Chapter 50
FRANCISCO
We drive past the front gate and up to the house before I realize that I’ve got a text from Marlena. Where are you? It says. I figure I’ll just go in and talk to her before taking care of business.
“What do you want us to do with him?” Giovanni asks as we all get out.
“Leave him be for a minute,” I say. “I need to talk to my wife.”
Giovanni follows me inside, leaving Luca to guard the prisoner. There’s not much he can do from the trunk, but I wouldn’t put it past him. I’ll take care of him shortly, as soon as I ease Marlena’s fears. But when I go to look for her in her suite, she’s not there.
The window is open, letting the cool breeze in. I don’t like the looks of that. On a hunch, I lean my head out and see that the bushes below her room have been trampled. Furious, I storm through her room, demanding that she respond. When I can’t find her there, I go to her brother’s room.
He’s also missing, and his doctor is surprised by my visit.
“Where’s your patient?” I demand.
“I think he went to talk to his sister,” the doctor says.
I don’t even bother to dignify that supposition with a response. The doctor isn’t a bodyguard, so I can’t be angry with him. But I can take it out on Marlena’s actual guard, a man who should have known better than to let her climb out the window.
I charge back down the hall to Frankie’s room. He’s there, sitting on his couch, playing with his phone. He looks up, reading the scowl on my face, and gets to his feet.
“What’s wrong?” he demands.
“Is Marlena in here?” I ask abruptly.
“No,” Frankie insists. “I haven’t seen her.”
“Dammit!” I bellow, “Where the hell is her guard?”
“Downstairs, I think,” Frankie says.
I don’t wait for him to finish his thought, storming back out into the hallway and down the stairs. When I find the bodyguard in the living room, watching a game, I haul him to his feet. Before he can even ask me what’s wrong, I punch him in the face.
“You let her escape again!” I scream. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”
The man cups his nose, streams of red poking out from between his fingers. “She’s upstairs, boss.”
“She’s not upstairs!” I shout. “She went out the fucking window!”
“How was I supposed to know she’s a prisoner?” the bodyguard whines, backing away from me.
“She’s not!” I snap, losing focus for a second. “But you’re supposed to keep her safe.”
He doesn’t have an answer for that, and I appreciate his discretion in keeping his mouth shut.
We both know that one insult from him would be the last thing he ever said.
I look at it from his point of view and realize that he didn’t know he had to protect her from herself.
It still doesn’t make things right, but I’ll deal with him later.
Right now, finding my wife is what’s important.
I pull out my phone, texting Marlena back. I’m at home. Where are you?
She doesn’t answer. I can’t tell if that means she didn’t get the text, or she doesn’t have her phone.
With no one able to tell me what’s going on, I can only assume the worst. If Andretti has her again, I’m going to go ballistic.
I realize there’s one person I can ask, and that person is locked in my trunk.
I storm back outside to get to the bottom of this. “Open the trunk,” I say to my man.
Luca is there, smoking a cigarette by the garage.
He straightens, crushing half of the smoke beneath his heel.
Giovanni comes out the front door, alerted by the scene I caused in the living room.
They both look confused, so I don’t bother to fill them in.
There will be plenty of time for explanations after I’m satisfied Andretti doesn’t have my wife.
The driver comes around with the key fob and clicks the trunk open.
I reach for it, but the metal comes up of its own volition.
Before I can stop him, Marcello leaps from the trunk, brandishing a tire iron.
He smacks the driver in the side of the head, sending the man thundering to the ground.
He takes a swing at me and misses, almost connecting with my rib cage.
I reach for my weapon, and he lobs the tire iron at Giovanni.
We’re all shouting and pulling out our guns.
Any minute now, Marcello is gonna be full of holes.
But the bastard sees the writing on the wall and decides to take his chances.
I don’t want to shoot and accidentally kill him before I have the chance to find out if he knows what happened to Marlena.
He runs away from the gate, around the house, and into the backyard. Giovanni, Luca, and I take off after him, each of us firing insufficient shots at his retreating form. I curse the gun range and its stationary target. It’s so much more difficult to hit a man who’s weaving left and right.
He darts around toward the garden shed, where I catch him out in the open. I fire a warning shot at the shed, tearing apart the wall and causing splinters to rain down on my enemy. Marcello throws up his hands to protect his eyes, turning to face me.
“Where’s my wife?” I demand.
Marcello laughs, as if it hadn’t even occurred to him that Marlena would run off again. “You’re just a stupid old man!” Marcello taunts. “She’s only interested in your money!”
“Where is she?” I repeat myself.
“Probably halfway to Hawaii,” Marcello snaps. “She probably came to her senses and decided to skip out on you.”
“You’re a dead man if you don’t tell me the truth,” I swear.
“I’m a dead man anyway!” he shouts back.
That much is true. There’s no way I can offer him the carrot of a long and prosperous life. The best I can do is promise not to torture him, not that I would keep my word after his betrayal. “If you tell me, I can promise you I’ll make it quick,” I say.
He sniffs, looking around as Giovanni and Luca flank me with their guns drawn. “If I knew where she was, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“What’s going on?” Giovanni asks.
“Marlena is missing,” I say. Those are the hardest words I think I’ve ever said in my life. I’m on the threshold of falling apart, and Marcello is my only link to sanity. If I can’t get him to talk, then I’m going to die trying.
Marcello starts to laugh. “Why would you ever think she could fall in love with the likes of you?”
My finger itches to pull the trigger, but my brain is screaming not to. I need the information he’s got to rescue my wife, and it would be shortsighted of me to kill him now.
“He doesn’t know where she is,” Luca says coolly.
“Yes, I do,” Marcello claims.
“Where?” I demand.
“She’s with Andretti making sweet love,” Marcello says with a laugh.
That’s all I can take. His taunt flips a switch in my head, and I lose sight of the bigger picture. I can feel myself depressing the trigger an instant before I do it, but there’s no stopping me now.
The bullet screams out of my barrel, digging its way into Marcello’s skull. Giovanni and Luca open fire beside me, and together, we fill the bastard full of lead. I won’t get any information from him now, but he wasn’t going to tell me the truth anyway.
I’m sure Marlena hasn’t gone to Andretti to seek comfort. We had a plan. I was going to send her to Italy to be safe. But that doesn’t mean that Andretti hasn’t kidnapped her again. For all I know, he could be holding her somewhere, ready to trade his future security for hers.
Luca steps forward to check the body. There’s no need.
No one could eat that much lead and survive.
But he’s just being thorough, and I watch him go.
He kicks Marcello onto his back, crouching down to take a pulse.
I can see at least six wounds on his torso, and one in his left eye socket.
The man is dead; there’s no faking that.
Luca looks up, unsure whether to celebrate or commiserate.
I turn around, knowing that my men will dispose of the body.
I have more important things to do than worry about Marcello.
He’s gone. He got what he deserved. But my attention is elsewhere.
I need to find Marlena and satisfy myself that she’s still alive.
Even though she said she was leaving me, I care about her too much to let her fall into the hands of my enemy.