The Florentine Dagger

By David Godino

Marco de Lucca, a young Boston advertising executive, is sent by his company to Italy to write up an ad campaign with a large firm situated just outside of Torino in Northern Italy.
He has just arrived at the Torino railway station when a beautiful lady runs up to him and begs him to pretend that he is her ex-lover who had suddenly disappeared a few years previous.
Agreeing with her to do so leads Marco into the midst of a mysterious intrigue that makes playing his pretend role as her lover crucial to keep an estate worth millions from falling into the wrong hands.
His actions to stay alive and help solve her problem while at the same time do the job for which he had been sent to Italy leads to an exciting, romantic story and unforeseen ending.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Godino
• Release date: Dec 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311752277

David Godino

David Godino was born in Santa Monica, California, and has lived on the southern coast of Oregon for the last 19 years. He has a summa cum laude degree in history and education from California State University Northridge. He served in World War II and is a member of the Disabled American Veterans. At various times in his career he has been a marketing manager, an executive assistant, and a commercial pilot which has taken him to many foreign countries.Music is one of his hobbies, and he plays the violin, trumpet, trombone, and piano. He enjoys arranging and writing music for the theater. He holds the copyright for nine of his songs that he has written for various shows.His lovely wife, Catherine, is also a published author, and her latest print book is titled Spring Always Follows Winter.

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THE FLORENTINE DAGGER

by

David Godino

Copyright © 2013

David Godino

Cover design by jccmedia.com

ISBN 9781311752277

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information and retrieval system, without the prior permission from the authors, except for example recipes and photographs for use in critical reviews.

Table of Contents

I. Marco De Lucca

II. Northeast Advertising

III. The Flight to Italy

IV. The Train Ride

V. The Mystery Begins

VI. The Villa Sorridente

VII. The Secret Passage

VIII. Night at Villa

IX. John Bigelow

X. The Mystery Revealed

XI. The Winery

XII. The Search Begins

XIII. Nonna’s Room

XIV. Dinner in Torino

XV. The Final Search

About the Author

I. Marco De Lucca

For Marco De Lucca, life was just about perfect.

He had a great job working for an up and coming advertising company with offices in a high-rise in downtown Boston. He had just received a promotion to junior executive, which came with his own office, secretary, and name-parking space.

He drove a nice older BMW, and his savings were getting to where he almost had enough to buy a new one.

Although not really handsome, he was nice looking in a rugged, athletic way. He wore the standard ad man’s tailored suits and sport coats well, preferring shades of gray and dark blue which gave him an older, more conservative, look. He had just past his thirty-first birthday and worked hard to keep in shape by working out twice a week at a gym downtown. On weekends he played tennis and golf with a circle of buddies.

Most of his friends were married and were constantly introducing him to eligible young ladies. They seemed to envy his carefree, single life, especially their wives.

Although he had been deeply involved with lovely ladies a couple of times, these romances had somehow broken down, and he just wasn’t interested in a permanent companion that would change his present happy single life at this time. He had two or three girlfriends who were really close that he frequently dated, but they knew and he knew that it would never go beyond being great friendships.

Marco had been raised by his mother and never knew his father, who had left the picture when he was just a baby.

When young, his mother had been an up and coming soprano for a traveling New York Opera company, but when he was born, she gave up pursuing her career to raise Marco.

She never spoke of his father, and Marco never asked about him.

They had moved from New York into Boston when he was very young. They lived in an apartment in the North End area of Boston off Fulton Street, where she gave singing lessons and taught piano.

That part of Boston is where the Italian immigrants of the late 19th and early 20th centuries settled, along with many thousand Irish and Jewish people who were escaping the harsh European conditions of the time.

Although his mother was not Italian, she had learned to speak it fairly well, and also some French and German, as part of her training as an opera singer. Most of the roles she tried out for were in operas written in one of those languages.

She loved speaking Italian, and, even after leaving the opera company, she tried to keep fluent and insisted that Marco always speak Italian with her at home.

On the streets and in the stores in that part of North End where they lived, everyone spoke one Italian dialect or another, so he grew up with English actually as his second language until he started public grade school.

Schoolwork came easy to him and, after breezing through high school, he had no trouble getting into Harvard and obtaining his Bachelor’s Business Degree.

His mother had received some kind of settlement from his father that had paid for most of his college expenses.

Shortly after he had graduated, his mother had caught the flu from one of her pupils. She was always frail, and the flu soon progressed into a more serious lung illness. After a short hospital stay, she had died.

Marco had just started working at the Northeast Advertising Company and plunged into his work to help overcome his loss.

His hard work ethics and bright mind impressed his superiors and led to raise after raise and eventually to his latest promotion.

With the added salary he was now getting, he soon moved out of the Italian ghetto and into a fancy apartment in a nice part of town and began a whole new life.

II. Northeast Advertising

The buzzing alarm woke Marco from a sound sleep as it did Shelly, the girl lying next to him.

He jumped out of bed, went into the kitchen and turned on the pre-prepared coffee maker and the toaster oven next to it, which already had two slices of bread in it. He sliced a grapefruit in half and placed the halves on two plates, then poured some cereal into two bowls and took a quart of milk out of the refrigerator.

By the time he came padding back into the bedroom in his pajama bottoms, Shelly had already gotten into her skirt and blouse and was putting on her shoes.

Where are you going? I have breakfast ready.

Shelly smiled at him and crossed over to where he was putting on his bathrobe. She kissed him gently on the lips. I really have to run. I had a great time last night, the dinner was super, the lovemaking was heaven, but today is today and I am running late already. I’ll call you later. Bye!

Marco smiled at her and waved as she slipped out the door. Shelly Townsend was a great girl, talented, pretty, and had good job, but they were just good friends and both of them wanted to keep it that way.

After quickly showering and getting into one of his favorite charcoal gray suits, light gray shirt and dark blue tie, he grabbed his briefcase and laptop, got into his BMW and headed downtown.

It was normally about a twenty-five minute drive, but a light rain had started and there was an accident on the way which delayed him about fifteen minutes to get around it. So he was running a little late which was unusual for his normal punctual self. He finally swung into the underground parking beneath his office building and into his name-parking slot.

Grabbing his briefcase, he bounded up the short flight of stairs that led into the lobby where the elevators were.

In the lobby was a small coffee shop where he usually had a latte and croissant before going up to work.

This morning when he approached the counter, Vicky, the cute little barista who always waited on him, yelled when she saw him. Marco, where have you been? Everybody’s looking for you. They are waiting for you right now in the conference room. Skip your coffee, I’ll bring it up to your secretary. Hurry!

Okay, call Martha and tell her I’m on my way, don’t forget a croissant, and add a big tip for yourself on my bill.

He winked at her and jumped into the elevator.

What can be the big problem? He wondered. Nothing really urgent had ever happened before in his experience at Northeast Advertising. Could there be foul-up in the contract he had just closed with that shoe company in Concord last week?

Little did Marco know that his whole life was about to be turned upside down and changed forever.

The company Marco worked for, Northeast Advertising, occupied the entire seventh floor, so when the elevator door opened the passengers immediately entered the reception area.

When the receptionist saw him she started to say something, but, before she could, Marco said, Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m wanted in the conference room on the double.

As he turned to go down the hall his secretary, Martha Hall, came out of her cubicle next to his office with a folder in her hand. Marco, here is all the information I could collect on the company you are meeting to discuss, and I will be in there in a few minutes. The boss has suggested I be there, too.

"I’m