by Fiona Grace
She clasped a hand over her mouth. “How terrible.”
“You know how I wanted peace. But now I think it is too late for that.”
“Oh, my gosh,” she breathed, her eyes practically popping out of her head. She couldn’t believe she was in the middle of this. “But once they find out that you had nothing to do with it—”
“They won’t believe it. It is too much of a coincidence. The murder happened on our property. There is no one else that could’ve done it. They can easily say that we paid the hunter to commit the crime.”
“But—”
“Bang!” a high-pitched voice shouted behind her, followed by gleeful, childish laughter.
Audrey whirled around in shock to see a little boy standing there with a toy rifle. He was adorable, no more than eight or nine, and wearing a tiny black suit, a mafia man in training. He was carrying a hunting rifle, a toy version of the one Ricardo had had in his booth. Rafael smiled at him, then shouted, “Ando, va via!” He sighed as the kid fiddled with loading the next round. “Kids.”
The child scurried off, as suddenly, something came to Audrey. Ugo Telemaco had reporting hearing two shots, in quick succession. A bang-bang, without stop. But if he’d had a hunting rifle like the one that little kid was toting around . . . was that even possible? “So um, I know nothing about guns. With a hunting rifle . . . can you fire off two shots right on top of one another?”
He tilted his head. “No. Not typically. You have to cock or pump the rifle, first, which takes a few seconds.”
She stiffened, and suddenly, it came to her. The man that she’d met in town, who was looking for a place to eat. Marco. He was from the mainland, was new to the area. Was he . . . ?
“Oh, my gosh. I think I made a mistake.” She backed away. “I have to get back to town. Quick.”
A little part of her dreaded the thought of climbing those stairs. It certainly wouldn’t be quick, considering how tired she felt. So she was relieved when he fished into the pockets of his slacks and pulled out his keys. “Come on. I’ll drive.”
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Audrey was right. Rafael Piccolo did know how to travel in style. It was a sporty Mercedes that looked like it’d just been driven out of the showroom.
Not that she had much time to enjoy the ride in the sleek black sportscar with its buttery leather seats, plush interior and every bell and whistle under the sun. Looking up at the sky through the moonroof, she had to wonder—was this the best choice for a man who wanted to be inconspicuous? Perhaps the dark sunglasses he wore, and the tinted windows helped.
She gave him directions to La Mela Verde, and they pulled up to the restaurant, minutes later. She hopped out, even before the car had come to a complete stop and rushed inside.
G was there, alone, cleaning up after the lunch rush. His eyes lit up when he saw her. “Principessa!” he bellowed. “Can I get you some ciambotta?”
“No,” she said, out of breath, “But I do need your help. There was a customer here, a couple days ago. He wasn’t from here. I think he was Italian, from the mainland. He said his name was Marco. You wouldn’t happen to remember him, would you?”
Even as Audrey said it, she knew just how impossible a task it was, like remembering what one had for dinner on this date, a year ago. G saw probably a thousand customers, every day. Many of them were tourists or transplants from somewhere else. And just about everyone spoke Italian. So she expected him to shake his head and say he couldn’t help her.
“Si.”
“Really?” He had to be pulling her leg.
He opened his mouth to speak but stopped when the door opened, and Rafael walked in. His eyes narrowed as they trailed outside, to the black sportscar on the curb. “Tu chi sei?”
“Uh, G,” she said, taking Rafael by the sleeve and bringing him forward. “This is Rafael. Rafael, G . . .”
“You’re a Piccolo,” G said, his voice low and a bit more growly than Audrey had ever heard it.
Rafael nodded. “Nice to meet you, too.”
“Principessa,” he said, his eyes not leaving Rafael’s. “Why do you surround yourself with this man? He’s from a bad family.”
Audrey frowned. “But I thought you told me that it didn’t exist here in M—”
“I was wrong. I see that they’re back.”
The tension was so thick that Audrey probably couldn’t have cut it with a steak knife. She said, “All right. Yes. Rafael knows all that. But I think I know who committed that murder in the orange grove. And I need your help.”
