Francesca
I sat alone at the table on the terrace, forgetting about the food in front of me. It was a warm day, so the food was probably still warm but unappetizing. There was no way I’d be able to work for the rest of the day now. All I’d do would be to sit around and wait for Wolfe’s call to come through.
Leo dropped into the chair Wolfe had recently vacated. “What’s going on?”
I was so distraught I momentarily forgot about my hatred toward my brother. “Cosa Nostra says Icarus is coming for them, so Wolfe went to join them.”
“Oh…”
“Yeah.” I had no choice but to wait here for word. I crossed my arms over my chest like I was cold, and the bumps on my skin were definitely real even in the Mediterranean heat.
Leo continued to stare at me like he wanted to say something…but never did.
We sat there in silence for minutes, and I told myself to stay calm despite the endless pit of anxiety in my stomach. What a travesty it would be to lose him the second he was officially mine. To die a widow after a marriage that lasted a mere couple of days.
“He’ll be okay,” Leo said. “Nothing can kill that guy.”
“Let’s not say the word kill until he gets back.”
“Yeah, sure, of course.”
I’d barely taken a breath when my whole world changed. “Frankie! A line of SUVs is coming our way.”
I heard Roman’s voice from around the corner of the house, and all my despair was quickly replaced by a new wave of terror. I jumped to my feet and felt slightly disoriented from the head rush and the adrenaline combined together.
Leo took off down the steps. “Who the hell is it?”
It took me less than a second to deduce the answer. “Icarus. It’s a trap.” He’d had one of his cronies lure Wolfe away from the vineyard, and the only reason he would do that was if he wanted me.
Well, that ain’t gonna happen.
I dashed inside and went straight for the armory, but by the time I reached the guns, gunfire erupted outside.
Leo came to my side and grabbed a rifle. “I can’t believe we’re going to have to fix up the house—again.”
“Let’s focus on surviving first.” I grabbed the magazines and shoved them into my pockets.
Instead of more gunfire, it was just quiet.
Really quiet.
So quiet that even Leo stilled after he cocked his gun, like he knew something wasn’t quite right. He looked down the hallway, at me, and then back down the hallway as he readied his gun to shoot people to bits and pieces.
“Lady Wolfe, come on out!” a man shouted from outside the villa. “Let’s have a little chat.”
I froze as I looked down the hall to the double doors. The windows were open for the fresh air to pass through the stuffy house, so his words sounded like they’d come from a megaphone.
“Call Wolfe,” Leo said.
I fished in my pocket, grabbed my phone, and made the call. But it didn’t ring.
It went straight to voice mail.
Leo heard it too because his eyes widened. “He must not have reception where he is.”
“I—I hope that’s all it is.” Or Icarus had seen him coming and bombed his car.
“He wouldn’t need you if he already had Wolfe,” he said. “Don’t worry about him. Let’s worry about you right now.”
Icarus released a loud whistle, calling me like a dog. “Don’t come out, and I’ll execute each of your men one by one. We’ll start with the old man, Elio.”
I was paralyzed with fear, unsure what to do.
“Elio wouldn’t want you to surrender.”
“But I don’t want everyone I care about to die.”
Leo shook his head. “Don’t do it.”
“If Wolfe is alive like you think he is, he’ll come for me.”
Icarus shouted again. “Five.”
“Shit, he’s starting a countdown.” I headed toward the door.
Leo moved with me. “Frankie, no.”
“I don’t have a choice. The two of us can’t take out him and all his men. Wolfe hasn’t said much about him—”
“Four.”
“—other than he’s fucking crazy. He’s taken out the other gangs, and he’s a real threat to Cosa Nostra. I don’t think you and I stand a chance right now.”
“Then I’m coming with you,” Leo said. “If he takes you, he takes me too.”
I knew this wasn’t a performative bluff because we were in the thick of it.
“Three.”
Now was the time when lesser men ran off. It was the moment when bravery was snuffed out in the wind.
I opened the door and stepped out, emerging at the top of the stairs and seeing Icarus standing over Elio with his gun pointed at his head. Elio was on his knees in the dirt, looking at me with a hard face, like he was too stubborn to show fear.
I walked to the top of the stairs and looked at my opponent.
Leo came to my side with the rifle gripped in his hands.
Icarus stared at me.
I stared back.
Then a slow smile crept across his lips. He was a humungous man, bigger than Wolfe, but he was just mass, whereas Wolfe was ripped. Every part of Wolfe’s body was muscle with little to no fat.
