“No. She just cut off all forms of communication.”

“That’s usually a pretty clear indication she doesn’t want to be found.”

“Niccolo…”

“Alright, fine – what’s her name?” I asked as I got a pen and a piece of paper.

“Rachel Bauer. B-A-U-E-R. But that probably won’t help you. Lars says it’s not her real last name.”

“Okay… what was her last known address, then?”

“Lars says he doesn’t know.”

“He doesn’t know?!”

“They always met at his hotel.”

“Are you sure he didn’t just fall in love with an escort?”

“Very funny.”

“I’m not being funny. Or just barely. Last known phone number?”

“It was out of order by the time he entered prison.”

“Email address?”

“She doesn’t answer. He thinks the email address was a burner – she would change them every 30 days or so.”

“What the fuck was she, a drug dealer?!”

“Niccolo – ”

“How the fuck do you expect me to FIND this woman if that’s all I have to go on, and she doesn’t want to be found?!”

“Her mother worked at a hotel in Pescara roughly 30 years ago. She was a beauty in her youth and got pregnant by a Brit on vacation. Then she left to go join him in England. If you find the mother, I’m pretty sure you’ll find the daughter.”

I waited for him to continue.

When he didn’t, I sighed. “That’s all you have?”

“That’s it.”

“You enjoy making things hard for me, don’t you?”

“Of course. But I have faith in you.”

“Wonderful.”

“One more thing.”

“Let me guess: you want it done in the next 24 hours.”

“You have a week for that part. No, I need you to tell Papa I want him to offer Lars a job.”

That part I had been expecting. Dario had been pretty vocal over the last three years about hiring Lars as soon as he was released.

In fact, we’d sent a crooked cop on our payroll to give Lars a loyalty test. The cop told Lars his prison sentence would be commuted if he would just testify against Dario. Lars didn’t even have to tell the truth – he could just make shit up.

Lars had told the cop to go fuck himself.

So Lars was alright in my book, even though I’d never met him.

“I thought I was supposed to find out about the girlfriend.”

“You are.”

“You think he’s going to accept a job offer if the Runaway Bride takes him back?”

Dario sighed. “That’s the thing. For HIS sake, I hope she does… but for our sake, I hope she doesn’t.”

“We could just tell him we looked but couldn’t find her.”

“NO. Make a full attempt. Spare no expense. I owe him that.”

“You don’t owe him anything.”

“Yes, I DO. Besides, if he’s going to work with us, he needs to choose it of his own free will – and as long as this woman’s out there, she’ll be like a ghost haunting him.

He either needs to find her and pick up where he left off…

or he needs to rid himself of her completely.

Either way, he won’t be of any use to us until the issue is settled.

So do everything in your power to find her. ”

“…alright.”

“If Lars does end up calling you, I want you to roll out the red carpet for him. I want Roberto to make our offer irresistible. I want him on our team, Niccolo. Fight for him – even if Fausto balks.”

I laughed. “Ahhh, now you’ve sweetened the deal for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“If Fausto balks, I’ll do everything I can to get Lars to come work for us – just so I can piss off Dear Old Uncle.”

In the end, I didn’t have to go to the mat on Lars’s behalf. Papa was charmed by him, and even Fausto was impressed. There was no denying the man’s competence.

He started right away.

I must admit, in the beginning, Lars rubbed me the wrong way occasionally… but only because he demanded a level of excellence in our operations that had been sorely lacking before his arrival.

He suggested upgrading every single window in our house to bulletproof glass.

He trained our foot soldiers relentlessly in tactics he’d learned in Special Forces.

And he even forced my brothers and me to join in the training – which did not endear him to me, let me tell you.

But when the hard times finally came, it was Lars’s demand for excellence – and all the training he’d insisted upon – that saved our asses.