“Is Marlena in here?” I ask abruptly.
“No,” Frankie insists. “I haven’t seen her.”
“Dammit!” I bellow, “Where the hell is her guard?”
“Downstairs, I think,” Frankie says.
I don’t wait for him to finish his thought, storming back out into the hallway and down the stairs. When I find the bodyguard in the living room, watching a game, I haul him to his feet. Before he can even ask me what’s wrong, I punch him in the face.
“You let her escape again!” I scream. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”
The man cups his nose, streams of red poking out from between his fingers. “She’s upstairs, boss.”
“She’s not upstairs!” I shout. “She went out the fucking window!”
“How was I supposed to know she’s a prisoner?” the bodyguard whines, backing away from me.
“She’s not!” I snap, losing focus for a second. “But you’re supposed to keep her safe.”
He doesn’t have an answer for that, and I appreciate his discretion in keeping his mouth shut. We both know that one insult from him would be the last thing he ever said. I look at it from his point of view and realize that he didn’t know he had to protect her from herself. It still doesn’t make things right, but I’ll deal with him later. Right now, finding my wife is what’s important.
I pull out my phone, texting Marlena back.I’m at home. Where are you?
She doesn’t answer. I can’t tell if that means she didn’t get the text, or she doesn’t have her phone. With no one able to tell me what’s going on, I can only assume the worst. If Andretti has her again, I’m going to go ballistic. I realize there’s one person I can ask, and that person is locked in my trunk.
I storm back outside to get to the bottom of this. “Open the trunk,” I say to my man.
Luca is there, smoking a cigarette by the garage. He straightens, crushing half of the smoke beneath his heel. Giovanni comes out the front door, alerted by the scene I caused in the living room. They both look confused, so I don’t bother to fill them in. There will be plenty of time for explanations after I’m satisfied Andretti doesn’t have my wife.
The driver comes around with the key fob and clicks the trunk open. I reach for it, but the metal comes up of its own volition. Before I can stop him, Marcello leaps from the trunk, brandishing a tire iron. He smacks the driver in the side of thehead, sending the man thundering to the ground. He takes a swing at me and misses, almost connecting with my rib cage.
I reach for my weapon, and he lobs the tire iron at Giovanni. We’re all shouting and pulling out our guns. Any minute now, Marcello is gonna be full of holes. But the bastard sees the writing on the wall and decides to take his chances. I don’t want to shoot and accidentally kill him before I have the chance to find out if he knows what happened to Marlena.
He runs away from the gate, around the house, and into the backyard. Giovanni, Luca, and I take off after him, each of us firing insufficient shots at his retreating form. I curse the gun range and its stationary target. It’s so much more difficult to hit a man who’s weaving left and right.
He darts around toward the garden shed, where I catch him out in the open. I fire a warning shot at the shed, tearing apart the wall and causing splinters to rain down on my enemy. Marcello throws up his hands to protect his eyes, turning to face me.
“Where’s my wife?” I demand.
Marcello laughs, as if it hadn’t even occurred to him that Marlena would run off again. “You’re just a stupid old man!” Marcello taunts. “She’s only interested in your money!”
“Where is she?” I repeat myself.
“Probably halfway to Hawaii,” Marcello snaps. “She probably came to her senses and decided to skip out on you.”
“You’re a dead man if you don’t tell me the truth,” I swear.
“I’m a dead man anyway!” he shouts back.
That much is true. There’s no way I can offer him the carrot of a long and prosperous life. The best I can do is promise not to torture him, not that I would keep my word after his betrayal. “If you tell me, I can promise you I’ll make it quick,” I say.
He sniffs, looking around as Giovanni and Luca flank me with their guns drawn. “If I knew where she was, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“What’s going on?” Giovanni asks.
“Marlena is missing,” I say. Those are the hardest words I think I’ve ever said in my life. I’m on the threshold of falling apart, and Marcello is my only link to sanity. If I can’t get him to talk, then I’m going to die trying.
Marcello starts to laugh. “Why would you ever think she could fall in love with the likes of you?”
