Nikki raised her hands and turned around slowly.
Luca Errichiello was silhouetted against the flames of the house, aiming a gun at them.
Beside her, Federico also turned. Luca seemed to recognize him and opened his mouth in a loud, joyless laugh.
“You!” he exclaimed.
“Hello, Luca,” said Federico.
“My god, I never expected to see you here,” said Luca.
“That’s because you have no imagination,” Federico replied dryly.“You’re a clever psychopath—but you’re also shallow, and vain. That’s why I could always outmaneuver you.”
“I don’t see you winning this one,” countered Luca.
“I don’t need to win.” Federico gave an encompassing gesture to the fire behind Luca. “As long as you lose.”
Luca shot his brother.
Federico ricocheted against the rear of the SUV and slid to the ground. Nikki ducked and rolled beneath the vehicle in time to hear another weapon discharge. But it was Luca who hit the ground this time, body juddering.
“Check him,” Federico said to Nikki. “Make sure he’s dead. Get his gun.”
She did as she was told, dodging forward and grabbing the gun from Luca’s limp fingers before checking for a pulse. It was a headshot that had killed him, she noted with a distant sense of unreality. Although not as neat as the bullets that had killed Mac. This one had blown off the side of Luca’s face. She turned and saw that it was Valerio who had made the shot, snatching the gun from Federico’s waistband during the confrontation. He was lying motionless now, gun still clutched in his fingers.
Federico lay on the ground, bleeding badly, hand gripping his chest where Luca’s bullet had torn through.
“Is Luca dead?” he wheezed.
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Good…good.”
She wanted to move him, to get him out of here, but it was too late. As she watched, Federico’s face slackened, eyes turning distant and dull. She felt for a pulse. He was gone.
—
It was only as Nikki shut the door to the SUV and crossed around to the driver’s side that she realized the shooting had stopped. The roar of the fire still overwhelmed the night, but the percussive gunfire had stilled. She wasn’t sure what this meant, and drove cautiously, stopping when she reached the courtyard.
In the orange light of the burning building, bodies were strewn throughout the space. The stone fountain in the center of the drive was in pieces, water pouring on the ground.
Lazarov and three of his men were kneeling on the gravel, hands bound behind them, surrounded by men with assault rifles.
It was not the police who had secured the scene. Instead, striding around the captive men, a bandage across his chest, and arm bound in a sling, was Tito Calandra. The big man walked slowly, deliberatively.
He raised his gun and shot the first man in the back of the head. An execution. He did the same to the next. And the next. When he came to Lazarov, he lowered his weapon, and nodded to De Rosa.
De Rosa indicated, and two men came forward with a black sack that they put on his head, securing this with tape. Lazarov struggled as they dragged him to a waiting car and put him in the boot.
Someone noticed Nikki. A man raised his rifle, pointing it at her and shouting. Nikki raised her hands, and looked to Tito.
Across the distance, their eyes met. He stared at her and she looked back into that dark heart.
Then he gestured, and De Rosa shouted at the man to stand down, waving Nikki on.
The world was getting lighter as she drove from Luca Errichiello’s compound. She didn’t look back.
Thirty-Two