His eyes finally flickered to Audrey’s. “Why are you caught up in this?”
“G, please,” she begged.
He let out a tired sigh. “All right. How can I help you?”
“That man that was here. Marco. How do you remember him?”
“Because we don’t get many from the mainland here. Especially in Mussomeli. They no like us very much here, and we them. But I talk to him. I talk to everyone.” He smiled. “He told me he’s staying at the Viola. On via Boccaccio.”
“Really? Oh, perfect! I could just kiss you!” she said, grabbing his hand on the counter and squeezing it. She spun around and headed for the door. Rafael was already holding it open for her. “Thank you!”
“Be careful!” G called after her.
She pulled out her phone and found a listing for the Viola Hotel. Following her GPS, she walked quickly toward the location, with Rafael following close behind.
“What are you thinking, Audrey? Are you saying that the hunter did not kill Pietro, now?”
“Right. I don’t think it’s possible, and I think the police will realize it, too. He had a hunting rifle. Not a pistol. And there were two shots, one right after another. So, I think it might be someone else.”
“Someone else? Who is this Marco?”
“Maybe you can tell me, I hope,” she said as they went through the double doors of the hotel and to the reception desk. It was a small hotel, so she hoped that the employees would recognize the man. She said to the clerk, “Hi, I’m looking for a man named Marco. He had a dark beard, glasses, tall and heavyset?”
The woman nodded and checked the registry. “Marco Pollaco, Room 118. Right that way.”
“Thank you,” Audrey said, stepping away from the desk and following the woman’s pointed finger. They walked down a long, paneled hallway, decorated with photographs from around Mussomeli. Rafael got there before her, listened at the door for a moment, and then knocked.
When the door swung open, Marco stood there, his eyes going from Audrey to Rafael.
He didn’t seem surprised at all to see either of them there.
In fact, he seemed to have expected it, because he was holding a gun, pointed right at Audrey’s chest.
*
“Marco Grinnelli,” Rafael said, his voice even and low. “I thought it was you.”
Audrey, however, could not understand how anyone could stay so calm. Not while peering down the barrel of a gun. She felt everything inside her rebelling. Her bladder threatened to expel its contents. All it would take was one single squeeze, and she’d be dead. “U-um . . .” She stammered. “Grinnelli?”
Marco poked his head out the door, looked up and down the hallway, then grabbed her arm. “Get in here. The both of you. No stupid moves.”
She let him pull her inside, and Rafael followed, his hands up, appeasing the man. Though he was complying, Rafael didn’t look worried in the least. In fact, he seemed calm, relaxed. Audrey, on the other hand, was sweating, her knees knocking together as she scurried into the room, bumping into the door and other furniture because she refused to take her eyes off the barrel of the gun.
He motioned Rafael forward, while she moved backwards. “Gun,” Marco snarled. “Give it to me.”
Rafael reached under his blazer and pulled out a pistol, dropping the butt of it into Marco’s waiting hand. The backs of her knees hit a bed and she sat down in a rush, just as Rafael exclaimed, “Rocco!”<
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At that, Audrey tore her eyes from the gun and followed his line of sight to the other bed. Rocco was lying there, tied up, mouth gagged. He, too, looked strangely complacent, as if he’d had this happen to him often. In fact, though his wrists were secured tightly behind his back, he managed to wave a couple fingers.
“How’re you doing, boy?”
He somehow shrugged his shoulders.
Rafael shook his head. “What is the meaning of this, Marco? You killed Pietro?”
Marco motioned him to the bed with the gun. “You don’t run this, Rafael. I do.”
Rafael shrugged and sat down next to Audrey. “All right. Now, what?”
He scowled. “Yeah. I killed Pietro. I was in the orange grove, coming to kill you, but then I saw him there, and I thought he might’ve been there to rat me out. Pietro was always such a goody-goody, like you, Rafael. And I said, you know what? That’ll be better. Start a turf war and give us a chance to blow the Piccolo clan off the map for good. One stone, and a heck of a lot of birds.”
