Page 62 of The Mad Don
“Why come to me? For all you know, I could be the one colluding with him.”
I nearly laugh into the cup. Fabiano would open his own throat before he sat at a table with a Russian. Whatever he is doing, he is doing it with an Italian family power behind him, one of the old families or several, the ones who never forgave me for taking a seat I wasn’t born to. He would never go against me without that backing, which makes Kirill, whom Fabiano holds in open contempt, the cleanest pair of hands in the city.
“You’re not,” I say. “I’m certain of that. Which is why I’m asking you.”
“And why,” he says, turning his cup a quarter-turn on the saucer without lifting it, “would I do you any favors at all?”
I set my own cup down.
“I was never meant to be Don,” I say.
His eyes come up off the cup.
“My family has no history in this. We are not blooded. There is no name behind me that any of the old houses respect. I clawed my way to this seat through a great deal of blood, and I held it by making allies of the families who could have crushed me if they had felt like it. I gave them favors. I did the dirty work, and they trusted me because I owed them; that arrangement has kept me standing for three years.”
I hold his gaze.
“I did all of it for one reason. One person.”
“My sister.”
He leans in, just slightly, his forearms settling on the table.
“Aren’t you anxious,” he says, almost gently, “that I might hurt her? You’ve kept her a secret this long.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I know you won’t.” I let the smile come back, smaller now. “You took an unfair deal to protect your family. You are not the kind of man who pokes the one person who could erase his own. You won’t touch my sister. You wouldn’t take the risk.”
He nods, conceding the read.
“I have no reason to target your family,” he says. “So why am I here, Mondi?”
“You may know this, or you may not,” I say. “My sister is ill. She has been for years. Yana suspects the illness isn’t natural. And I have come to suspect my second is making arrangements behind my back.” I turn my cup on its saucer, the same gesture he made, and I see him notice it. “I think the two things are one thing. Yana saw Fabiano at the gallery, walking a man out to a car. A doctor I have been trying to reach for a long time. Fabiano was taking him away without my knowledge.”
“What doctor?”
I tell him the name.
“He takes five consultations a year,” I say. “By gift. You earn his attention with art. It is the only door in.”
Kirill shakes his head slowly. Something close to amusement touches his mouth and does not stay.
“No,” he says. “That isn’t how he works. He takes patients by invitation. He reviews the case and decides. No gifts or auctions or paintings.” He picks up his tea now, at last, and drinks, watching me over the rim. “He set my arm once, a break I took on a job, and there was no gifting involved. I paid him well; he is one of the best.”
I look at him for a long moment.
He is not lying. Which means everything I have ever been told about reaching that doctor — the art, the auctions, the five ayear, the impossible little rituals — every word of it reached me through one set of hands. The same hands that have managed all the correspondence.
Fabiano. Fabiano has been lying to me about reaching the doctor.
“It’s settled, then,” Kirill says, setting the cup down. “Yourcapois playing you for a fool.” A pause. “Yana doesn’t lie. If she saw him, she saw him.”
I sit up straighter.
“I need your help to protect my sister.”
His eyebrows lift a fraction.
“If Fabiano has turned on me,” I say, “he has not done it alone. He has families behind him. I have some support, but some of them have wanted me out of this seat from the day I took it, and now, they have found a man on the inside who will help them take me out.” I keep my voice level. “I cannot fight all of them. I have allies, and I have my men, but the moment Fabiano declares war openly, with powerful backing, half of those allies will look at the math and step back. They will not die for me.”
