Mafia Kings: Valentino: Chapter 27
The pilot announced over the intercom that we’d be landing in Palermo in 15 minutes. Between the crackling of the speaker and his Sicilian accent, I could barely understand him.
Niccolo came over, sat down opposite me, and buckled up.
“You can literally sit anywhere else in the plane,” I snapped, gesturing at the empty seats around us.
“Not if I want to talk to you.”
“Well, I don’t want to talk to YOU.”
“Good, you can just listen. That’ll make it shorter.”
“Niccolo – ”
“Shut up. This might be our last opportunity to talk by ourselves, and you need to know what you’re walking into.”
I stared at him. “What do you mean, ‘what I’m walking into’?”
“Sicilians aren’t the same as other families in the Cosa Nostra, and you haven’t been around any of them long enough to know the differences.”
“Papa was Sicilian,” I pointed out.
“Nonni and Nonna were from the old country, yes,” Niccolo said, using the words for ‘grandfather’ and ‘grandmother.’ “But they had Papa after they came over. He was raised in Tuscany, and he married a girl from Florence. He was always more Tuscan than he was Sicilian.”
“But – ”
“I need you to be quiet and listen, alright? We don’t have much time.”
“If it was so fucking important, why didn’t you talk to me before?”
“Because you were being a snot-nosed little punk.”
“Fuck you.”
“Valentino, this is a direct order from your consigliere, and it holds the same weight as an order from your Don: shut the fuck up and listen to me.”
Niccolo wasn’t playing around.
I grumbled, but I didn’t say anything else.
“Sicily was conquered repeatedly throughout the last 2500 years. The Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs, the French, the Spanish – every few hundred years, the island changed hands.
“This led to a streak of fatalism amongst Sicilians. They’re a proud people, but they’re a conquered people. There’s a sort of… underlying attitude that there’s nothing they can do about their fates.
“That’s the environment that gave rise to the Cosa Nostra. The mafia was able to flourish because it was a bunch of men who said Fuck it and decided to take control of their destinies – and everyone around them just accepted it as inevitable, something they couldn’t do anything about. That is, until the Cosa Nostra finally took it too far, the civilians had enough, and the cops and judges started jailing everybody in the 1980s.
“The most far-sighted families of the Cosa Nostra started spreading into the rest of Italy long before that. They were secretive about it, but they built their power bases outside Sicily.”
“Like Nonni,” I said.
agreed. “And the other families in the Council,
They rule with an iron fist, not the velvet glove. And they are
exceedingly proud. That’s why I told you never to question a Sicilian’s integrity. That wasn’t just some cute bullshit I
you’re saying a Sicilian
you know how when we make a promise, we swear on the
the Cosa Nostra, if you took an oath on the life of your children, your wife, or your family, you were making a blood oath.
Superstitious, maybe…
all believed it deep down
never break. To do so would be an infamia. Other Sicilian gangsters – his allies, not just his enemies – would kill him on principle
pissed at him. “Why are
“Do NOT make any promises to a Sicilian you don’t intend to
ran up and down my
Niccolo was
all this talk about promises made me think
need an arranged marriage?” I asked. “Is his
enough I’d had to leave
I had to marry some chick who looked
doubt it,” Niccolo
realize he was trying to
you don’t know,” I
I doubt it.” Niccolo smirked. “She might
Why not bring her to any of the
thing about Sicilians: they’re intensely protective of their women. Intensely. Don Vicari’s probably been hiding
benefit him,” I said
the entire reason for an arranged
why not build alliances with other
it’s because he already controls all of Sicily, and now he wants to expand his power base and
of a war, and we’re kind of losing. We’re not exactly the best family to
mainland families of the Cosa
“A country bumpkin.”
him. Never, not even as a joke,” Niccolo warned. “Yes, the Sicilians aren’t quite as
what you’re saying is, we’re the only ones desperate enough to
“More or less.”
Fuckin’ GREAT.
like a goat to some bunch of hick psychopaths, and their daughter probably had a
I thought
I said.
Florence – and nearly killed Adriano while he was
were chasing them, she yanked on the wheel of Mezzasalma’s car and wrecked it like the fucking
agreed, “Mezzasalma was
to
Mezzasalma’s plans. Don Vicari says he gave Mezzasalma the green light to leave Sicily and strike out for new territory on the mainland, but he says he had nothing to
believe him?” I asked
of things you
he fuckin’ hated
do not make jokes like that
to,”
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