Chapter 54
Daisy Peonia Mary Parker
Calabria, Italy
My dress was a blood-soaked rag. My mind, a dark and chaotic whirlwind.
I had dismembered a human being.
I pulled the guts and organs out of his body.
Cut his flesh piece by piece.
The soldiers dragged me back to my cell. I wanted to run, scream, escape from there, but I couldn’t. Not because I knew they would kill me, or because I was afraid they’d hurt Aunt Lizzie. No. I couldn’t because my body had shut down.
I was collapsing. My mind unraveling, just as it had twelve years ago.
When my body fell to the cell floor, I let the cold seep into my bloodied skin and clenched my fists. My mind tried to tear me away from reality, but I fought it. For my sake, for those I loved, for Camillo…
Something hard pinned me to the present. Cold, pressing against the palm of my left hand. I sat up and spread my fingers, finding the ring again. The peridot, crusted in blood. I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against the concrete. The restaurant, Camillo, the beach, his promises, his arms.
He’ll come. I know he will.
At that moment, the door burst open and I saw, horrified, the panicked face of Cissio Accorinti, a gun gripped in his hand. “COME ON, PUTTANA! MOVE!”
There was no sign of his soldiers, and I noticed blood staining his cream-colored blazer near the shoulder.
He forced me to my feet, his free hand tangled in my hair, and hauled me out of there. With hurried, stumbling steps, he shoved me through an area I hadn’t seen before, and it didn’t take us long to find a staircase that wound downward.
“LET’S GO, PUTTANA!” He yelled desperately, and at that moment, the echo of gunfire rang out behind us.
With a shove, Accorinti sent me tumbling down the steps and I crashed at the bottom, next to some sort of iron gate. He landed beside me with a leap and punched a code into a console.
The door swung open and, to my astonishment, gave way to the sun and the sea.
I squinted and raised a hand, trying to adjust my eyes to the sudden brightness. But I didn’t have much time. He grabbed me by the hair again, dragging me out into the light.
He led us down a narrow path, my stomach turned to lead as I watched the waves crash below against sharp rocks.
We were skirting the edge of a cliff.
“You’re going to pay for what Vicari has done, puttana! Just you wait and see!” The skull-faced man shrieked as we finally climbed to the top of the cliff and moved away from the edge of the precipice. I could sense the fear behind his hysteria, and my heart raced.
It was him. The gunshots. It was Camillo.
The moment that thought formed, Accorinti forced me to kneel in the middle of that cliff, with my back to him and the sea, and facing a firing line taking shape before our eyes.
They were men. Dozens of them. Well-armed, ready to fire, in front of several parked SUVs. I spotted an old man among them, a silver cane in his hands and a grim expression on his face.
“Don’t make any mistakes, Don Accorinti.” The old man’s voice was extremely hoarse, cutting through the sounds of the sea like the scraping of metal.
I felt the tip of a pistol against the back of my neck. “If I fall, Don Zaccaria, your friend will fall too!” Accorinti shouted.
It was then that I saw him emerge in a hurry from behind the crowd. Taller than all the other men. His wolf-like gaze sunk into deep dark circles, the color of jade contrasting with the dark skin of his face, and a Beretta in his hands.
Relief made me tremble, and my face contorted as a sob escaped me.
“Let her go, Accorinti.” Camillo growled. “If you want to live, let her go.”
But Cissio Accorinti didn’t let me go. He pressed the pistol harder and harder against the back of my head, and with every movement he made, I groaned, fearing he would shoot.
“Wrong, Don Vicari. I’m the one who makes the rules.” I gasped for air, fighting the urge to run from there into the arms of the man in front of me.
“If you hurt her, you’ll die,” Camillo warned. “You’re cornered. Give up.”
“You lost, Don Vicari. You lost.”
Men shouted.
The air drained from my lungs.
A figure raised a gun behind Camillo.
Luca threw himself at the man, pinning him. But not in time. Not before a shot rang out and my world crumbled as Camillo Vicari’s body fell to the ground, just feet away from me.
No, it wasn’t a train.
No, it wasn’t a dark night.
No, it wasn’t Lester.
It was the strong man I loved, fallen on that ground, soaking the earth with his blood.
And suddenly, nothing else mattered, and I was nine years old again, kneeling in the garden with a water pistol in my hands and Papa by my side.
‘Daisy-Bear, do as Papa, okay? If a man puts a gun to your head like this, you turn, grab his wrist, twist and bang. Shoot to kill, baby girl.’
Turn. Grab. Twist. Bang.
The image of my Papa flashed before my eyes, followed by a different one. A memory of a picture. A red-haired woman, wolf-like gaze, looking at me with a piercing gaze. Peridots at her throat, her ears, and her finger.
Turn. Grab. Twist. Kill.
I spun on my knees and my hands grabbed Accorinti’s gun. The safety was off. A shot cracked through the air. Without hesitation, I fired again.
And again.
And again, and again, and again…
Accorinti fell, dead, before me. Riddled with bullets.
But nothing else mattered.
I stood up and staggered toward Camillo. A huge man was pressing his hand against the hole in his back, from which blood was gushing. Luca ran to me, supporting me, and soldiers passed by us, probably to check if Accorinti was, in fact, dead.
But nothing else mattered.
“Is he…?” I managed to croak, the pain cutting through my throat.
“He’s alive!” shouted the man pressing the wound. “Ragazzi, get the car ready, quick!”
