38. Gio
GIO
Ismell the smoke before I’m completely awake.
Vivi’s asleep on my chest, one delicious thigh wrapped around my waist. Her naked breasts are pressed against my skin, and it takes me several breaths before I can pull myself from the euphoric afterglow of last night and identify that something is very wrong.
Slipping from underneath my wife’s body, I yank on a pair of pants and step onto the suite’s terrace. The scent of smoke is stronger out here, heavy in the air.
Frantic, I scan the skyline.
Holy fuck.
Smoke stretches up against the pre-dawn sky, gray plumes unfurling against a backdrop of reds and oranges. I can’t pinpoint the source.
I strain my ears, listening for the sounds of men running, shouting. There’s nothing.
The alarms aren’t sounding, either. The grounds are eerily quiet.
I yank on the rest of my clothes. With Vampa off the island, I contact Elio on the comms. Radio silence.
What the fuck!?
Dread snowballs. I’ve barely got both shoes on when I stop, stare at Vivi. She’s fast asleep, her hair a tangled mess across my pillow, her nipples puckered against the early morning air, still rosy from where I worshiped them last night. God, she’s gorgeous. And satiated.
Sex with Vivi is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, eons beyond what I thought two people could have together. It wasn’t just fucking. It was a benediction. An acceptance of who we are in our most basic forms, all pretense stripped away, sharing a level of intimacy that’s reshaped me forever.
I always thought people were being ridiculous when they said they’d found their other half.
Now I understand. Vivi is the better part of me and, after last night, she could be carrying my child.
Our child. Another addition to the family that, for the first time in my life, feels like it’s actually mine.
Not the legacy my parents left. Not the remnants I’ve had to save. But a collection of hearts and souls that make mine complete—and I’ll do everything fucking imaginable to protect.
I have to do that now.
Outside the suite, everything is silent, still. As I move from floor to floor, room to room, there’s no sign of fire, no hint of smoke.
I keep trying to contact Elio, but there’s no response. The same with the security office. How the fuck is no one answering?
I’m running now, straight for Aurora’s room, some of my panic subsiding when I see that everything is as it should be. She’s peacefully asleep in her bed, her thumb in her mouth, Lulù choked to death in her other hand.
Next door, Francesca’s bedroom door is unlocked. I look inside; she’s fast asleep. Nothing amiss.
The Russians are one floor down, occupying two adjacent rooms. It goes against every protocol to invade their privacy, but rules don’t apply right now.
I try the doors first. They’re locked.
I’d switched off the security feeds in the two guest suites as a basic courtesy, but it only takes a few swipes on my phone before I’ve got them live again. I check each room in rapid succession; the occupants are asleep in their beds, peacefully.
It doesn’t allay the fear gnawing at my chest.
A quick scan of the ground floor security feeds confirms there’s no motion in the villa. No one moving around. No signs of fire, either. All systems point to normal.
I don’t believe it for one second.
That’s when I check the feed from the prison cell. The one buried fifteen meters below the chapel. Dread grips my spine as I realize why the image won’t come into focus. The cells are overrun with smoke.
Fuck.
I send out an all-alerts signal on the comms before I break into a run, through the villa, to the gardens, heading straight for the chapel.
There’s no sign of anyone anywhere. No clue as to where Elio or the rest of the guards are. I don’t have time to look for them. I have to get to the cell before I lose the one thing that’s going to protect Aurora and save Vivi.
The source of the smoke becomes obvious before I reach the clearing.
Smoke is billowing out of the chapel. The air thick, impenetrable.
Sweat beads across my face as I try to get a look inside the stone building.
There are gaps in the smoke, gasps between plumes that I can just about see through.
The stench is awful, but there’s not enough heat, not like you’d get with a fire.
I don’t see any flames.
Or Padre Luigi.
I rush to the entrance concealed in the side of the chapel. It’s ajar. The air escaping is clogged, thick, but through the gap I can see that the door’s chains are in place. It’s still locked from the inside. The Father has to be in there.
The door leads to a staircase, one that, generations ago, the Marchetti capo installed during an overhaul of the chapel.
He called it an expansion. Said they were making enough room for all the workers on the island to attend Mass.
If anyone noticed that the exterior footprint of the building got substantially larger while the space inside remained exactly the same, no one had the balls to mention it.
