Page 30 of La Dolce Vita

"Yeah, I've been thinking about the business. The clans and the drugs have split our interests. The Benicias are benefiting the most," Giovanni said.

"Yes. They are," Dominic agreed.

"And the inspector. Is he still sniffing in our garden?"

"I hear he's got a task force together. And some agents work for him undercover to get close to you. I haven't found any in our clan, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. We take them now younger and younger. And we lost a lot of men in the war with Hyogo. Some families have turned against us."

"That may prove useful. Chaos." Giovanni sighed. "Let me sleep on it. Call in Lorenzo, the rest, and we'll meet. Discuss it. Wait? Where are Carlo and Renaldo? I haven't seen them in weeks."

"Carlo went to America," Dominic said.

Giovanni’s brow arched. "Why?"

"Not sure, something Lorenzo wanted him to do I suppose."

"But I thought I gave him time off. To work through things."

Dominic shrugged. "Renaldo is back and forth from Milano to Roma. He and his new wife are expecting a baby. Remember?"

"What's in Roma?"

Dominic didn't answer.

Giovanni narrowed his eyes on hisconsigliere. "What's in Roma?"

"They think Isabella has fled there. He's been on the hunt. We were waiting to tell you once Lorenzo located her." Giovanni’s jaw clenched.

“She hasn’t,” he mumbled, and kept his thoughts to himself. He appreciated the effort from Renaldo. He was grateful for his enforcer's speedy recovery. The man was a machine. To take as many hits as he did, and still be able to run with the beasts took the strength of character, mind, and body.

"I can stay tonight. We can talk about whatever you want," Dominic said as he glanced over to the liquor cabinet. Giovanni chuckled in his throat. Dominic and Mirabella both thought he drank too much. Neither realized that it was part of the job. Dominic picked up Giovanni's gun and inspected it. Giovanni sat forward. He stared at the weapon.

"You know why I call him Danny Boy?" Giovanni asked.

Dominic looked at the gun and then to Giovanni, and then back at the gun again. "We all name our guns."

"Danny Boy isn't a common name," Giovanni said.

"I thought it was because ofMadre. Because she is Irish. She sang the song whenPatridied. Right?"

"Yes. Ireland. My mother. My time there." Giovanni recalled it all. "When I was aÓ Ceallacháin, an O’Callaghan, my grandfather said that we had blood ties all the way back to the King of Munster."

"A King?" Dominic’s eyes lit like they did when he was a boy. Giovanni knew he loved stories of kings and Roman Caesars. He even collected stolen Roman artifacts and studied everything about Julius Caesar.

Giovanni nodded.

"But since I was half Sicilian my blood was tainted. I had one friend, a cousin. Different from Lorenzo, but tough and strong like him. It was my cousin that taught me how to load, shoot, and unload a gun. When my grandfather found out, he didn't punish us. Instead, he gave me that one."

"Patritaught you to shoot a gun I thought?" Dominic asked.

"No. He never did. Before Mama and I left he showed me how to kill a man, but he never put a gun in my hand," Giovanni said.

"What was the name of this cousin?" Dominic pressed.

"His name now is Henry Neil. He dropped the family name and fled Ireland when he was only seventeen. He lives in America," Giovanni said. It was this cousin that told him he wasn't a freak but a warrior. Said to him he should return to his father and not let his mother stop him.

"Danny Boy is a song my cousin Henry used to whistle all the time. He'd see me crying, or bruised and trying to conceal my wounds after the boys had kicked me around. He taught me how to fight back, fist to fist, before ever going for my gun."

"Song? What did it mean?" Dominic asked.

---