by Linda Ladd
Novak pulled out some energy bars, and Claire took them and handed them around. “Who’s the little kid?” he asked Claire, looking behind her, to where Rico was hiding as he snarfed down his snack.
“That is Rico, my new friend for life. He saved our lives. Both of us. He’s quite a little hero. Trust me on that.”
Rico grinned when he heard how Claire was bragging on him, but he was pretty much concentrating on eating the energy bar as fast as he could get it in his mouth. Claire’s didn’t last long, either.
Novak was frowning. “My God, what happened to your hand?”
“You don’t want to know. Guess you don’t have any Betadine on you.”
“Yeah, I do. And a bandage. Let me see it.”
Claire continued eating her bar while he unwrapped the shirtsleeve and looked down at her slashed-wide-open palm.
“Good God, Claire, this is sliced down almost to the bone.”
“Yeah, I noticed that almost the minute it happened.”
Shaking his head, Novak got the medicine out of his pack and dumped some right down into the wound, and Claire cried out and nearly jumped out of her skin. Then he started wrapping gauze tightly around her hand, pushing the edges of the wound together as he did it. “My God, Novak, you’ve got the touch of a baboon. Let Black do it. He knows how to be gentle.”
But Black was more interested in getting them the hell out of danger. Claire didn’t mind that. That’s what she wanted him to do. He had taken charge of the group again, just like that. He was the leader, all right. He was scanning all around and looking anxious now.
“Okay, let’s just get going,” said Black, not interested in eating or anything else. No doubt wanting to get as far away from Jaxy and her torture chamber as he could get. Claire could not blame him.
So they took off again, now with a more hopeful outlook, heading back to the sea and walking at a faster clip than before. Black and Booker led the way with Novak and Holliday bringing up the rear, all armed, all alert, and watching every side for trouble. Claire’s nerves had finally begun to settle down a bit. Having three more great big, well-trained, well-armed men to fight alongside her really upped the odds somehow. While they moved along the sandy paths through the seemingly miles of scrabbly scrub bushes, Booker started telling them about Marseilles and how they were tricked by the GPS signal.
“Yeah, they had this whole operation planned out and down to every stinkin’ detail. They probably worked it out for months, years, even,” Black said, his voice bitter. “If it weren’t for Claire and Rico, I’d be dead. Or soon would be.”
Their fast pace back toward the sea curtailed any more idle chitchat, and in time they finally reached the quiet cove where Booker had anchored the boat. It was a small fishing craft moored just off the beach, and they wasted no time heading down the sloping cliff side. It was steep and perilous with loose gravel and shifting sand, but Claire didn’t know who was the most eager to get the hell in that boat and out of this place, the rescued or the rescuers. But she, for one, wanted desperately to be out on the ocean before anything else bad happened.
But too bad. They weren’t that lucky.
Shots began to ring out above them from atop the surrounding cliffs and from both sides. Novak went down first with a bullet in his left shoulder. Claire grabbed Rico and fell on her stomach on the path about twenty yards up from the beach. Oh, God, she thought, it has to be Jaxy. That she-devil was up above and firing down at them like the proverbial fish in a barrel. They moved back into the cliff face as best they could, pressing their backs up against the rocks, trying to flatten themselves to lessen the target.
Claire inched over to Novak and tried to stanch the blood streaming out from just under his clavicle. It was a clean shot and hadn’t hit a bone, but it was bleeding heavily. She returned his earlier favor of acting the nurse, pulling out gauze and wrapping it over his shoulder and under his arm. He was being stoic, but it had to hurt like hell. He wasn’t showing his pain. He was showing an eagerness to fight. She had a feeling he’d been in tough spots before and survived them, and that he planned to do so this time, too.
Black, Booker, and Holliday were firing back, taking potshots up at their attackers, but there was no way they could see them. Jaxy’s men had the high ground in this gunfight, and were shooting from both sides of the cliff trail. They couldn’t tell how many there were or exactly where they were. They were firing down at them at a rate that indicated Jaxy had a lot of men with her. Then it got real quiet for a moment, and they waited, still backed up tightly against the rocks.
