Nikki retrieved her cross-body bag, rifling through the contents in the car headlamps. She couldn’t find anything.
“Show me,” she said, handing the bag to Mac. Hands quaking, fumbling, he worked a small piece of metal from the bag’s lining.
“Here…here…” he said, extending it up to Nikki. She passed it to De Rosa. He examined it, frowning.
“Tell him I won’t do it again,” said Mac between sobs. “I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”
Nikki translated this to De Rosa, who looked thoughtful.
Then his face seemed to lose all expression as he turned to Mac, who raised his hands in supplication. De Rosa’s lips parted and Nikki prepared to translate whatever he would say next, but he lifted his Beretta and emptied two shots into Mac’s surprised face. He tossed the tracker onto the lifeless body, turned, and strode away.
—
Nikki couldn’t move. She was suddenly heavy. Tired. A strange, overwhelming sense that she might fall asleep. Her eyes fixed on that pudgy pale face, red pockmarks on his forehead leaking blood.
Federico was at her side. He tugged her arm. “We need to leave.”
“He killed him,” Nikki said, stupid with the reality of it.
“I know.”
“I didn’t want this.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “This isn’t a game, bella. What did you think would happen if you went to this man?”
Nikki nodded and followed along automatically. De Rosa started his Ducati and waited for them.
She mounted her Hornet, then followed Federico’s directions as he led them back out onto the main road.
—
Her mind lurched as she followed Federico’s instructions, giving everything a strange stuttering quality: the growl of the engine beneath her, the inertia of the bike, and the cold air on her face. She told herself not to think about what just happened, yet it repeated over and over in her mind. Had she not realized the seriousness of De Rosa’s intent?No, that had been obvious. He’d opened fire on the car expertly and decisively. Why would he not do the same with the driver? Perhaps she’d deluded herself into believing she would have more time—more influence—to stop him from killing Mac.
—
The night was still as Federico directed her into a wooded turnout.
“We go the rest of the way on foot,” he told them.
Federico took them off the road, and staggered up the mountain with unsteady strides.
In the darkness of thick trees, the only light from a half-moon, the ground was treacherous. Nikki stumbled twice. De Rosa turned on the light from his phone, and Federico hissed at him to switch it off.
—
After twenty minutes, Nikki wasn’t sure he actually knew where he was going. De Rosa clearly had his doubts as well.
“Where is it, old man?” he demanded.
“The entrance is watched. Guarded. We’re going around the back.”
After nearly a half hour of climbing, there was a loudclack. Nikki hit the ground, De Rosa beside her as bright lights flooded the hillside in a weird fluorescent glow, revealing the grey outlines of a stainless steel security fence among the trees. Only Federico remained standing, continuing his loping stride up the hill along the fence.
They rejoined him at a small gate, where he examined a keypad lock.
“They never replaced it,” he scoffed. “It’s faulty.”
Taking a long switchblade from his jacket pocket, Federico jimmied it into the locking mechanism. There was a click, and the gate swung to.