Rafael crossed his arms. “For what reason, Marco? We’ve been living here in Sicily in peace for over twenty years. We have had no beef with you and your clan.”
“Yeah, in peace. That’s a joke.” He shook his head sourly. “You’ve had rule over the land here for a long time and have done nothing with it. It’s time the Grinnellis move in and show how things are really done. We’ve always known our empire could be huge if we just got our chance to run Sicily. But we couldn’t do that, with Piccolos still here, blocking our way.”
“You can’t do that now,” Rafael said. “In case you didn’t realize, someone else was arrested for the murder. It wasn’t pinned on us.”
“I know,” he hissed, eyes narrowed on Audrey. “Because of her. I was there. I saw the whole thing go down. And that’s when I saw Rocco, here. I grabbed him. I figured if he ended up dead, you guys would have to retaliate. Right?”
Rafael nodded, as if it all made sense. “But now you have me and Audrey. So what are you going to do? Are you going to kill us all?”
“That’s right. More bang for my buck.” He grinned wickedly.
Audrey shuddered. He said it far too nonchalantly for her liking, like someone who’d murdered many times before. Of course, he was the killer. He was right out of a movie. A heartless mafioso, just like Luigi had warned her about. This was what he’d told her to stay away from.
And so it only made sense that she was here, now, with a pistol pointed straight at her heart.
“You can’t shoot us here. Someone’s going to hear, you know,” she squeaked.
He looked around. “I know, but that’s no problem. I’ve got it all figured out. You three, and me, are going to take a little ride to the orange groves.” He lifted the phone in his hands and looked at Rafael. “You, take your car out to the back and text your cousin’s line when you get there. And no funny business. If I don’t get that text in one minute, your girlfriend here is dead.”
He grabbed her and pulled her up. Audrey gasped in horror as she felt the gun, digging into her ribs. Before then, she’d almost convinced herself that this was all a bad nightmare she’d soon wake up from. But feeling the pressure of the gun against her side made it all real. “Rafael!” she whimpered.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out his keys, and held up his hands to calm her down. “Do not worry, cara. I will not let anything happen to you.”
And then he went out the door, leaving Audrey there with the two strange mafia men, and her heart in her throat.
*
“Just drive,” Marco said from the passenger seat, gun pointed right at Rafael’s side.
“This is foolish,” Rafael said as they left the town limits of Mussomeli, headed downhill, toward the orange grove. “Folly. We Piccolos want peace. Most of the Grinnelli clan does, too. But you want to engage in a war so that you and the Grinnellis can take over this land and expand an already dying empire? It’s foolish.”
Marco donned his dark sunglasses and stared out the window, letting the wind blow back his dark hair. “I said, just drive. No commentary.” He shook his head. “You and Pietro were that new breed of family, who want to play things straight. But that’s foolish. You never get ahead, playing by the rules. And when I get you three out there, and you’re each found with bullets to the brain, your mafia family will have no choice to come after us. And we’ll destroy them. We’re bigger, and more prepared. And we’ll decimate you, leaving all of Sicily to be ours to claim.”
Rafael shook his head. “You want Sicily? Take it. Take it all from us. The killing stops here.”
Marco snorted. “Where have I heard that before? Oh, right. Right before your father killed my father.”
Audrey’s eyes widened. “Is that true?”
Next to her, Rocco, still bound and gagged, nodded, still looking rather calm. Audrey shifted uncomfortably in her seat, feeling like she was on her way to her own funeral. She felt like she should say something, but at the same time, she was sure it wouldn’t matter. There were decades of bad blood between the Piccolos and the Grinnellis. She had a feeling that even if she sat with them for hours, she’d never be able to disentangle the sordid history that bound these two families together. It was probably a worse saga than the Capulets and Montagues.
And it had nothing to do with her. But yet, once again, here she was, in the middle of it. Wrong place, wrong time.