“We’ve gotta make a run for that boat.” That was Novak, breathing hard. In pain now.
Booker said, “No way. We’d never make it across that beach without getting mowed down.”
“We can’t stay here,” Claire told them. “They’re gonna pick us off one at a time. All they have to do is spread out a little farther up there and they can hit us, even under this ledge.”
Nobody said anything to that, because they all knew that was true. There were no options. They were trapped this time. The boat rocked on the waves only about thirty yards out in the water, but they’d have to cross the open sand to get there. No way could they make it. They all were experienced enough to know it, too.
“They want me,” Black said. “I’m gonna give myself up. See if they’ll let the rest of you go.”
“No, you’re not. They’re not gonna let us go for any reason. They want us dead. All of us.” Claire shook her head, nixing that idea in the bud. So did the others.
Holliday said, “We can wait until dark and then go up and fight it out or try to get across that sand. There can’t be that many of them.”
“There’s enough of them to put us all down.”
Everybody was quiet after that, but they found out that they didn’t have to make any more decisions. Jaxy was stupid and impatient enough to start sending men down the trail after them. They were approaching the spot halfway down, using the jutting rocks and ledges for cover.
Black said, “Okay, get ready. They’re not stopping. They’re rushing us.”
Claire pushed Rico up against the rocks, thinking how horrible it would be if Jaxy got the poor child back under her control again. Then she inched over to a spot where she could peek around the rocks and see the trail above them. Novak was already lying on the ground, his wound forgotten, his AR beaded on the place where the first man would appear. It didn’t take long. He shot him down, three quick taps in the chest. The man fell and tumbled down toward them, sending a skittering shower of rocks behind him, hard enough to take him over the nearest ledge. He fell to the beach below, his scream ending abruptly when he hit the rocks and bounced down onto the sand just below.
Suddenly, all hell broke loose. Shots rained down on them, from all directions, up above, from the path, shells hitting the rocks and ricocheting and whizzing all over the ledge where they were concealed. Claire felt the buzz of a bullet strike the stone near her ear and then a white jag of pain crease down the side of her head. She fell to her knees, holding her head, and then Black was beside her, covering her and Rico with his body.
“I’m hit,” she muttered, putting her hand to her head and feeling the warm blood running through her fingers.
When the barrage of fire stopped for a second, Black pushed her hair back and fingered the wound. “It’s only a graze. Keep pressure on it. You’ll be all right.”
Above them, Jaxy and her men started shooting again, farther down the path now and closer to them.
Holliday darted a look out from behind the rocks. “They’re moving into position on either side of us. They’re playing with us. It’s just a matter of time. We’re gonna have to make a run for it. We don’t have a choice anymore.”
He ducked back as more shots rang out from every direction, the bullets zinging off the rocks all around them, whizzing around at all kinds of crazy angles that were impossible to avoid. Holliday groaned when he got hit in the foot.
Black kept Claire and Rico under him as more shots rang out. “They’re trying to pick us off one at a time. We’ve got to storm them up the path. Go in firing. It’s the only chance we’ve got. We’ve got to go up to them, and hope to God we can pin them down somehow.”
Nobody said anything, all of them pretty much knowing that plan was suicidal.
“Okay,” said Booker. “Let’s do it.”
“Claire, you and Rico stay down here. We’ll come back for you.”
“No way, Black. I’m goin’ in with you. Rico can stay here. I want in this fight.”
“No way are you going up there. You’re injured. You’re staying down here. You can’t help us.”
“Like hell I can’t. You’re injured, too. So is Novak. And Holliday. We’re all injured. You need as many guns as you can get. They outnumber us.”
Black didn’t say anything else, because he knew she was right.
“Then you stay down here and give us covering fire. We go up first, and then you go last. Rico, you stay right here and don’t move out from the rocks. If we don’t come back, you run down to the beach and hide. Understand me?”
The little boy nodded, but the look of terror had returned to his big, dark eyes. Claire felt that way, too. Any one of them who didn’t was a fool. And none of them were fools. Storming back up to the top was a death sentence, and they all knew it. None of them would survive. After all they’d been through, all the pain and terror and within yards of escape, they were going to die, after all, and on some stupid Sicilian cliff.
