Page 137 of Mafia Kings: Dario

“I – I don’t know, not for sure, but Lars thinks you’re working with some family in Genoa.”

“Lars,” the Turk said, nodding. “He was the one who gunned down Umberto. Ah, well… Berto should have been faster on the draw. What about the priest and my other associate you encountered last week?”

“I don’tknowwhat they think,” I said quietly, trying to keep my fear under control. “I know Niccolo was trying to find out who they were – but if he did, no one ever told me.”

As I spoke, my mind worked at a thousand miles a minute.

How had they known I was coming?!

Or was this all some horrible coincidence?!

“What about the hit in Florence?” the Turk asked. “What are their thoughts on that?”

“They think you did it because Dario wouldn’t let you smuggle women through his territory. Or that the family that controls Florence did it for you.”

The Turk laughed. “Good. Goooood.”

He sat down between my father and me and poured out a shot of whiskey.

“Would you care for some? No? Ah, that’s right… you’re a good girl, aren’t you?” he said mockingly, then downed the liquor. “Alessandra, tell me… what doyouthink about everything that’s happened over the last two weeks?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

“Surely you must have some thoughts. For instance, did poor Umberto say anything to you before he met his untimely end?”

I remembered a detail I hadn’t thought of since right after the shooting.

“He said… ‘tell your father my compliments to the chef.’ Like he knew Papa.”

“Because hedidknow your father, Alessandra,” the Turk said. “In fact, Umberto and your father wereverywell acquainted.”

I stared at Papa.

He wouldn’t look back at me. Instead, he just stared at the table.

“How did you know him?” I whispered.

“We’ll get there,” the Turk said. “But first… don’t you find it remarkable that you were in the middle of a gunfight in Florence, yet you never got hit?”

“Massimo saved me.”

“Yes… and no. The truth is,yousavedMassimo.You see, my men in Florence – and theyweremy men, although the Agrellas gave their consent – my men were tryingnotto hityou.Their highest priority was that youmustbe taken unharmed. Because Massimo kept so close to you, they couldn’t concentrate all their firepower on him. They were able to wound him, yes, but they couldn’t go all out… not without endangeringyou.”

I stared at the Turk in shock.

Was it true?

Had I not been an accidental witness to the violence –

But the reason it had occurred in the first place?

“Why?” I asked in bewilderment.

“Let me tell you a story,” the Turk said with a smile. “There once was a young woman who grew up in a family of theCosa Nostra. She was promised to a young man from another family in order to make an alliance. But unbeknownst to her parents, she fell in love with a servant in the household. He was older than her, roughly ten years her senior. Theirs was a forbidden love. If the family had found out, he would have been executed immediately.

“A month before her arranged marriage, the young woman found out she was pregnant. The servant – who loved her more than anything – risked his life to help her escape the city her parents controlled. They fled together with their unborn child and never looked back.

“The family searched for years – in Europe, America, even Russia and the Far East – but no clue ever turned up. Little did they know that their daughter had disappeared by stayingcloseto home… right under her family’s noses.

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