Falco: The Dark Guardian. Sandra Marton

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      Cesare bit the tip off the cigar he’d chosen, turned his head and spat the piece into a wastebasket.

      “Even in these bad economic times, we’ve made our investors wealthy. And we’ve done it honestly, a concept you couldn’t possibly understand.”

      “You added a private bank to your stable when you were in Athens,” Cesare said. “Nicely done.”

      “Your compliments mean nothing to me.”

      “But banking was not all you did there,” the Don said softly. He looked up; his eyes met Falco’s. “My sources tell me that during that same few days, a child—a boy of twelve—held for ransom by insurgents in the northern mountains of Turkey, was somehow miraculously returned to his fam—”

      Falco was around the desk in a heartbeat. His hand closed on his father’s shirt; he yanked him roughly to his feet.

      “What is this?” he snarled.

      “Take your hands off me!”

      “Not until I get answers. No one followed me. No one. I don’t know where you got all this crap but—”

      “I was not foolish enough to think anyone could follow you and live to talk about it. Let go of my shirt and perhaps I’ll give you an answer.”

      Falco could feel his heart racing. He knew damned well no one had followed him; he was far too good to let that happen. And, yes, though he would never admit it, there had been more to his trip to Greece than the acquisition of a bank. There were times his old skills came in handy but he kept that part of his life private.

      Falco glared at his father. And silently cursed himself for being a fool.

      He had not let Cesare get to him in years. Fifteen years, to be exact, on a night one of his father’s henchmen had caught him sneaking back into the heavily guarded house at two in the morning.

      The Don had been furious, not at where his seventeen-year-old-son might have been, not at how he’d defeated the alarm system, but at how he’d gotten by the silent men who kept watch from the shadows outside the front door and deep within the walled garden.

      Falco had refused to explain. He’d done more than that. He’d smirked as only a badass teenage boy could.

      Cesare had backhanded him, hard, across the face.

      It was the first time his father had hit him, which was, when he’d had time to think about it, a surprise. Not the blow; the surprise was that it had not happened before. There’d always been a hint of violence in the air between father and son; it had grown stronger when Falco reached adolescence.

      That night, it had finally erupted.

      Falco had stood still under the first blow. The second rocked him back on his heels. The third bloodied his mouth, and when Cesare raised his hand again, Falco grabbed his wrist and twisted the Don’s arm high behind his back. Cesare was strong, but at seventeen, Falco was already stronger.

      He was also fueled by years of hatred.

      “Touch me again,” he’d said in a whisper, “and I swear, I’ll kill you.”

      His father’s expression had undergone a subtle change. Not fear. Not anger. Something else. Something swift and furtive that should not have been in the eyes of a powerful man who’d just lost a battle, physically as well as figuratively.

      Falco’s face was badly bruised the next day. His mother questioned it, as did his sisters. He said he’d fallen in the shower. The lie worked but Nicolo, Raffaele and Dante had not been so easy to fool.

      “Must have been a pretty awkward tumble,” Rafe had said, “to blacken your eye as well as give you a swollen lip.”

      Yeah, Falco had said calmly, it was.

      He never told anyone the truth. Had the beating been too humiliating to talk about? Was it his shock at the intensity of the quicksilver flash of rage that had almost overcome him?

      Eventually, he understood.

      Power had changed hands that night. It had gone from Cesare to him…and then back to Cesare. What he’d seen in his father’s eyes had been the knowledge that despite Falco’s vicious threat, he, Cesare, had actually won the battle because Falco had let emotion overtake him. He had lost control of his emotions and somehow, he had no idea how or why, that loss of control gave the other person power.

      And now, here he was, fifteen long years later, losing control all over again.

      Carefully, he unfisted his hand, let go of Cesare’s starched white shirt. Cesare fell back into his chair, his jowly face red with anger.

      “If you were not my son…”

      “I’m not your son in any way that matters. It takes more than sperm to make a man a father.”

      A muscle knotted in the Don’s jaw. “Are you now a philosopher? Trust me, Falco, in many ways, you are more my son than your brothers.”

      “What’s that supposed to mean?”

      “It means that what you so self-righteously claim to hate in me is what is also inside you. The lure of absolute power. The need to control.” Cesare’s eyes narrowed. “The willingness to shed blood when you know it must be shed.”

      “Damn you, old man!” Falco leaned over the desk and brought his angry face within inches of the older man’s. “I am nothing like you, do you hear? Nothing! If I were, God, if I were…”

      He shuddered, drew back, stood straight. What was he doing, letting his father draw him deeper into this quagmire?

      “Is this what you wanted to talk about? To tell me you’ve come up with absolution for yourself by pretending your genes are my destiny? Well, it won’t work. I am not you. And this so-called discussion is at an—”

      Cesare took something from the folder on his desk and pushed it toward Falco. It appeared to be a glossy page, an advertisement, torn from a magazine.

      “Do you know this woman?”

      Falco barely spared the picture a glance.

      “I know a lot of women,” he said coldly. “Surely your spies have told you that.”

      “Indulge me. Look at her.”

      What the hell did it matter? Falco picked up the photo. It was an ad for something expensive. Perfume, jewelry, clothing—it was hard to tell.

      The focus of the page, though, was clear enough.

      It was the woman.

      She was seated crossways in an armchair, one long leg on the floor, the other draped over the chair’s arm, a shoe with the kind of heel that should have been declared lethal dangling from her toes. She wore lace. Scarlet lace. A teddy. A chemise. He had no idea which it was, only that it showed almost as much cleavage as leg.

      A spectacular body. An equally spectacular СКАЧАТЬ