He wasn’t bad-looking either, which was a surprise. I expected evil to look evil, but he looked like he could live a normal life, picking up women everywhere he went. He could get a decent job with no effort because he was pleasing to the eye.
But when I looked into that heartless stare, I knew he was fucked in the head.
His grin widened as he kept the gun against Elio’s head. Then he released a low whistle as he visibly checked me out. “Lady Wolfe is sure pretty.”
I moved down the stairs, never taking my eyes off him.
“Aaannnddd she’s feisty.”
I reached the bottom step and stepped into the dirt road, his men having put all of mine on their knees with guns pointed at their heads.
Leo stayed at my side with every step.
“What do you want?” I barked.
He lowered the gun from Elio’s head and turned his entire focus on me. His eyes dragged down my body again, and his gaze lingered on the enormous rock Wolfe had given me. “Pretty.”
I raised my voice into a shout. “What do you want?”
His grin widened even further, and he raised both hands in the form of surrender. A little chuckle escaped his lips. “Cristo, you’ve got a temper.”
“If you want the business, take it. If you want money, I’ll wire everything I have to you. Whatever the fuck you want, I’ll give it to you. Just let us all walk out of here and start new lives far the fuck away from you.”
He lowered his hands and let the pistol hang at his side. “You remind me of him.”
I knew by him, he meant Wolfe. “I take that as a compliment.”
“Well, I don’t want your business or your money.”
Dammit. “Then what?”
He cocked his head to the side. “Come on, you already know.”
Now my heart started to race, and it was a lot harder to keep a straight face. To pretend that I wasn’t utterly terrified of what might happen to me. “Let me save you some time. You take me, Wolfe comes for me, and then you’re all dead. It’s not a good use of your time or mine.”
He smiled. “Yes, but that’s exactly what I want to happen.”
“He’ll. Kill. You.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I’m curious to see how it goes down.”
This guy really was a psycho.
“I don’t personally have a vendetta against Wolfe, so I’d like to handle this as respectfully as possible.
So you can either allow me to handcuff you and put you in the back seat, or I can shoot every one of your men in the head until you allow me to do that.
And if you still don’t comply…” He sucked in a deep breath as he shrugged.
“I’m gonna have to force you, and I don’t want to do that. ”
“If you want to be respectful, then leave me be.”
“I wish I could, but boss’s orders.”
“You’re too smart to mindlessly follow some asshole’s orders.”
He gave another shrug. “He’s the king. Just how it goes.”
The king?
“We don’t always do what we want to do, but when your lord calls, you do his bidding.” Then he made the sign of the cross over his shoulders, which made no fucking sense. “If it makes you feel better, Wolfe will definitely have the opportunity to save you.”
“I know he will save me.”
He gestured to the car. “Then let’s go, Lady Wolfe.”
I didn’t want to be alone with this man. He seemed transparent with his intentions, but Wolfe was the only man in this world I truly trusted implicitly.
When I didn’t cooperate, he pointed his pistol at Elio’s head and cocked the gun. The smile was gone, and there was a rage in his eyes, as if within the snap of a finger, he’d lost his patience. “Shall I begin?”
I saw Leo change the grip on his gun slightly, like he was about to swing it toward Icarus and squeeze the trigger to spray him with bullets.
Icarus seemed to see it too, even though he only stared at me, because he suddenly pointed the gun at my head instead. “You want to play, little boy?” Now his tone of voice was totally different, like he was a different person.
“Leo,” I said quietly as I placed my hand on the gun and lowered it to the dirt. “He’ll get me back.”
Leo resisted at first but finally lowered the gun.
Icarus immediately dropped his. “I apologize for pointing this at you, Lady Wolfe.”
Fucking nutcase. “I’ll go with you.”
“Frankie, I don’t like this—”
“He’ll come for me.” I moved my hand to his shoulder. “Get ahold of Wolfe.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Icarus said as he walked to the back of the SUV and opened the door for me. “I’ll call him myself.” He gestured to the door, telling me to get inside.
“I’ll be okay,” I whispered to him before I walked away.
Leo released the heaviest sigh I’d ever heard him make. “Touch her, and I’ll cut your head off.”
Icarus released a chuckle. “Thanks for the warning, big man.” When I walked over, he pulled rope from his back pocket and secured my wrists in place.
“Can’t be too careful, am I right?” Then he grabbed my arm and helped me into the back seat before he grabbed the safety belt and leaned over me to click it in place.
When he was close to my chest, he breathed an audible breath and released a little moan.
“You smell good.” He pulled away and winked before he shut the door.
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.”