Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 65433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 262(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 262(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
The man at my back moves, and I turn my head to follow the sound. He’s like a shadow and when I look up at his face, I glimpse a skull and almost cry out.
It’s a mask. Just a mask.
“Where am I?” I ask as he walks confidently in this pitch-black. He knows his way around. That ticking of the clock continues. “Where the fuck am I?” I demand as he ascends the stairs.
Nothing.
The door opens. Light shines down momentarily, and I see the white face of the clock set in front of me. There are things stuck to the wall just beneath the clock. But I can’t make them out. The door closes too quickly, plunging me into darkness again, that clock my only companion. For a moment, as my heart pounds against my chest and I look around at all the blackness and feel the cold of the basement penetrate my bones as that clock ticks with hateful efficiency, I think this can’t get worse.
But it does.
And darkness isn’t the worst thing at all.
The lights blink on and off, and on and off, bright fluorescent unnatural light, and I wish he’d left the blindfold on as, during those bursts of light, I see what’s on that wall beneath that goddamned clock. Fucking plastered across the length of the room. And those lights. Fuck. The lights won’t stop blinking. I twist and turn in my chair and try to free myself, but I can’t get out. I can’t get away. I couldn’t then. And I can’t now.
I scream.
23
AMADEO
Bastian will take Mom and Emma to Palermo. I won’t join them. I have something I need to take care of. Something I should have taken care of long ago. Because what happened lies squarely on my shoulders.
I sit in the back seat with two soldiers in the front as we drive to my uncle’s Naples apartment, a luxury unit in a renovated old building in the heart of town. The video footage of what took place in the hours before our landing replays in my mind. A chopper landing. Soldiers unloading. A truckload of them arriving at the same time at the front gates as the first chopper took off, and a second landed, unloading more men.
The house was secured. We had plenty of soldiers. But they had more, and they took us by surprise. They came ready to kill.
Our men killed three of theirs, but the tally of dead on our side is much higher.
The hardest part to bear, though, is the footage at the end. After the truck full of soldiers drove back down the hill. It’s the image of Vittoria half dragged out of the house by two men easily twice her size. That image of Vittoria disappearing into the chopper.
“Sir?”
I blink, then look at the man in the passenger seat who is turned halfway around to talk to me.
“We’re a block out,” he says.
I look out at the neighborhood and nod. “Go to the building.”
He raises his eyebrows, surprised.
“I said go to the building.” This isn’t some incognito mission. I want Sonny to see me coming.
A few minutes later, we’re parked in front of the building. The doorman opens the doors, and I cross the large lobby. It’s like a fucking hotel, an exclusive address for the wealthiest of the wealthy in the city.
Two soldiers, Sonny’s because as far as I know he’s the only mobster living at this address, stop us when we get to the elevator. They’re dressed in suits with their weapons out of sight.
“Get the fuck out of my way,” I tell the one.
He looks at me, then at my men. “You can go up but no soldiers.” I guess Sonny’s expecting me. “Arms out.”
I take my weapon out of its shoulder holster and hand it to one of my men, then let the two pat me down. One is already alerting Sonny we’re on our way as the other rides up with me. I stare straight ahead barely seeing my own face in the reflection of the gold-tinted mirror on the doors.
When we arrive on the top floor, the doors slide open, and two more men are waiting at the entrance to Sonny’s apartment. It’s one of two on this floor.
“He’s clean,” the man who rode up with me says as the other two stand aside, and I enter. Another soldier acknowledges me with a nod and escorts me toward Sonny’s office, set in the farthest room down the corridor. Once we reach the door, he opens it and steps aside to let me enter. My uncle, his face still bruised, the swelling around his eye not quite completely gone, sits in the center of the leather sofa, looking fucking ecstatic as he leans back and folds his arms across his chest. Two men stand nearby.