Page 87 of The Mad Don
The men force me down. Fabiano stamps on my hands twice, and the pain shoots up both arms. He throws his head back and laughs at the sky.
“You made me act like a dog,” he says. “To you. In front of everyone. For years. Now look.” He crouches close. “Now, you’re the dog.”
“Am I?” I mock. I am just having fun here.
He fumes with rage. “How dare you. How dare you still be arrogant —”
He puts the gun against my forehead, and I watch his face contort.
“I liked your sister,” he says. “Did you know that? The doctor poisoned her that night. She died. It was me. Your Russian whore didn’t do a thing — that was me.” Spit flies. “And the brother you had me find? I found him. I found him, and I gave her his body in the rain, and I watched her sob over it. Then I gave her the gun she shot you with before she ended herself. I won. I won, Mondi. You have nothing. Not your seat. Not your sister. Not your lover. And soon, not your life. Ha ha ha —”
I’ve never noticed before what a terrible laugh he has. I let him have it all.
After all, none of it is true, and the not-knowing is the last thing of mine he’ll ever get to enjoy.
I met the doctor, Fabiano, the night before it all happened. The poison Fabiano gave my sister that night was a clean fluid. While Yana slept in my bed, I went to Lucia’s room. The maids put the powder into her skin until she was the gray of a corpse, purple at the lips. I told her the truth that Fabiano would kill her and Yana if she didn’t lie still. Then I gave her a small pill to slow her pulse just enough and made her drink a glass of cold water a few minutes before Fabiano burst in. By morning, her skin was cold to the touch, and I made certain Yana, half-asleep and terrified, felt a pulse already slow by nature and read it as nothing. I didn’t let her check twice, so she would find out.
For Christov. I knew Fabiano would move on Christov to break her. Kirill and I pooled everything we had and found the boy; luckily, he was working for an Italian family loyal to me, as it happened, easy to free. He’s been safe with Kirill for days. Iswapped in a body, faceless, and planted the birthmark myself in case Fabiano grew suspicious. I couldn’t stop him from showing her the corpse. So I put Kirill’s men behind her in the dark instead, the whole way, in case it went wrong. When they radioed that she was walking that field alone, I nearly threw the entire plan away and went to her myself.
Kirill talked me down. She can handle it, he said.
She always could.
“You can’t even admit you’ve lost,” Fabiano says.
I scoff.
He grabs the front of my shirt and punches me. “I’ll pay back every humiliation. Every time you made me bow. Every order. Every errand you sent me on, like I was nothing. Everything you took from me —”
“You mean Valentina?” I laugh, and it splits my lip wider. “She didn’t want you, Fabiano. She never wanted you.”
“Shut up.” He hits me again. “Shut up.” He’s breathing like a man drowning. “I’ll kill you. But not here. Not quick.” He straightens and turns to his men, and his voice tears out of him. “Take him outside. I’ll tear him apart myself.”
* * *
They leashed me to a post in the middle of my own courtyard. The rope cuts into my wrists behind my back, and the sun is straight overhead now, white and merciless, and Fabiano is in the center of the yard drinking my wine straight from my bottle. He sways as he drinks. His men ring him, slapping his shoulders, laughing too loudly, calling him Don. The word goes into him like a drug. His cheeks are flushed, and his eyes are too bright, and his mouth keeps pulling into a grin he can’t hold steady.
He comes to me. He bends me and takes my hand where it’s bound and slides the ring off my finger, dragging it past the knuckle, and he holds it up so it catches the light. His eyes follow it like a man watching something he’s wanted his whole life finally land in his palm.
“This seat was always mine,” he says.
I laugh.
“Congratulations, then.”
His grin breaks. The muscle in his jaw jumps. “Soon, Mondi, I put you in the ground. But not until you’ve watched me wear this.” He stands and turns to his men, his arms spread wide. “Call the families. Tell them it’s done. Tell them to come and pay their respects to the new Don.”
One of them lifts a phone to his ear.
It rings. I watch the man’s face. The expectation in it. Then the small flicker as it keeps ringing. He tries another number. His brow draws in. A third. His lips press together, and he lowers the phone, and he crosses to Fabiano and murmurs.
Fabiano goes still. “What? What do you mean they won’t pick up —”
The laugh comes up out of me on its own, and it pulls hard at the wound in my side, and I let it.
He’s on me, and his boot cracks into my shin, and the pain goes up my leg. He bends down, his face inches from mine, breath sour with wine. “What’s so funny?”
“You fool,” I say. “They used you. They wanted Zaki gone, and they let you hold the knife. They were never going to seat you. Not for one hour.”