“Sì, Don Barone!” Two men replied, immediately running toward an SUV.
Seeing Camillo’s body being carried away like a lifeless rag doll was more than I could bear. His stillness was terrifying, and a sob burst from my chest, raw and jagged.
“No. Please—“
“He has to go to a hospital. Now.” That man, Barone, growled and carried the man I loved away from me.
The man I loved.
I watched the car drive away with Camillo, feeling as if a piece of my own body were being torn away.
That was when I heard it.
The man responsible for this. The one who fired the shot. They had tied him up and gagged him, and were holding him on his knees against the wheel of a car. I realized it was our men surrounding him.
I moved my hand, realizing I was still holding Accorinti’s gun, and it still had bullets.
“Signorina…?” Luca murmured the moment I stepped away.
I pushed through the soldiers, barefoot and gun in hand, covered in blood that wasn’t mine, with the memory of Camillo’s mother in that picture replaying in my head. Her gaze a challenge. A silent ‘show what you are made of’ that she never got to tell to my face.
As I approached the gagged man, I saw four other figures. A woman and three small children, one of whom could barely walk.
I stopped.
“Who are they?” I managed to say, and the old man with the silver cane I had seen moments ago approached.
“The famiglia of that man you see there,” he replied, gesturing with his cane toward the man who shot Camillo. “His name is Antonio Palumbo.”
Antonio Palumbo. I hated the sound of it instantly.
But nothing else mattered.
I looked to my left, at the ground stained with Camillo’s blood.
He came for me.
I squeezed the peridot ring.
“Luca.” I called, turning my face back to look at Antonio Palumbo. “Tell them to take the gag off the man.”
“Signorina Parker, why—?”
“Because I said so, Luca.”
Luca spoke in Italian to the soldati, and I noticed the old man with the cane gesturing with his hand. Suddenly, the dozens of men surrounding us began to disperse, and the sound of car engines created a dreadful symphony.
“Signorina Parker, isn’t it?” asked the hoarse voice.
I didn’t know who the old man with the cane was, nor did I care. “That’s right.” I simply said, without turning around, without taking my eyes off the man kneeling in front of me. I wanted to memorize that square face, those bloodshot eyes.
“Benvenuta a Calabria.” The old man said only that.
The cars sped off, leaving only me, Luca, and our soldiers, and, of course, the prisoners.
“What do you want from me, puttana?” Antonio Palumbo spat, far too brave. “Huh?”
I didn’t take my eyes off his.
“You have nothing to offer. Everything I’ve ever had has been taken from me my entire life.
Over and over again. My father. My Lester.
My happiness. Yet, I’ve always tried to remain kind.
To be understanding. To repress the hatred within.
” I hissed, holding that bastard's gaze. “But now, once again, something has been stolen from me. Camillo. You’re the one who took him.”
Palumbo laughed. “I’ll make sure to send flowers to his funeral, vedovina.”
A smirk of disdain curled my lips. “Dead men send no flowers.”
“But you haven’t killed me yet.”
I leaned over, enough to smell his foul breath over the scent of blood coating my skin.
“Because death is an act of mercy for a piece of shit like you. First, I want to see you squeal like a dirty little pig.” I spat and backed away.
“Luca. Bring me the youngest child.” At that moment, the woman, also gagged, shrieked in horror, and Antonio Palumbo’s eyes bulged.
Luca approached me, his hands on my cold shoulders. His voice shaking. “Madonna mia, Signorina, what are you intending to do?”
“Luca. Now.”
Luca Condello walked away and I followed his movements, holding the pistol tight in my hand. He then dragged a little boy in diapers, his little hands bound, his short brown hair styled in a bowl cut, and brought him to me.
The child kneeled at my feet, his brown eyes pleading.
“What—what are you doing?!” Antonio Palumbo yelled.
I twirled the peridot ring between my fingers, returning it to its proper position, and adjusted the gun in my hand, pressing it against that baby’s head. But just touching the ring—and only the ring—was enough to make Antonio Palumbo turn white as a sheet.
“Per favore! My children are innocent!”
“In the eyes of God, we all are.”
The gun fired.
The child fell to the ground like a rag doll. His blood soaked that earth just as Camillo’s had. Luca cursed beside me and stepped back, and the soldiers cowered, averting their gaze.
“MALEDETTA!” Antonio Palumbo roared, sobbing at the sight of his dead son.
The muffled cries of the other children and their mother caught my attention. This time, my legs, though weak, moved.
Palumbo screamed, “NO! NO, NO, NO! PER FAVORE!”
The gun fired once, twice, three times.
First, the children.
Then, the mother.
“AH!” the man howled.
But nothing else mattered.
I lunged toward him.
“Maledetta! Puttana maledetta!” He cried, and I smiled. I smiled with all the hatred that was eating away at my insides. I smiled, knowing there was no turning back. And my arm rose once more, blowing Antonio Palumbo’s head apart, his brains splattering all over the black SUV behind him.
Silence followed. Heavy, prolonged. The smell of gunpowder filling the air.
I turned around.
Some soldiers were pacing back and forth, their hands on the back of their heads. Others simply stood with their backs turned, smoking. Those nearby avoided making eye contact with me or my victims.
I looked for Luca and found him huddled, biting his clenched fist, wiping tears from his eyes. I approached him and placed a hand on his back.
“Take me to Camillo.”
He stood up and sniffed, regaining his composure. When he looked at me, he puffed out his chest solemnly before answering, “Sì, Signora Vicari.”