Marco

We didn’t speak on the drive there. What was there to say? The silence between Francesco and me was heavy. It wasn’t anger; the anger had been pushed to the side. It was sadness.

The silence between us was numbing. It was the kind of silence that follows when someone who meant something to you is gone, and there’s nothing left to fill the space he once occupied.

Franco was more than one of our men. He was family.

His widow lived in a modest villa on the far end of the city, tucked behind rows of olive trees and a gate that hadn’t seen fresh paint in years....