We waited in the stillness for hours. After the initial rush of adrenaline, I had been wired, too crazed to even close my eyes. I couldn’t keep them open any longer. I nodded off and almost fell off the chair.
One of the Italians put a hand out to stop me. His skin was almost hot to the touch. I realized I was trembling, as cold as if I were standing naked in snow.
I couldn’t truly sleep. It was more that whatever my body demanded, I was ordered to follow. I felt like a fish missing both fins in surging water. My eyes fluttered in a constant motion between awake and asleep. A voice inside of my mind kept reminding me to keep an eye on the French. Not that I could stop him from harming me, but I could fight back, or attempt to escape.
Who knows, perhaps luck was on my side. “Ha!” I laughed to myself. “Good one, Scarlett.”
It occurred to me how people who were too nervous to fall asleep on planes felt. They needed a warning if the plane was about to go down. I usually didn’t. In this immediate situation, I did.
I almost jumped out of my own skin when the French’s mouth suddenly came to my ear, his breath hot on my chilled skin. “Is the Dragon gone?”
“The Dragon?” I whispered back.
“Your husband,” he said, pinching me. I had to resist the urge to move, to escape the pain, but I knew he’d only make it worse if I did. “YourDragon.”
He was pinching a spot behind my arm, a real sensitive area. I longed to rub it, to stop the burning, but I’d be damned if I touched it.
The Italian said something sharp, almost too low for me to hear. I had no idea what, but the French stopped pinching.
“True,” he muttered, almost in a daze. “Answer me now,papillon.”
I lifted my chin a fraction, summoning every bit of courage I could collect. “Yes.”
“If you are lying to me,woman, it will not be good for your health.” His mood had taken a sudden turn. He seemed put out, irritated. I wasn’t sure if this was because he had to rely on awomanto know if Brando had left or not. Brando moved like a cat. Could be as still as one too.
“I’m not.” And I wasn’t. The adrenaline rush had failed me as soon as I felt he was gone. I had to fight the urge to scream and wail and cry out his name.
The French stood and fixed his designer three-piece suit. We waited another hour or so before he took out his gun and swung it toward the panel, signaling that the Italians should move. The candle was a minute or two from drowning in its own puddle of wax. A few minutes later, it snuffed itself out.
The two Italians moved in the pitch darkness, sliding the piece out without a sound. For two goons, they moved without even the sound of a breath.
After a few minutes, the French hauled me up by the arm, dragging me through the house. It wasn’t that I refused to move. My legs seemed too weak to carry the rest of me.
I couldn’t see a thing, only followed the French’s direction. He moved like a hunted man. Behind the door he was brave and condescending, but out in the open, I could feel the urgency in him to flee. To lose me would put him on the same level as Nemours, I guessed.
It didn’t take a genius to realize that the two French mobsters couldn’t exist in the same world, much less the same room. Anytime Nemours’ name was mentioned, I could feel the heat radiate off the other French in toxic waves. Which contrasted with his usual demeanor—ice cold.
As we moved inside the house, I smelled the potent scent of gasoline in the air. I heard cans of it shaking with the explosive liquid. The Italians were about to pitch the villa. The house was stone, but the inside was flammable. I knew it would take the beams and destroy the mortar, shifting the structure and making it unsafe to inhabit.
There was more blood in the house, and a pair of legs on the floor—a man.
Outside, I took in the fresh, clean air of spring. It was much cooler than it had been earlier. This time I was allowed to sit in the backseat of a different car than the one the three men had used to abduct me. Perhaps it belonged to the family? A man dressed in farm garb had driven it, and he stood outside, watching the villa, until the French shot him point blank in the back of the head.
The French scooted in next to me, as if nothing had happened, leaving the two front seats open for the Italians.
The last I saw of the villa was orange and red flames ravaging the house, before darkness swallowed me whole.
* * *
Assassin Moe, and the Italian versions of Larry and Curly, were the nicknames I assigned my abductors when I wanted to keep them straight in my mind. For a threesome of savage men who were probably known killers, the dynamics between them sometimes seemed like a skit fromThe Three Stooges. Except, I didn’t think they were attempting to make me laugh.
Larry and Curly always seemed to mess up in some way, resulting in the French Assassin Moe being irritated. I noticed as time passed that he wasn’t as cocksure as he had been. He lost his temper a lot, veins sticking out of his forehead. There were times when it seemed like he was going to turn into the Hulk and bust out of his suit, pale skin turning green.
Sometimes he would haul off and slap one of the Italians behind the head. The Italians took it in stride, but I could tell he was starting to grate on their nerves. I was hoping one of them would lose his temper and shoot someone else—even a knee or ass shot. In the confusion, I could attempt to run. The only way this would work was if one of the Italians shot the French.
He was the most vigilant, never leaving me alone for a second. We had been on the run for two days. From what I could gather, we were headed to a hideout the Italians had secured. The problem seemed to be that they kept switching them up, sending us in another direction once we were halfway there.
None of the men even attempted to speak to me after our initial contact. Shoving and hand gestures were the only forms of communication. Which was fine. I had nothing to say to them anyway. Most of the time I curled into myself, staring out of the window, thinking about Brando. More precisely, how he would think in this situation. I had tried a thousand times to imagine an escape, but no opportunity came to me.
