Chapter 61

Nico

We stare at each other for what seems an eternity. His eyes are blazing, the anger showing all over his face as his face goes red. Dario clenches his fists by his side. “So, help me God I want to smash your face in right now, Nico. I am your fucking brother. What the fuck do you take me for?”

I am raging internally too; everything is coming to a head. I need to know who is behind the shooting, I want to protect my family and now I have no idea if I can even trust my own flesh and blood. “You are jealous of me, Dario that’s why and we already know you had something to do with the three million leaving my casino. What do you have to say about that?”

I take a seat at the table in the room, not daring myself to stand. My own legs feel weak at the mere thought of Dario having stolen from me, from us our own family. The money isn’t just for me, it feeds our family, it reinvests. The casino is clean money.

“Okay, I hold my hands up to that. I had debts,” he lowers his head and bites his lower lip. Something he usually does when he is scorned and caught out. It’s a trait from his childhood. “I needed to pay them back, otherwise they were going to do bad things to me.” He shrugs his shoulders.

“And you didn’t think you could talk to me? We could have done something about it. They are fucking scumbags, Dario. Why you even got caught up with them is beyond me.”

“I’m a fucking addict, what do you want me to say?” he yells at me, spit leaving his mouth. “Give me the drugs, I need them.”

“No, you don’t and stop behaving like a brat. You are better and stronger than this, Dario. They are out of your system it’s in your head. You need help but you keep rejecting it, you won’t speak to any of the people we have brought in to help you.”

“Maybe I don’t want to get better, maybe I want to end it.”

That hits me like a punch to the stomach, my guts churn. My own brother speaking like this. “You have a lot to live for Dario. You will get clean and sober; you will be part of this business like I always intended. We will sort out the money, I have ways to get it back. They won’t get away with it. Every single last fucking one of them will be handled.”

He looks at me, his eyes red on the verge of tears, I can see them welling up in his eyes. “Did you organize a shooting, Dario to have me put down or worse still Lucky?”

He shakes his head and falls to his knees sobbing. “No, I didn’t do that, I’d never kill you, Nico. I’m jealous, I’m hurt, I wanted to be the leader of the family. Father let everyone down when he chose you.”

“Why? Do you want the responsibility of being head of a mafia family, come on, Dario. It’s a fucking ball ache. There are days I wish I’d been born into a normal family with a father who was a boring accountant and a mother who worked in a hospital or library. Constantly watching my back, ensuring our family is safe is not all it’s cracked out to be.”

Dario clutches his stomach. “I can’t do this, Nico. I can’t do it anymore.” He is openly crying; it breaks my heart to see him like this.

I get up and go over to my kid brother and crouch down to be at his height so I can wrap my arms around him, he lays his head on my shoulder and hugs me back as if his life depends on it. It does.

“I’ve got you, Dario. I’ve always got you, but you need to take the help we are offering you. Have the counselling sessions, you don’t have to leave the house, for now we are safe here.” I lie because I have no true idea if we are safe or not. Especially with Yelena being amongst us now, who knows what team she has and resources available. She could be anywhere and using any number of highly trained people to carry out her mission.

“I will always protect you, brother. You are my flesh and blood, we love you, Dario. We want you to get better. This what you are going through can be dealt with, it’s going to take patience, effort and time, but you will get there. Trust me, Dario. We want what is best for you. Your life is important to us, so important.”

He sinks further onto his heels releasing his tight hold on me, wiping his nose he looks deep into my eyes. I can see his tormented soul, it hurts me, my heart aches for my brother. There is no point going into the whys and when’s that will be for his counsellors. Right now, he needs solace and comfort, not judgement or criticism. I need for my brother to be healthy again, to have a zest for life.

“Dario listen to me, you are my kid brother, I’ve taken care of you all my life, I’ve always had your back. I will always be here for you. The first steps are the hardest, but your body is clean of that shit now. Start with the sessions today and start chipping away at the issues that got you here in the first place. When you are strong, fit and healthy, you will be involved in the business. The clean side of the business. I’ll give you a casino or a club, anything you want except the darker side.”

He nods and wipes his nose again. “Do you think I can do this, Nico?” His voice is a whisper, it wrenches my heart breaking it open. The love pours out of me for the man in front of me. In my mind, he will always be the young kid who sat on the seesaw with me, who kicked a ball around out back of our parent’s house when we were young, the kid who came to me for everything. The joints we’d smoke sometimes when we knew we could get away with it. Staying up late reading under the duvets with our torches.

“You can do this, Dario. We all have every faith in you, trust me when I tell you this. You’ve got this. Take the first steps Dario. Want to live, want to breathe, want to have a life, a wife, a family one day. You are talented, you are smart, and you have so much to give. Don’t waste it, please.” I implore him.

Dario squares his shoulders, and stands, I do the same. He takes me in his arms and gives me a fierce man-hug. “I’ll try, I promise I’ll try. I don’t want to be like this anymore, Nico. I don’t want to waste my life but fuck it’s so damn hard.”

“It’s going to be, Bro, you have a lot of work to do ahead of you, but we are here for you. All of us including Lucky if you accept her.”

He nods. “I’ll try to accept her; it isn’t easy when she is a Gianluca and her family have always been our enemy.”

“That is hopefully behind us now, Dario. We need their alliance, we need to wipe the shit off the streets, we need full control. In five years, the aim is for all our businesses to be legit, then we can say we have done it. Something no Santangelo has ever been able to achieve before. We want a better life, Dario.”

“I’ll make peace with her. I’ll do the sessions, I’ll work my damn ass off to be normal again, and to be part of the business. I swear to God, Nico I won’t let you down.”

I hope for his sake he can. I love my brother with my entire heart, and nothing will ever change that, but I am not ready to lose him nor stand over his coffin as they lower it into the ground. “Anything you need, Dario we are here for you.”

“Thank you, Nico. I don’t deserve it,” he mumbles.

“You deserve the best, Dario. Don’t ever let me hear you saying shit like that again. You need to find it in yourself to believe in yourself again, to know you deserve the best life that you are worthy.”

We hear a gentle knock at the door, I turn and see Aurora. Shit is that the time already?

“Aurora, I’ll be with you soon. I just need to take care of Dario.” She nods and walks away.

“Go, deal with whatever you need to deal with Nico. I will be fine. Can you ask for the first session to start in an hour. I want to shower and change.”

“Absolutely,” I give him another hug and leave him to go attend business with Aurora.

I find her sitting outside on the chaise lounge in the vast entrance hall. She’s wearing her standard black leather second skins, a cropped leather jacket and black combat boots. “Nico,” she says.

“Come to my office. How was the flight?”

“Oh, you know. Some asshole wanting to get into my cunt, the usual shit I have to deal with.” I chuckle at her dry delivery.

“You’re a good-looking woman, Aurora men will be attracted to you.”

“Yeah well, you manage to keep it off limits.”

“I am an engaged man; Aurora and you know I never mix business with pleasure.”

“Good fucking job, because you are not my type, you know I prefer pussy to cock.”

And that she does, it must kill her to have to get close to men at times to kill them once she’s lured them into her den as it were. We take a seat in my office. I let my butler know we want coffees and Danishes. He nods and heads off to the kitchen.

I get up and close the door behind him. “So, tell me what’s news?”