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)
Wolfe took a step forward. “She has nothing to do with this.”
Icarus stepped away and approached the empty grave reserved for me. “I’ve got a priest waiting in the house. He’s ready to give her last rites once we bury her.”
“What the fuck do you want? Be a man and just fucking say it.”
“What do I want?” he asked as he moved his hand to his chest, and he walked back to Wolfe. “I don’t want any of this. But when I told my lord that you denied my offer, this is what he commanded me to do.”
“And you don’t have to do it.”
“I already stuck out my neck for you once. I won’t do it again.”
“Look, I’ll leave Sicily forever. I won’t stand in your way—”
“And if you’d offered this sooner, I probably would have taken that offer.” He raised his hands before he dropped them. “But here we are.” He glanced at the sky as he furrowed his eyebrows. “And it looks like it might rain. In August…how odd.”
My eyes flicked back and forth between him and Wolfe, hoping that Wolfe somehow had a trick up his sleeve, that Cosa Nostra was just down the street behind him and a big shootout was about to take place.
“Was that in your projected forecast, Wolfe?” Icarus asked as he crossed his arms over his chest.
Wolfe somehow kept his calm even though he must have been completely wrecked inside. “There has to be something you want.”
“Well, there’s one thing I can do for you,” he said. “A trade.”
I immediately felt sick. Fucking sick.
Wolfe didn’t react.
Icarus turned to the grave and then looked at Wolfe again. “That’s the best I can offer you.”
Wolfe worked his jaw as he stared at him.
Please have some kind of plan.
After a long stretch of silence, Wolfe spoke. “How will I know if you really let her go?”
No.
“Because you know I’m a man of my word. She can get in your Range Rover and take off. Free as a bird.”
I finally spoke. “Wolfe, no—”
“Francesca.” He didn’t look at me or raise his voice, but he told me to shut my mouth. “You let her go, and I’ll comply.”
“Absolutely not—”
“Francesca.” This time, he looked at me, and I saw no love there at all.
I was actually scared of him, my own husband.
He looked at Icarus again.
“No can do,” he said. “Because she’s going to watch me bury you alive.” Then he smiled—like this had been his plan all along. “Remember what I said to you when we sat on those cheap-ass chairs? That I didn’t want you to be my next haunt, but you will be.”
Wolfe didn’t react to that at all. Didn’t show fear, any ounce of emotion whatsoever.
“We’ve got a deal?”
“I need to know you’ll let her go.”
This can’t be happening.
“Wolfe, do I need to spell it out for you?” He cocked his head to the side. “I was never going to put her in the ground. This was all a trap so I could put you in the ground. So, are we doing this or not?”
“Yes,” Wolfe answered immediately.
“No.”
Icarus clapped his hands once. “Alright. Let’s get to it, boys.”
The guys grabbed tools, like a power drill and screws, and they flipped the lid open so Wolfe could get inside.
“Wolfe!” I screamed. “No.”
He moved toward me and lowered his voice. “I have seven hours—”
“Get away from her.” One of the guys came over and shoved a gun in his chest and forced him back.
I have seven hours. What the fuck did he mean by that?
Two guys grabbed him and forced him toward the coffin.
“Stop.” I went after him toward Icarus. “Please stop this.”
Two men grabbed me, one on either side.
“Bring out the priest,” Icarus ordered. “I want to send Wolfe off with respect.”
I had to stand there, restrained by two assholes, and watch Wolfe willingly get into that coffin and lie down.
“No! Please no!” Tears broke the surface and streaked down my cheeks.
They shut the lid, and then they started to drill screws into it.
I sobbed and fell to my knees as I watched, watched them secure him with no possible chance of escape.
The priest came from inside the house, a bible in his hands and wearing flowing robes, and he didn’t blink an eye over the murder of an innocent man.
I tried to fight the hold on my arms to get to Icarus, but they wouldn’t let me move an inch. “Icarus, please don’t do this.”
He ignored me, sitting on the tombstone next to Wolfe’s while he lit a cigar.
“I’ll do anything.”
The men secured ropes to the hooks around the edges of the coffin and then lowered him six feet into the newly dug grave. Icarus played music from his phone while the priest sprinkled holy water over the grave and read a passage from his bible.