Black was in total charge now, making all the decisions. It was obvious that the other men expected him to get them out alive. So he made up a really terrible plan that didn’t have a chance in hell of working, as shots continued to ring down all around them. But it was the best one under some very hairy conditions. They had to hurry and execute it, too, before somebody got killed where they stood. But they set it up for two to go at a time, one putting down cover fire, while the first one tried to make it up to the next spot of cover along the trail. Then the third would cover the first two, and keep up that leapfrogging until they crested the peak, taking out as many of the enemy as they could along the way. Claire would go last.
Claire looked into Black’s face, and he stared back at her. Their eyes met and said things, because they both knew. This was it. Their luck had run out. He pulled her close against him for a second, for the final good-bye, and Claire struggled to remain calm.
“I wish we could’ve gotten married first,” he breathed into her ear. “I really would’ve liked that.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
Then it was back to business. “Okay, you ready? Let’s do this.”
Black edged his way up to the front with Booker right behind him. They made it out without getting shot, Novak covering them by letting loose at the top with his rifle. Novak went next, Holliday covering him. Halfway up to a spot about six feet up the trail, all hell broke loose again, but this time it was happening far above them. They all went down for cover, flattened against the rocks, but no shots peppered the rocks around them this time. Claire darted a quick look up at the cliff top, but she couldn’t see anybody. The firing went on for perhaps ten minutes. They all just waited, staying down, not moving, not sure what was going on. Then it became very quiet again. Gulls screeched and dove, the waves roared and crashed below them, and Rico started crying softly behind Claire, finally giving in to the fear he’d fought down all day long.
Spread out up along the sandy path now, all securely hidden behind rock ledges, they waited tensely for something to happen. Then a voice rang out from up very high. Heavily accented English. “Nicholas Black? You down there?”
Black waited, frowning, and then he called back. “Yeah.”
“Come up. It is safe now.”
“Don’t think so.”
“Your brother sent me. Jacques Montenegro.”
Claire’s heart shivered with hope.
Black looked down the trail at her and then squinted up at the rocks again. The sun was behind the enemy, making it hard to see anything. He was quiet for a few moments, thinking things through, apparently afraid it was another trick. Then he yelled again. “How do I know this isn’t a trap? How do I know that you’re not with Jaxy Soquet?”
Silence prevailed for several minutes, making Claire think it very well could be a trick. But then a shadow suddenly formed in the sky above them, coming closer, and then the body hit down on the rocks not a yard in front of Black’s position and bounced up high. It was her. Jaxy Soquet. There was a black bullet hole blasted into her at mid-forehead, and the back of her head was pretty much gone. She came to a stop, upside down, blood flowing out of the back of her head, coating the sharp rocks with red and dripping slowly down onto the next ledge where Booker was hunched down.
Stunned, they all just stared at the woman’s body for the first few seconds. Then more bodies came spiraling down from the top, cartwheeling in the air until they landed with awful crunching sounds on the rocks all around them. At least ten more bodies rained down before it stopped, and Claire recognized some of them as Jaxy’s men.
“Those men answered to Jaxy,” Claire called up the trail to Black.
“Okay, okay,” Black said, but he still didn’t look convinced. He was still wary. Not sure what to think.
“It’s Potenza, Nicky,” cried another deeper voice. “It’s Giuseppe Potenza.”
At that, Claire saw Black’s face relax. He stood up and grinned down at Claire. “That’s him. I recognize his voice.”
Claire just held her breath, not sure what to think anymore. Every time she thought they were gonna make it, something terrible happened. Then she saw a man appear at the top, dressed in dark pants and a white shirt, carrying a rifle that was pointed down at the ground.
“Who the hell is Potenza?” demanded Novak. “I’m not standing up until I know who the hell these guys are.”
“He’s a good friend of Jacques’s. They grew up together in Marsala before my father brought our family to America. He runs things there now. We can trust him.”