She watched with dread as the street became narrower and the first of the orange trees came into view. Marco motioned for him to pull into a dirt access driveway that ran along the edge of the grove, separating the Tivoli estate from the property that belonged to Ugo Telemaco. The Mercedes bumped onto the rutted drive, past the stone wall, and headed through the thick tangle of orange trees. Their leaves blocked out the setting sun, casting them in a nightlike darkness.
Audrey shuddered as Marco directed him to stop the car. Rafael did as he was told, slowly braking and then cutting the engine. “What do you want from us, now?”
Marco motioned with the gun. “What do you think? Out of the car. Now. Move it.”
Audrey opened the door, feeling faint. Since Rocco was tied up, when he shuffled toward her, she helped him out and closed the door. Rafael went over to her, and for the first time, he looked guilty. His expression said, I’m sorry I got you into this.
At that moment, she really didn’t care how she’d gotten into it. Now, she was looking around, trying to determine how to get out of it. And it seemed pretty hopeless. The mansion for the Tivoli estate was probably a mile away from where they stood, on the outskirts of the grove. There was no chance that Rafael’s men back at the house could’ve heard their car, pulling up. And without them, what could the three of them do? What chance did three unarmed people have against a hardened mafia man and his gun?
“Stand here. Line up. Turn around. Come on. I don’t got all day.”
“Marco,” Rafael said evenly. “This is your last chance. You don’t have to do this.”
He laughed bitterly. “For the last time, Piccolo. Turn. Around.”
Even at that moment, she couldn’t fully believe that this was happening to her. It’d all seemed so outrageous, like a joke. But right then, the full weight of what was going on hit her. She turned around, hands lifted in surrender, looking up at the trees. They were moving, but it was a windy day. Were they just swaying in the wind? Was there no one around? No hope at all of rescue at all?
Rafael came shoulder to shoulder with her and murmured, “I’m sorry, cara. I didn’t mean for things to end this way.”
She nearly choked on her breath. For things to end this way? Was this the end? Her stomach, which had already felt queasy, now dropped completely. He’d promised her she’d be all right, and now, was he going back on it? She bit her tongue so hard that she tasted blood. Was the next thing she felt going to be a bullet in her back? There was the unmistakable crack of him cocking his gun. She gritted her teeth and closed her eyes, an
d . . .
Suddenly a big gust of wind whistled through the trees and there was the thundering sound of footsteps on the hard ground. She looked up just as a number of men in suits burst through the line of trees, guns drawn. At the head of them was Giuseppe. “Drop it, Marco. Now.”
Marco cursed under his breath. Audrey turned to see him scanning the area. They were surrounded by at least thirty men in suits, what had to have been the entire Piccolo clan. Every one of them was pointing a gun at Marco.
For a moment, Audrey was sure he’d come out shooting. His face was red with anger and his scowl was that of pure hatred. “You all can go to—”
“Marco,” Giuseppe barked, scolding him like a child. “You know you’re outnumbered. Don’t let us kill you. It’s time to go home and end this. For good.”
Marco’s eyes went wide, and his face crumpled. He dropped his gun, then got to his knees. His shoulders sagged. Suddenly, the once frightening mafioso put his hands to his face and began to sob. Giuseppe sighed and lowered his gun. “There’s a good lad, Marco. Come on,” he said in a very grandfatherly voice, motioning for the other men to drop their guns, which they did without question. “We’ll get you inside, get you some minestrone, and send you back to Italia. To your family. And we can put all this behind us. Okay?”
He nodded through his sobs and allowed Giuseppe to lift him up and walk him toward the house. Audrey stared as they walked him away. “What just happened here?” she whispered to Rafael.
He shrugged. “Marco’s always been the unbalanced one in the Grinnelli family. A troublemaker. I thought he’d gone away from his family, but I see he hasn’t. It does not surprise me in the least that he wanted to start this war.”
“I can’t believe it,” she said as the two men disappeared into the grove, followed by the other Piccolo family members. “I don’t think he’s going to be able to go back to Italy, just like that. The police will be coming after him.”
“Oh, they will, don’t worry. We will call them, once the Don has had his chance to deal with him.”