Black Death And White Roses (1) Mafia Romance

32. Heirs and slaves

Marco

"Now tell me, grandfather; why am I here?" I ask, looking over the richly decorated table to the man I haven't seen in over fifteen years.

We don't really know each other. He disowned my mother and didn't see her for years either, until her funeral.

I just remembered one time when I was about five when he and Grandmother came to see us. It ended in a fight and they never came back but I was too young to understand the reasons. I only remember my mother crying and hugging me desperately after they left; as if she wasn't miserable enough for not being able to be with Father.

People say my mother had been his favourite child, and all the love transformed into hate and disappointment when she ran off with, the married, Salvatore Messina whom Don Lorenzo Medici-Ricardi disliked profoundly even before all that.

Don Lorenzo is the most famous still-living capo in the world. Many things were rumoured about him over the years, many attempts were made to arrest him or even assassinate him, none of them successful. His area of influence stretches from around Rome to Florence, supposedly because of the weird fetish he has with his namesake from a few centuries ago. The official area; his unofficial influence is rumoured to be like a spider web or the tentacles of a squid, stretched all over the world and constricting at his whim when need be.

His residence is a marvellously refurbished Renaissance Palazzo on the outskirts of Rome. The walls are full of art and even the servants seem to have been chosen by a certain aesthetic. Rumours certainly have their basis in something.

Close to his eighties he still seems fit and just as shrewd and intelligent as in his youth; at least that is what rumours are saying. I  get to think he actively avoided meeting me all these years. In the gatherings between capos, we were never present at the same time and it also looks as if he actively avoided any type of business with Stefano. 

I look down at the food on the table, traditional north, and central Italian dishes, and at the blood-red wine in the glasses. Amarone della Valpolicella, my mother's favourite, or so did my father say, from '93, the year of my birth... Someone thought about this meeting.

"You," he says, clearing his throat. "You look a lot like your mother, not like your asshole of a father."

"I have been told that I have my mother's eyes, but answer the question, please; I am in a hurry."

I need to leave Italy as quickly as possible, old man.

"And where exactly do you want to hurry to? An early grave? You are hunted down by Stefano Messina and have for the time being no help whatsoever," he states with a phlegmatic expression.

Oh. He is making his reputation all honour. Well then... Let's play.

"And with all due respect, what do you care? You never did in twenty-seven years so why now?"

His lips stretch into a glacial smile over his sparsely wrinkled face.

"Christ in heaven, you are so much like her."

"If you don't tell me what you want, I am on my way. Regards for not shooting me though," I say, standing up.

"Sit the fuck down!" He hisses, losing all the calm from his tone. " You have several wounds on your body, smell like a middle-aged dungeon and have not eaten properly in days. You are here because Vincenzo and his children died two months ago. You are here because you are my only living heir, and because regardless of what Caterina did, I would never let her son die. You are my blood too, Marco, whether you want it or not."

His words reverberate in me like in an empty cave. I knew it. Since I read that article I knew it; still at the same time I ignored this fact so blatantly that it feels shocking now when someone is stating the obvious. I am his only living heir but what about it?