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. ”
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.
This—this can’t be happening.
I couldn’t believe what my eyes witnessed.
It was a nightmare that didn’t fade. It was a nightmare that was absolutely fucking real.
The coffin was lowered to the bottom, the ropes were detached, and then they started to shovel the dirt on top.
Utterly helpless to do anything, I sobbed on my knees, watching my husband be buried alive while the music continued to play and the priest continued to pretend to honor his life. I trembled and I shook and I convulsed on the spot.
And then the final shovel of dirt was thrown on top, and everything came to an abrupt end.
The men let me go.
Icarus continued to sit there and enjoy his cigar.
The men moved around me, returned tools to the house, and the priest left too.
Until it was only Icarus and me.
He smoked, and I sobbed on my knees.
“Show’s over, Lady Wolfe,” he finally said as he flicked ash off the end of his cigar. “Time to go.”
My mind had literally broken after what I’d witnessed. I couldn’t get myself back up. I felt absolutely no strength in any of my limbs. I just wanted to beg for Wolfe’s release, but that would get me nowhere.
I have seven hours.
My tears continued to pour into the dirt as I replayed those words.
Seven hours…of what?
And then it hit me.
Air.
He had seven hours of air.
My tears immediately stopped, and a flush of adrenaline hit me, granting me the strength that had been stolen from me. I could sit there and cry my heart out…or I could get off my ass and save my husband.
I had seven hours to do it, and I’d already wasted fifteen minutes sobbing at this asshole’s feet.
I forced myself up and headed for Wolfe’s Range Rover. The keys were in the center console, so I was able to start the vehicle and get the hell out of there. I drove fast off the property and made it onto the road, not even sure where I was going but now knowing I had to get the hell out of there.
I typed Palermo into the GPS and floored it. I didn’t have Don Russo’s number—or anyone’s from Cosa Nostra, for that matter—so I had to go in person. Thankfully, it was just a forty-five-minute drive from here. I called Leo and put the phone on speaker since my phone wasn’t synced to Wolfe’s car.
He answered right away. “Frankie?”
“I’m okay,” I sputtered, tears still in my throat. “He buried Wolfe alive on his property and let me go. Prepare the guys. Call in all our favors. I’m headed to Cosa Nostra to get their help too.”
Instead of asking a bunch of questions or suggesting we abandon Wolfe to his fate, he said, “The guys are already ready. We were just about to leave to come get you.”
“How did you know where I was?”
“I called up a friend, and he helped me track your phone,” he said quickly. “We know the address, so we’ll wait a few miles away for your call.”
I was so relieved that he’d already stepped up. That he hadn’t wasted precious time. “I need you to pack two shovels and a drill. I’m going to pick you up, and you’re coming with me.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just do it, okay?”
“Okay.”
The gates to Cosa Nostra opened at the sight of Wolfe’s Range Rover, and I ran straight to the double doors and asked to speak to Don Russo immediately. Thankfully, they didn’t give me the runaround and let me do whatever the hell I wanted.
I ran to Don Russo’s office, and he was speaking to one of the guys I often saw him with.
I was out of breath, but I forced the words out. “Icarus buried Wolfe alive… I need help.” I heaved as I caught my breath. “Now. He has less than seven hours of air left.”
Don Russo was on the couch, and he rose to his feet. “Francesca, what happened—”
“I just fucking told you. Icarus buried Wolfe alive because he continued to help you even when Icarus threatened him not to. So you’re going to get all your men together and come with me, and we’re going to hit Icarus so fucking hard and bury his ass alive when we’re done.
” I pulled my gun out from my shoulder holster, having found a pistol in Wolfe’s glove box, and pointed it right at Don Russo’s face.
“Refuse to help, and I’ll blow all your fucking heads off right now. ”
Don Russo didn’t flinch when the loaded gun was pointed at his face. He just raised his hands slightly. “Of course we’ll help you, Francesca. I just wanted to understand the situation.”
I put my gun back in the holster. “Then let’s pack up and go. My men are stationed down the road from the house. You guys wanted him dead, and I know exactly where the hell he is, so we’re going to finish this.”
“This is probably a trap,” Don Russo said.
“And?”
“We just have to be smart about this—”
“Wolfe is running out of air. I looked it up, and he only has seven hours if he’s absolutely fucking calm. So that’s the best-case scenario. If he has even a little bit of anxiety, his air is cut in half.”
“Don’t worry about his air,” Don Russo dismissed. “Knowing Wolfe, he’s probably asleep.”
“He was buried alive.”
“We have seven hours,” Don Russo said calmly. “I’m sure he knows you’re coming for him.”
“Damn right he does.” He’d told me seven hours because he knew I would come for him, and he wanted me to know exactly how much time I had to pull it off. I couldn’t wait to carve Icarus’s fucking eyes out of his head with my knife.
“But it is a trap—and it’s a clever one,” Don Russo said. “We either come for him in the next seven hours, or we choose to let him die. Either way, Icarus wins.”
“Then you distract him long enough for me to get him out of the ground.”
“You aren’t going to be able to dig him out quickly—”
“My brother will be with me. And damn right I can.” My hands moved to my hips.
“You guys and my men distract him from the road and the front. His property doesn’t have a fence line, so I can drive through the wilds in the rear and come up to the cemetery.
You just need to draw him to the east. Distract him long enough for me to get Wolfe out of the ground.
When we’re out, I’ll let you know, and you can pull back. ”
Don Russo considered all of this for a solid minute before he gave a nod. “Alright, given the circumstances, that will have to do. Wolfe has done a lot for us. He’s still family to us. And we’re going to get him out of there.”