Page 317 of Marcello

“Yes, sir,” I said, then turned to the mole with a sullen look on my face.

“Alright, then,” he said. “Let’s go.”

104

As we walked through the tunnels back up to street level, the mole asked, “You want anything specific to eat?”

“No,” I said coldly.

He stopped walking and gave me a vicious look. “What’s your fuckin’ problem?”

He wasn’t beating around the bush –

So neither did I.

“I don’t trust you.”

“Why? Because of who I work for?”

“No. Because you’re a mole.”

“Ah,” he said, like he finally understood. Then his tone became acerbic again. “A traitor.”

“You said it, not me.”

“I’m helping your bosses,” he pointed out.

“I know that.”

“So what’s your fuckin’ problem?”

“You’re stabbing your own boss in the back to do it.”

“You know that Cesare nearly killed your boss’s wife, right?”

I knew it very well. I’d been with Dario and Lars when we’d found Alessandra, broken and bloody on the hospital floor.

Her scream still haunted me:

DARIO, MY BABY!

“Yes,” I said quietly.

“If there’s anybody who deserves to get stabbed in the back,” the mole said, “it’s the guy I work for.”

“I guess.”

“…so…?”

“So what’s to say you won’t stab us in the back if you get a better deal?”

“I only joined the Camorra because Fausto threatened to kill my family,” he said angrily. “I was a fucking college student. I would’ve never left Florence if it wasn’t for the people you work for.”

“I work for the brothers,” I snapped. “I never worked for Fausto.”

“Well, one of the ‘brothers’ was there when Fausto ruined my life, and he never said shit.”

I wanted to protest, I don’t work for Niccolo –