The Shadow of Winter

Chapter 26

        Rodolfo rested on the balcony in a comfortable wicker chair, overlooking a vineyard that spanned a hundred acres. Innumerous posts stuck out of the light dusting of snow that covered the land, empty of vegetation. The grapevines slept soundly underground, regaining their strength for the next season. Winter was at its peak, though it wasn't nearly as cold here than it had been in New Jersey, thought Rolf. He remembered the great snowstorm attacking the east coast of North America. The snowdrifts had nearly reached four feet on his property.

        Fortunately, this was not America. This was Florence, Italy. Rolf currently resided at his brother Ignazio Lupo's villa in the countryside. The landscape was spectacular, a perfect setting for a comfortable living. Ignazio's business dealt with wine and the Lupo family itself controlled the majority of the industry inside Italy—although, its power was not entirely gotten by honest means. Even across the Atlantic Ocean, the Lupo name was associated with classy, highly intelligent mobsters.

        Rolf and Ignazio's grandfather had started the wine business before they were born, fighting tooth and nail to gain the upper hand amid ten other families that had the same idea. In the end, the Lupos prevailed, and as generations trickled by the business kept up its secretive control of the wine industry and made its owners rich beyond their wildest dreams.

        Then why had Rolf's father left for America when he had lived so comfortable in Italy? In truth, he had wanted to disassociate himself from the Italian mob. He had wanted to gain his own reputation as a hard, honest worker, and moving across the ocean had been his best strategy of achieving that goal. Of course, the mob had found Rolf's father once more among the thousands of Italians that had immigrated on ships to escape the poverty of their own existences. He had been forced to build himself a different reputation, one that included threats and the spilling of blood. Rolf's mother couldn't stand the brutality and the fear of the strange men who had always approached the house at night. She had decided she'd go to the police on the matter, but she never did. Before the authorities could be alerted, she had disappeared off the face of the earth.

        Rolf sighed bitterly. He had an idea of what happened to his mother, and it wasn't pretty. He remembered how a man he was faintly familiar with, through his father, came to him as a boy. In that man's hand had been one of many rings Rolf's mother liked to wear. This one had been silver. "Your mother woulda wanted yuh tah have this," the man had muttered in a low voice. Rolf had said nothing back, but he kept the ring. Even now, he wore his mother's ring on the index finger of his right hand after he had gotten it resized.

        On his left index finger was a gold ring from his wedding day. Rolf's former wife, Miranda, whom he had met in Brooklyn, had perished early in life as well. But her death hadn't directly been the mob's doing. After Miranda and Rolf divorced, due to their incompatibility, as her husband had increasingly become a violent man and had taught their children the same, she had been devastated. Only three days after the divorce she had been found strung up by the neck in a hotel closet. Rolf kept the wedding ring as a memory of her, just as he did with his mother's. "I got uh woman on each hand," he'd say to anybody who asked about his rings.

        Voices rose from below the balcony Rolf sat on. A young man and woman emerged from the villa and strolled into the barren vineyard, chatting away in Italian. Rolf recognized the woman as his niece, Sofia, and her newly-wedded husband, Marco. Like most Lupos, Sofia had dark hair and dark eyes. Marco, too, had black hair that curled around the edges, but his eyes were a bright blue. At twenty-four years old, Sofia was the youngest of Ignazio's children—even younger than Rolf's son Vinny.

        The thought of his murdered sons infuriated Rolf. On the night of their deaths, he had slipped away after the G.U.N. agent thought him unconscious from a kick to the head. He had only just managed to lock himself in a hidden cellar before government soldiers stormed his mansion brandishing firearms. Rolf had stayed in the cellar the remainder of that night, surrounded by imported goods from his brother's wine business, grieving the loss of Nicky, Tony, and Vinny. Later, he had found out that his closest friend and advisor, Frank Barone, also was shot. He had drunk through the night to ease the pain devouring his soul, finding reassurance in a bottle of red wine he knew his brother had handpicked grapes for.