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I throw her a bone. “You’ll get a chance to punish me.”
Her face lights up, and she pulls her chair back under the table.Good girl.I remove my hand from her wrist and press the number for the resort staff.
She chats with them when they enter and clear the table as quickly as possible. Gio’s on the phone, his legs spread, lounging as if he has not a care in the world. Unlike Cristina, he’s an excellent liar.
Last night, someone told him my men were on the move to the airport, and instead of following through with his plan to smuggle himself out in one of the boxes of merchandise heading for Brazil, he stayed behind, pretending he was on the tarmac to oversee the loading.
A rival like my uncle, who’s played power games with my father since they were boys, is highly adaptable and calculates his moves five steps ahead of most people. Even ahead of me sometimes. He certainly calculated a smart move with Cristina and her family’s wealth, one that I didn’t catch until it was almost too late.
If I hadn’t pressed her last night, he would have escaped, no doubt to gather his forces and attack me from elsewhere whenI least expected it. I wish to face him man to man, primarily because I must eliminate him. Or he can eliminate me.
Since I allowed him to get this far, I must answer for it.
The Serpentine Order should be led by the strongest man who can keep it wealthy and powerful. Since I’m that man and I almost lost my position, the rules dictate I must allow the opponent a fair chance.
“What do I have to do?” Cristina asks.
Gio’s on the phone, speaking loudly now, annoying me to the point that I want to shoot him in the mouth. But as the Head of the Order, I rise above petty quarrels and uphold the tradition that dictates I can’t simply eliminate a Mancini family member in a high position, whether it’s in the Order or in society.
My uncle is a prime minister, after all.
I wouldn’t call myself a patient man, but I have my moments. I wait until he’s finished.
Gio pockets the phone and picks up the biscotti Cristina didn’t have with her espresso. “What do you have in mind, nephew?”
He eats her cookie, appearing unconcerned about the ritual or, even worse, that he’s forgotten the ritual the leader can invoke. If so, this will be fun.
I lift a hand and flick two fingers, signaling my guard, Jesse. From inside the villa’s safe, he brings me a polished, rectangular cherry-red wooden box. He places it at the center of the table while I watch my uncle pause midchew.
His blue eyes widen, but then he catches himself and appears as if he’d expected it all along. “The destined ritual,” he concludes.
“The only one.”
He takes a few moments and then slams his gun on the table.
I do the same. I part with my Walther by pushing it toward the middle of the table, where it touches his.
“I don’t like this,” Cristina says. “What is the meaning of this?”
“My nephew is invoking the destined ritual,” Gio says. “It is performed when the Head fails in its duty.”
She turns those pretty brown eyes on me. “Which duty did you fail?”
“Foresight.”
“Foresight?”
“I didn’t see my uncle plotting to usurp me until I almost lost the Order to him. Now we will see which of us is selected for leadership and which isn’t.”
“That seems crazy because you’re not a seer, so you couldn’t have foreseen anything,” she says.
“Are you calling the ritual crazy?” I ask teasingly.
She shakes her head. “I think you’re crazy.”
Gio laughs.
I’m not amused. I flip the top of the box open and show her three clear vials. “One of these vials contains poison. Pick a vial, then pick the man you want to give it to. If the man you give the vial to survives, you will pick another vial and give it to the other man.”
