Too late. The internal war must’ve showed on my face. Curly watched me through the mirror, snatching the gun for himself. He said something in Italian, something we both knew I couldn’t understand.
I lifted one arm and then let it fall in defeat.
He pointed to his ear. Then he made a motion toward it that I thought meant apply pressure. The only thing I had in the way of a makeshift tourniquet was the stale dress I wore.
I attempted to rip the bottom of the dress. No go. It was made of a tough fabric that hands alone couldn’t penetrate. Curly noticed my struggle. He pulled over to the side of the road, removed his shirt, and then handed it to me. We were traveling again in nothing short of five seconds.
The French had him on his toes, even with no right ear.
He had fear sweat going on, not to mention the smell of his ear, which made me want to gag. Blood was not a smell I could ever get used to. It made me think of nightmares and death, of warm blood seeping into cold snow. But in order to keep from getting slapped, or worse, I held his shirt to his ear until we arrived at a villa hidden in the hills.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Scarlett
Woman goes feralwas how I imagined the headline would read. Well, that was how I felt when I saw Judas standing at the entrance to the villa, surrounded by at least fifteen of hispeople,le sanguisughe.
Judas, also known as Livio, the shining glory in this mass of ordinary men. He might not have been the most handsome man among his family, but compared to this group of misfits, he was the most striking.
After the car had stopped, and Curly promptly passed out, I didn’t realize that I had lunged at Livio until the men tried to scrape me off of him. Thirteen of them—two had run to see about Curly—and one of me. I was almost too slippery for any of them to catch and hold.
A few of them chuckled. A few more were more irritated by the annoyance. Put out that one of them couldn’t hold one of me. I was still attempting to get at Livio when a middle-aged man appeared, put a gun to my temple, and said no more.
Fucking great. He was the French’s Italian counterpart.
“What happened?” he said in accented English.
I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. This was partly due to the fact that I was crazed, but also because the man who held me did so with a strong arm around my waist. He had me lifted off the ground, feet dangling ridiculously.
Livio stood as still as a carving, looking gaunt and forlorn. He had scratch marks above his brows. I had attempted to gouge his eyes out.
“Once more,” the man in charge said, calmness to his tone that belied the itch to make an example out of me to his men. “What happened?”
I swallowed hard. Licked my parched lips. “As—” I cleared my throat, trying to smooth out my voice. It was broken, shattered, and in sharp pieces. “Assassin Moe killed Larry when they went to take a piss on the side of the road. Curly shot back before he took off. But Assassin Moe was able to shoot at us before we were fully away. Cheap car, you know. Doesn’t have a lot of zero to a hundred in under a few seconds. Curly lost an ear.” I stuck my chin back toward the car. “Pieces of it are strewn all over the seat. I doubt it’ll be of much use to him though. Perhaps he could try a wax ear?”
Livio’s head popped up at this. I realized I had been staring at him while I spoke. I refused to remove my stare from his face as long as he was in my presence. Though he was Judas, I got the feeling he wasn’t ouronlyJudas.
As though this feeling summoned him, Enzo, Ciro’s oldest, chose this moment to step forward out of the crowd. He was another shiner in the midst of dim, even brighter than Livio.
Another fuckinggreat,the shrill voice in my head shouted.
“Who,” the Italian in charge demanded, “are Curly and Larry? And this, this, ah, AssassinMoe?”
“I never had names,” I said, as way of an explanation. “So I named them myself. Curly is the man without an ear. The one dead on the side of the road is Larry. Those are the two Italians, presumably your men. Assassin Moe is the truly unstable French.”
“He betrayed us!” Italian in command roared. He repeated it in Sicilian.
The men all became quiet, the seriousness of the comment taken for what it was worth. Italian In Command put his hands on his hips, an almost incredulous look overcoming the anger on his face.
Well, what do you expect when you play with men who back someone like Nemours? I almost said, but I liked my tongue and wanted to keep it in my mouth.
Italian In Command became quiet. His face took on a new quality, which I could only describe as a “thinking face.” Eyes turned to the ground, lips pinched, eyebrows almost touching.
“You,” he said to Livio after a minute or two. The mask he thought behind exploded to life. “Retribution. Then we leave. It is no longer safe here.”
I barely caught the tail end of the sentence. Retribution didn’t sound good. When Italian In Command said it, Livio met my eyes. Then he took the few steps forward to meet me, lifted his hand, and slapped me hard across the face. The impact forced my face to turn, to offer him the other cheek, which he treated just as cruelly as the other side.
Unbidden tears sprang to my eyes. Both cheeks were aflame, from both pain and embarrassment. I could feel all eyes on me, enjoying the show. I was the little creature in the midst of giants.
