Page 80 of Damiano De Luca (The Five Syndicates)
Her smile slipped. “I can assure you the Vienna opening is effective. Far more effective than your father’s preferred King’s Gambit.” She reached out, knocked over the dark king, and sent me a serene smile. “Game over.”
“This isn’t just a game, Maman.”
“No, it’s not.”
“All those years ago, you sent me to Italy on purpose. You knew Papà was having an affair, and you knew I’d find out.”
She leaned back in her seat. “Ah, so you’ve figured it out…”
“How are you so calm about this?”
“I didn’t raise an idiot.” Actual pride beamed in her
eyes. “I knew you’d figure it out eventually.”
“I don’t know how you did it, but you convinced Papà to send me to De Luca territory.”
How could I have missed this?!
Maman pressed the call button for a butler. “I may have suggested it to his consiglieri.”
Papà’s consiglieri married Maman’s childhood friend. Thanks to that friendship, he’d always had a soft spot for Maman.
“And you’ve been helping the De Luca syndicate. Damian… to what end? Are you trying to take over Damian’s syndicate?” I shook my head. That would never happen. Not even over the dead bodies of every other syndicate. I met Maman’s eyes again. “You’re tethering yourself to the De Luca family by helping them. And through me.”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve just met with someone from the FBI, which has to be connected to Ariana De Luca. But she likely came to L’Oscurità as a result of the bodies dropping after Niccolaio Andretti’s hit raised to five million dollars. How did you pull that off?”
“I had nothing to do with the hit. It was merely a fortuitous event, which moved a few pieces on the board in my favor.”
“But that hit resulted in Vince’s death. How could you do that to him?”
She looked away. “He had cancer. He knew what he was doing?”
“Was he involved?”
She didn’t answer.
My eyes narrowed, and my voice hardened. “Maman, was Vincent Romano involved in all this?”
“Yes.” Her fingers reached out and toyed with the slain dark king. “Vincent was a good man. We both knew this. Ask yourself why he would involve himself in something nefarious.”
Answer: he wouldn’t.
Which meant there had to be some good end game here, but I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see past the damned betrayal.
Pull yourself together, Ren.
“You sent me to New York for Vince’s funeral, reconnecting me with Damian. You kept telling me to let my guard down, which means you want me with Damian. To what end?”
Her eyes dipped to the chessboard, tracing the length of the fallen dark king. “Checkmate.”
“Please, tell me the dark king is not Papà.”
“I could tell you no, but I’d be lying, my little warrior. And what would be the point in lying at this point?”
The butler entered the library, and Maman ordered a peach water like my perception of her hadn’t just done a total one-eighty in the span of a day. I wanted to leave, but I was frozen, incapable of looking away from her.