Black started up the path, all good with the situation apparently. The rest of them waited, not so sure yet. They watched as Black met the older man halfway up the trail and they embraced warmly, slapping each other’s backs. Claire watched them for a moment, thinking she was beginning to love Black’s criminal kin. All of them, each and every one. Hell, maybe she’d join their ranks, be a female mafioso and move to Sicily. Then she just lay back flat on the ledge and allowed all her tension-ridden muscles to relax.
Right there, for the first time in over a week, her body went slack and she felt halfway secure from imminent and bloody murder. Rico snuggled up next to her. They lay there like that for a long time while the men all climbed up to welcome their reinforcements. She lay there, in fact, until Black came down and made her get up. Then he picked up Rico, and she just followed him in another difficult climb up the cliff face, as if she were in a dream. Maybe she was. Maybe she’d wake up in a minute, and none of it would be real. Maybe she’d still be in her wedding gown, waiting for Black to show up at her cabin that wasn’t blown to smithereens. Maybe it had all been some horrendous, horrible nightmare, and she was going to laugh about it later.
It wasn’t a nightmare. Well, actually, it was, but it was over. Finally. Maybe. Claire found that out when she reached the top of the cliff and the man called Potenza hugged her as if she were his long lost daughter. As if she hadn’t been pinned down by gunfire only moments before. As if he hadn’t ordered Jaxy and her men killed and then thrown off a cliff as proof of his friendship to Black. Claire wasn’t really computing any of it very well any more. It had all become just a little too much for her. Rico clutched her legs, held tight and wouldn’t let go, and she patted his back and watched Black shake hands all around with his Sicilian best friend and his large band of savior Sicilians, thanking them for their help in perfect Italian. Wow. Just wow. Weakly, thou
gh.
Apparently they had been alerted by Jacques Montenegro after Black called him. Jacques traced the call and they had come in by boat and then up through the hills on horseback, of all things. They had brought saddled steeds for Black and his friends. Claire let one of the small, smiling Sicilian saviors hoist her up into the saddle, and then Rico was swung up behind her. He was holding on to her so tightly around the waist that she could barely breathe. Black swung up on a big white steed and handled it like he was Lawrence of Arabia. Claire just wanted it all to be over. Now. Please. Please, God, just let it stop. She just wanted to go home and lay in her bed. Unconscious. She was having a major delayed reaction to being down inside the deepest dregs of hell for so long. That had to be it.
Instead, they were taken by boat back to Marsala and then to a nice big modern hospital so they all could be patched up with no questions asked or the bother of Sicilian police being called. Then they were driven to a big, beautifully lit-up mansion high in the hills overlooking the city. It was a nice place with lots of men around, all toting guns, and high stucco walls, and all the trappings of one powerful godfather’s home sweet home. Or maybe, he was a real live Sicilian don. And that’s exactly what Potenza was, as it turned out. He was head honcho of all Sicily, and he and Jacques were like brothers. Surprise, surprise. But Claire did like them a helluva lot better now.
In time, Jacques arrived in Sicily, too, and he hugged her tightly like the best brother-in-law in the world and told her that he loved her, that she had saved his little brother’s life, and that he’d never forget that, and he would do anything for her, anything she wanted and forever and forever. She sort of smiled dazedly and tried to look grateful and thought it was really great to have hardened criminals around who’d go to so much trouble to save your life at the very last minute possible.
She stood around after that, just listening to the men talk with much macho animation, and she decided that she might be experiencing a postbattle, mild PTSD dazed and crazed episode of sorts. Black must’ve noticed that, too, because he took her upstairs to one big luxurious yellow bedroom with tall windows that opened up to lovely sea breezes and a beautiful view of a lovely garden and the city below and the vast ocean beyond that. He waited while she showered and washed her hair and slipped into a filmy nightgown provided by Potenza’s daughter, Rosalinda. Rico had already been bathed and fed by said motherly daughter and was now sound asleep and safe in an adjoining bedroom. Maybe mafiosi weren’t so bad, after all, she thought again. Maybe she loved them now. Maybe she really would become one, too.