“Well—oh shit!” I swerved around a truck with a bunch of poultry in the back.
The Ferrari came upon it much too quickly than I’d gauged. Pieces of dander were thick in the air, like feathery clouds, and I could’ve sworn I heard panicked clucking. One second more and those poor chickens would have been roadkill.
Swerving back in front of the farmer, who was nice enough not to give me the bird, in the figurative sense, I cleared my throat, but before I could speak, I was cut off.
“Tell me you’re not driving,” Brando said. His voice came out even, cool, but underneath the surface, all his systems werego.
“She is,” Luca answered. “She is a good driver, son. You must have taught her. She is going close to one hundred and fifty and keeping her smooth on the road.”
“You’re not helping,” I hissed in his direction.
He opened his hands and gave me awho cares, certainly not melook.
“Scarlett, slow the fuck down!”
“I can’t!” I almost wailed. “I can’t slow down. Your father has been shot!”
“You shot him?”
“Wha—NO!”
Luca bellowed, laughing like Romeo did when something struck him as hilarious. He laughed so hard that the bellow turned into a raspy, almost breathless sound.
“Luca!” I shouted. “Are you all right?”
“Fine, fine,” he waved. “I do not think it is my time to die.” He narrowed his eyes at the system in which Brando’s voice seemed to float through. “Though this may disappoint some.”
“Tell me,” Brando snapped.
“Nemours. He—ambushed us. Now’s not the time for specifics though. Can you please call Uncle Tito? Have him get his things ready. Tell him Luca was shot in the left shoulder.”
“How far out?”
“Twenty minutes—”
“Fifteen, at this rate.” Luca smiled at me.
His head was dripping with sweat, and keeping my eyes on the road, I reached out a hand and wiped his brow.
Brando’s voice in the background constantly snapped out orders. A sudden flutter of activity seemed to spring to life around him, and I could hear people hustling, hollering at other people. A team of men were setting out to search the roads for any signs of Nemours. Luca added that it wasn’t the French who had helped him but Italians.
Once the hoopla died down in the background, Luca spoke. “You have a good wife, son,” he said to the speaker. “She is nurturing. She is also brave and fierce. She saved my life.”
“Oh?” The expression sounded curious, but the feeling behind it was almost feral. “How so?”
“She killed a man to save my life.”
“I had to! He had a gun—and well, I ran him over to stop him from shooting your father!”
Brando growled, and this time, Luca sat up taller, staring at the speaker with a perplexed look on his face.
“You growl when you are upset, and you roll your shoulders. Your great-grandfather did this. I remember. The first time I saw him kill a man—he did these things moments before.”
“You—you saw your grandfather kill a man?”
“Scarlett—” Brando’s voice held an imminent warning.
“Of course.” Luca reached forward with the wounded arm, forcing himself to move it. Perhaps to keep himself from falling asleep. A groan escaped his lips, but he continued. “How old was I? Six? Perhaps seven? The same age as Brando, the first time. All of my sons were around the same age.”
