Such gentlemen as these men were,sarcasm here, I was allowed to sit in the chair, blood trickling down my leg from the gash on my knee. It ran past the sandals they had given me to wear, pooling in the mud. The slice above my breast had clotted; the fabric of the dress stuck to skin like glue.
Dinner was close. I could hear the sounds of pots and pans. I could smell the scents of pasta and olive oil and garlic. Lemon too. Voices were raised in greeting, a husband or son coming in from work, and then the softer sounds of muttered conversation, more than one female and male in the kitchen.
I wanted to kick myself for not paying attention! How much time had lapsed since they had abducted me? How long had I been in that trunk?Focus, Scarlett.Focus!Oh God, I was so panicked that I didn’t pay attention. It couldn’t have been that long. No. It probably wasn’t long at all—ten minutes? Twenty? That meant they were holding me close by. Why?
My guess was that they knew Brando and the Faustis would go on a manhunt for me. To buy time, to fake them out, they would hold me close in an attempt to give them the impression that we were not here. The bad guys could wait them out until it was fairly safe to travel without being discovered by my people.
I was so deep in thought that I hadn’t realized a light was shining in my eyes, a soft light that burned more than blinded. The French held the candle close to my face, watching me. I could feel the heat wafting off the flame. He came closer and closer until he was just short of burning my nose.
“What pretty eyes you have,” he said, his French accent heavy. “Like gems when lights shines through them. I think I shall call youpapillon.”
Butterfly, he was going to call me, perhaps because he was going to pluck the wings from me soon. Or perhaps his reasoning was because butterflies have a short life span? I knew it had something to do with death and pain. It wasn’t the butterfly’s eyes that were considered pretty, the last I checked.
“I hear things about you,” he said, moving the candle back and then forth. He would come in close, and then move further back. Just to do it again. The flame wavered against the walls, making him seem even more crazed. Inflicting pain was half the battle with this…murderer, I could tell. Mind games seemed to turn him on. “You are what they call an empath. Tell me what you feel when I am near.”
Empath? That was the first I heard of the term. It was the first time anyone had ever put a label to what I could do.
I looked over at the two Italians, one standing across from the other, backs to the wall. They paid no attention to us. If they were dogs, their ears would’ve been pricked, listening for outside noises.
“Answer me,” he said, running the hot metal against my arm. He had put it over the flame for a second. “Or you will excite me enough to cut you.”
This got a reaction from one of the Italians. He glanced at me, then at his partner, and shook his head.
“I need a name first,” I said, expecting my voice to croak, or my words to stutter. I was proud that my demand came out cool, almost detached.
Brando and his brothers had always shown great bravery in the face of adversity. Even if they felt fear, they never allowed the enemy to sense it. Perhaps the French could sense it on me, probably smell it even, but I’d be damned if I’d outwardly show it.
He watched me for a moment, the candle too close and too hot. I refused to look away from his relentless stare despite it.
“Ah, perhaps later.” He stood. “If you would prefer not to burn to death alive, or have me shoot your husband between the eyes, be quiet.”
At his words, sounds exploded outside of the hidden door. Voices of the family rose in fear and denial. Things were crashing to the floor. Doors were being opened and closed. It seemed manic, a futile search. Then I heard it—Romeo’s voice. But the voice didn’t belong to Romeo. It belonged to a man who raged with insanity.
He was threatening them with death. The word sounds the same in almost any language—morte. He spoke in an odd mixture of the Italian I could understand and Sicilian. He had men with him.
He was so close to the door! One scream and he’d know I was in here. One look at the French and I knew it would all be over if I did. Tears streamed down my face, and a hard sob stuck in my throat.
Romeo was shouting. My dress. Someone had found my dress in the bathroom, along with the dirtied bandages and the sack. The blood had dripped on it from both cuts. The one on my knee had dripped to the floor in the bathroom.
Why would the woman leave them out?
The French looked down and smiled at me.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. He wanted to make Brando and his family believe that I was dead. And that it had been a bloody death. He probably smeared the trail to make it look more horrific, and then cleaned up the hallway so it wouldn’t lead to the wall we hid behind.
The woman wailed. Then I think she told him that I was dead.
I heard the knock of something against the wall, as if a body had collided with it. I didn’t know if Romeo had collapsed or if he had thrown someone into it.
Her voice kept up, a tearful mixture of pleas and what I assumed was the story my captors had forced her to repeat. Either way, she and her family were stuck in the middle of this war. I didn’t know if she belonged to Giovi or not, but if not, I felt sorry for her. The horror in her voice was true.
The chaos kept up for some time. The French ate it up. He laughed softly to himself on occasion, enhancing his soft features.
I sat up straighter in my chair, squeezing the edges so tightly that my knuckles went numb.
Brando. I could hear him. They had split up to check each house along the path. There were more remote places we could’ve hidden, but this had been planned. I was supposed to appear dead in the eyes of the Faustis.
The French wasn’t taking any chances, unless he was the one doing the killing. I got the feeling there was animosity between him and Nemours—Nemours was a screw-up to him. And this maniac wouldn’t mind at all if I ended up dead on his watch.Causality of war. Point for him.