Probably because they had an inkling of what he’d built underneath it.
An impenetrable prison. A series of small cells only accessible via the chapel’s concealed door.
At any given time, there are only three people within the Family who know how to open that door.
Only three people who know if and when there are prisoners inside.
The priest, the sottocapo, and the capo.
Padre Luigi Santoro oversees the prison.
Vampa oversees the transport of prisoners.
I condemn the occupants to their fate. Retribution, then death.
There’s currently only one occupant of Lisca Bianca’s prison. A man who arrived the same night as Vivi.
Tino Valori.
There’s enough space between the concealed door and the chapel wall that I can wedge the barrel of my gun between the two. I press the muzzle to the first chain, pull the trigger. The metal disintegrates. I repeat the process twice more until the door releases.
Smoke engulfs me as I haul it wide. I pull my shirt up over my mouth and nose, choking on the acrid stench.
Visibility is shit, but as the smoke escapes out into the atmosphere, I’m able to see better.
Well enough that I glimpse something splayed out on the landing just above the top step.
A foot. Then a leg. Then the identifiable cassock of a priest.
Shit. Santoro.
He’s out cold, but he has a pulse. Unconscious, not dead.
I haul him outside into the fresh air. Check comms one more time. Still, nothing.
“Vaffanculo!” I’ve got to get down to the cells. Weapon drawn, I head below ground.
I expect visibility to get worse the deeper into the ground I go.
It doesn’t. With the entrance behind me wide open, fresh air is drawing smoke out of the stairwell.
By the halfway point, the air is almost clear.
If the smoke was coming from below, it’s dissipating now.
And there’s still no sign of a source. Still no fire.
Suspicion is crawling beneath my skin. A mental warning that someone has used smoke bombs to simulate a fire. A threat they knew would lure me here.
Which means I’m walking into a trap.
Trap or not, I can’t risk anything happening to Valori. I keep going.
The temperature has dropped several degrees by the time I hit the packed earth floor that runs the length of the prison.
There aren’t any windows down here. No access to natural light.
There are ventilation shafts cut deep into the rock, several channels that drag fresh air from beyond the cliff walls deep into the dungeon.
Wide enough so there’s enough flow to prevent suffocation but not large enough for someone to escape.
Low-wattage bulbs flicker in industrial-style fixtures that jut from the rudimentary walls. I scan the dimly lit interior, keeping my breathing shallow, quiet.
My back to a wall, I walk down the narrow corridor, eyes and gun aimed at the cells on the opposite side. There are five in total. Only one is occupied. The last.
Tino Valori.
I can make out his form in the depths of the dungeon. Curled into his preferred corner. A sour taste fills my throat when, for a second, he looks too still to be alive.
He can’t be dead. He’s been fed, given medical attention.
The burns he sustained at the church fire in Chicago are long healed, no permanent damage done.
Santoro makes sure he gets a regular hose down and vitamin D supplements.
The man is living in a dirt pit and hasn’t seen real daylight in more than a month, but he’s getting all of the nutrients and medical care required to maintain a baseline of health.
As an insurance policy, Tino Valori is useless dead.
Now, his life is going to be what saves Vivi. The fucker isn’t allowed to die. Not here, not now.
“Valori!”
A groan comes from behind the bars. He’s conscious.
I clang the barrel of my gun against the metal. His head jerks, but he doesn’t look up. Fuck.
Smoke inhalation can be deadly. He might be breathing now, but I need to know if he’s going to stay that way or if I need to triage him.
I punch in the code for the cell’s door. The beeps are loud. The clank of the lock releasing echoes in the low space. Finger hovering over the trigger, I toe the door open and step into Valori’s cell.
He doesn’t move.
I step closer, dropping to my haunches, listening for signs of life. I hold my breath, straining to hear his. It’s there. Low, raspy, but regular.
Thank fuck. I tap his foot with mine. He groans, head lolling backward. His eyelids crack, a sliver of his eyes catching the light. They’re unfocused, dazed. I’m looking straight at them when I say, “You’re not allowed to die yet, you pezzo di merda.”
His only answer is a grunt. He slumps forward again. The smoke has taken a toll. I need to get him checked, make sure he’s going to survive the next twenty-four hours until Vampa has the final proof we need and we can turn him over to Pazzi.
Tino needs to be checked by a doctor. The sooner the better.