Lost Your Mind novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: The Brother with the Cane
Nico's POV
The road to the quay was long and empty in the dark.
My leg ached with the damp.
The cane rang on the stones in the quiet, one note and then the next, and I made myself keep the rhythm slow.
Halfway down the pier I felt it.
Nothing in the road had changed, but the air did.
I kept walking.
Dario stood on the deck of the white boat under a string of work lights.
He wore the grey suit from dinner, with the jacket open.
He had the black box held up in his right hand.
"That's far enough, brother," he said.
I stopped at the foot of the gangway.
The water slapped at the pilings.
"You came alone," Dario said. "I'm touched."
"You asked."
"I asked for your wife."
"She's at the cathedral with forty of Papa's men. You can have her if you walk up and ask."
He laughed.
It was a good laugh, warm and easy, and it was the laugh that had fooled our whole family for thirty-one years.
"Do you know what's under your feet?"
"Tell me."
"Forty kilos, set into the quay wall, a hundred and fifty meters from where you're standing. Press once and the road drops into the harbor with whatever's on it." His eyes went flat. "The way I'd planned it, you'd have been driving."
"And Giulia?"
"In the car behind. Her father's car. A widow needs someone to look after her, Nico."
The word widow went into me.
"You'd have married her," I said.
"The alliance says a widow weds the next brother. It's written down. The Ferrante ports, the throne, a wife who can run both." He shrugged. "She was always better at it than you. And a good deal prettier than a nun."
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