Read Dark Soul Vol. 3 for Free Online Page B

Paolo.
    And wasn’t that a huge can of worms.
    “So, tell me.” Silvio leaned forward, elbows resting on his thighs, hands folded between them. He was gazing intently at Franco. “What happened. Where were you?”
    Franco settled down and reminded himself to relax. “After you left, it all fell to pieces, really.”
    “Explain.”
    “Sebastiano didn’t come back from university. He’s now practicing criminal law in New York, even though he had great offers to become a corporate lawyer. But you know how he is. That wouldn’t satisfy him, ever.”
    “No.” Silvio shook his head. “And . . . mother?”
    “She’s doing well.”
    “Father?”
    “No idea.” Franco pressed his lips together. Cal ing Paolo “Father” took a totally different level of strength. Maybe Silvio was just proving he could do it. “She won’t ask, he won’t tell, it’s like . . . it is. No changes there.”
    “His stomach?”
    “Ulcers. Doctor says something’s eating him alive, but . . .” Franco shrugged again. “Nothing you or I could do about that.”
    “No.” Silvio rolled his neck. “You want a drink or something?”
    “Water.”
    Silvio stood and walked toward the open-plan kitchen and pulled a water bottle from the fridge, then another. He returned and handed Franco one of them, then settled back on the couch. “And then you.
    Why do you have a French accent?”
    “I’ve just been released from the French Foreign Legion. La Légion .” And again that sense of displacement. Of being not actually here but drifting, floating, like he was in a dream and would wake to a place of dust and dirt and flies swarming around his face to get to the moisture in his eyes.
    Franco resisted the urge to wave the invisible flies away. Silvio was here, though. He was more real than most people. If the surroundings were a dream, he was probably sharing that dream with his baby brother. “I’m thinking in French. Putting an English sentence together is more daunting than I thought.”
    “Italian?”
    “I’m really rusty in Italian.” Franco opened the water bottle and figured he probably didn’t have to wipe and disinfect. The water here was fine, and the packaging would be clean. God, Africa and the Legion had turned him into a germophobe and a neat freak. “Now that I can move around on my own, with my papers and everything, I wanted to catch up. I was worried about you.”
    “I’m all right.” Silvio watched him drink. “Battista caught me on the way down. He taught me. I’m his heir, and he has more money than he can ever spend.”
    “He doesn’t have family of his own?”
    “No.” Silvio glanced at the door, then back. Restless, always moving, always observing. It was one of those ticks. He’d been extremely perceptive as a kid, but now it was probably the “bodyguard”
    part of his life. “Battista doesn’t really give a fuck about any of that.”
    Mr. Spadaro, how nice to meet you. Please, do come in. You would like to find your brother?
    So very cultured and attractive that Franco had immediately felt on edge with Falchi. Twenty years ago, it hadn’t registered, but now, later, grown up and less innocent, he’d felt something from Gianbattista Falchi. A teasing flirtation that made him ill at ease.
    And Silvio was his heir?
    But in the end, Falchi had called Silvio, had then handed him the address and even advised him on the best travel route. I think you might be exactly what Silvio needs.
    He’d considered that while his plane had crossed the Atlantic, mildly alarmed at the idea. After all those years, Silvio could have done anything—become anything. Maybe gone back to school, maybe started a family, built a life for himself.
    Instead he was another man’s bodyguard, living on his own, with pistols and tailored suits for company. Franco wasn’t surprised. He wasn’t even really disturbed, though Silvio’s employer being Italian didn’t bode well. Not at al .
    But who was he to pass moral