I wish I had my phone. I think about the last time I saw it and I realize that it’s back home. There’s no way for Francisco to track me. After the parking lot, we turn down an empty side street. It’s about five blocks further, with no one in sight, until Marcello pulls up to a bar.
I glance at Frankie again, hope giving my heart a jump start. Maybe we can find someone here who will help us.
“Get out,” Marcello commands, putting the car in park.
“I can’t,” I say, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing I’m afraid. “My hands are tied.”
Marcello scowls, but walks around to open my door. He puts the gun right up against my temple. I can feel the cold circle of metal digging into my skin. My heart is pounding, and I wish I hadn’t been so foolish. What was I thinking? How did I ever imagine I was going to rescue my brother on my own?
Marcello marches me to another car in the lot. He pulls a second set of keys out of his pocket and taps the key fob. This is a minivan, the kind that soccer moms use to taxi their kids around town. The back door slides open on its hinges, designed to help busy families get their groceries inside faster.
Marcello gives me a shove, and I fall into the backseat.
“Hey!” Frankie shouts from behind.
I can’t push myself up because of my arms, so I roll awkwardly around to one side until I can get my legs up onto the floor of the van. Marcello pushes Frankie in behind me and slams the door. A moment later, he gets in the front seat and we’re moving again.
I’m facing backward, looking up at Frankie. He gives me a hopeful smile before focusing on the street outside. I wish I could see. I don’t even know if it will help or not, but I feel lost without a sense of orientation.
I finally manage to wiggle my way up onto the seat. It doesn’t help. I still don’t know where we are. It looks like we’re in a warehouse district. Even if I wanted to yell, there’s no onearound to hear me. And then one industrial building after another blocks my view. I’ve never been to this side of the city before, so memorizing the number of loading docks we pass isn’t helping.
I wonder why we switched cars. Marcello must know something I don’t. Maybe there’s some way Francisco can track the vehicle, and so making the transfer to a different one is meant to throw him off the trail.
I wonder how Marcello came up with this minivan. Does it belong to his girlfriend? Does he have a wife? Are his children accustomed to sitting right where I am, talking about their day or how they made the greatest pass in all the world? I shudder to think of the man in front of me as a father. Maybe he just stole this van. I hope he’s not responsible for anyone else’s life. He’s a monster, pure and simple.
After about five minutes, he pulls over again. We haven’t gone far, and that’s reassuring. I try to calculate the total distance from Francisco’s home to the parking lot, from the parking lot to the bar, and from the bar to this place. We could have come all the way across the city. Or we could have driven right back to where we started from. I’m not great with directions.
“Do you know where we are?” I whisper to Frankie.
“Shut up!” Marcello demands.
He steps out of the car and slides the door open. Marcello waves the gun, and both Frankie and I get out. The building in front of us is nondescript. It’s just a big box with a door, but I’m not fooled. I’ve seen enough mafia movies to know that this is exactly the kind of place where shit goes down. I’m trying tothink of one single reason to give for not wanting to go in there. Aside from not wanting to be shot, I can’t think of any.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I say.
“Hold it,” Marcello commands. “Get inside.”
I inhale, knowing that this is the end. I hope Francisco finds us, and that he kills Marcello. I’m not usually so vindictive, but I feel justified in my outrage. I wonder if this is how my father felt when he died. Did he want someone to avenge him? Should I have tried harder to find his killer?
Marcello walks behind us, gun drawn. The door to the warehouse is gigantic, and it’s already slightly ajar. I’m able to slip through, and I almost make a run for it. But it’s so dark inside that I can’t really see. And by the time my eyes adjust, both Frankie and Marcello have joined me inside.
There’s not a lot of stuff in the warehouse, just a few boxes scattered around the corners. It looks abandoned. There’s a slick-looking guy standing about ten feet in front of me. I think I recognize him from somewhere, but I can’t put my finger on it. There are a bunch of other men, probably soldiers, standing around menacingly.
I keep my chin up. I am the wife of Don Corello. I’m not going to cower.
“Carlo,” Frankie says. He’s also calm, and I get the sense that maybe he’s been in this type of situation before. I wrote him off so easily, thinking that he had no connections to the criminal underground, but maybe that was too hasty. He has ice in his veins just like his father, and I’m glad he’s here with me.
“Frankie,” the man named Carlo says. “And this must be Marlena.”
I scowl at him. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
“I am Carlo Andretti,” the man says. “Your father killed my brother.”
I gulp. This is too much. I don’t like the look of Carlo Andretti at all, and knowing that he has such a grievance against me is terrifying. “That wasn’t me,” I attempt to persuade him.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “Fruit from the poisoned tree.”
I hear a muffled shout from my right and glance over into the darkness. There are only a few lights strung high up on the ceiling, so not everything is illuminated. There’s someone tied up on the floor in the corner that I didn’t see before.
