Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88326 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 442(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88326 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 442(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
I could feel my phone in my back pocket, so at least Wolfe would be able to track me. Icarus had forgotten to take it—or he wanted Wolfe to follow him.
The guys piled into the cars. Icarus got into the passenger seat in front of me, and we pulled away from the vineyard. I caught a glimpse of my brother in the rearview mirror as I was driven away from him.
We arrived at a private estate somewhere inland. It held a three-story villa and overgrown gardens, like someone had stopped paying the landscaping bill. But it was a beautiful property otherwise, and I wondered if Icarus owned it…or if he’d taken it from someone.
He pulled around the side of the house where there was a literal cemetery. It wasn’t one hundred feet back from the property line as was customary. Old trunks and root systems were still sticking out of the ground in some places, as if he’d demolished whatever landscaping had been there to build…a cemetery.
I was already scared and did my best not to show it, but now I was just fucking terrified.
One of the guys pulled me out of the car and marched me to the sea of tombstones. There were at least thirty and some looked fresher than others, but none of them looked old. The headstones looked like they had been carved with a makeshift knife, and scribbled and slanted on them were just names.
Icarus came to my side and dropped his arm around my shoulders as he walked me forward. “Let me show you something, sweetheart.”
“Don’t fucking touch me.” I twisted away from him.
He let me go and raised his hands in surrender. “My mistake.”
“And cut my ropes,” I demanded like I was in some kind of position of power to call the shots.
“Whatever you say.” He pulled out a knife and moved behind me before he cut through the bindings, and my hands came free. “Now, come take a look.” He walked to the grave closest to us, which didn’t have a name and looked fresher than all the others. “Some guys like to skin their enemies alive, torture their families, hang them from a noose and cut their insides open like your husband, but I’ve always preferred simplicity. You know, let Mother Nature do her job.”
What the fuck was that supposed to mean?
He raised his foot and stomped hard on the grave several times with his heavy boot.
Then distantly and faintly, I heard a muffled scream…from the ground.
“Oh wow, he’s still alive,” he said with a chuckle. “What a nice surprise.”
My eyes swept over the other graves, and the realization hit me.
Cristo.
He headed to an empty grave with a plain tombstone, a black coffin next to the hole. “What do you think?”
Bumps formed on my arms, and even though it was sunny and the middle of the day, I felt ice-cold. The threat was unmistakable, and I stared at him in silence because I lost whatever courage I had left.
“I thought you might like a pink coffin, but they didn’t have any.”
Cristo.
“Black okay?”
I could only imagine how ghost-white my face looked.
When he grinned, I could tell he was enjoying this. “I’m gonna call your husband now. He would never miss his wife’s funeral.”
22
FRANCESCA
Icarus sat on the tombstone of the person who was still alive.
I stood ten feet away, looking at the men camped out around us with guns who would shoot me if I tried to run. It suddenly turned overcast as a cloud bank covered the sun, and the bright grass darkened in the shade. A beautiful summer day had suddenly plunged into a darker season.
My heartbeat was erratic as I stood there, knowing Wolfe would drive like hell to get to me.
I almost didn’t want him to come because I didn’t know how the hell he was going to get me out of this.
I finally heard a car in the distance, and when I turned, I saw his dark-gray Range Rover blow past the gate and up the road at fifty kilometers an hour before he slammed on the brakes and skidded to a halt.
I started to move toward him.
“Nope.” Icarus clicked his tongue several times. “You stay right there.”
Wolfe jumped out of the car, but instead of looking at me, his eyes were reserved for Icarus. The men were of equal height, and while Icarus was bigger, Wolfe had rage on his side I wouldn’t dare provoke.
He stopped several feet from Icarus.
Icarus hopped off the headstone and faced Wolfe. “How does that saying go?” he asked. “Oh, my hands are tied.” He brought his wrists together and shrugged.
“She has nothing to do with this. She’s not even in the powder business.”
“Yes, but I warned you. I nicely asked you to leave Cosa Nostra and join our ranks. You said no. I nicely asked you to surrender. You said no. You’ve been a pain in my fucking ass, Wolfe. And now here we are, at the funeral of a beautiful woman who should have lived a long life and had lots of babies and cooked lots of dinners.”