“Where are you taking us, anyway?”she asks loudly as we turn onto the highway.
“I need you to do something,” Ferro says.“As my wife.”
“You say that like I have some sort of choice in the matter,” she says.“So what is it that you aremakingme do?”
He grins.“You’ll just have a little chat with someone.And then it’ll be all over and I’ll let you spend as much time with your sisters as you want.How about that?”
“How about you being a master gaslighter?”she says.“I don’t believe a word you say.”
My heart is thumping hard in my chest and my throat is so tightly shut I can hardly get a word in.I start squeezing Chiara’s hand in quick succession to get her attention.
She’s locking eyes with Ferro through the rearview mirror like they’re a couple of children playing that game where the first one to look away is the loser.He looks away first, a split second before she turns to me, pulling her hand from my grasp and shaking it.“That hurt, Gia,” she says.“What is it?”
“He saidsisters,” I hiss at her, because I can’t actually speak any louder.
The starting confusion in her eyes quickly turns to the same realization I made—we’re about to meet up with Lidia, our other sister.She smiles widely and I shudder.
Because meeting Lidia can’t possibly be a good thing.No matter how much joy is flooding my chest at the thought of seeing her again.And I watch Chiara’s face fall, color draining from it as she realizes the same thing.
She casts a dark look at her husband, but he’s looking straight ahead now pretending we’re not here at all.
I wonder if we’d survive if I open the door now and pull her out behind me as I jump out.Together we’d survive out there.But not the fall, I’m sure of that.We’re going too fast.Speeding towards something I won’t like but needs to be done.Like Matteo warned me.
And I have a sickening feeling I know exactly what that is.We’re riding to finish the job Ferro started the night he attacked my family at the beach house.And this time, he wants us to help him succeed.
“We won’t help,” I say.Ferro doesn’t hear me.But Chiara does.And she squeezes my hand again as she nods.
“No, we won’t.”
Ferro glances at us through the rearview mirror, his eyes darker than a moonless, cloudy night in the dead of winter.“But you will.Because you were completely right before, my darling wife.You don’t have a choice.”
* * *
The ride isn’ta long one.Chiara and Ferro spent the rest of it glancing at each other but not speaking.There is so much I want to say to my sister, but I don’t want to do it in front of the monster who forced her to marry him.And I don’t want to show him any fear either, but I’m sure a lot of it is showing on my face.Much more than is on Chiara’s.
She’s still holding my hand, while glaring at her husband who is again pretending we’re not here at all.
We pass into New Jersey and get off the highway.The cars behind us, all nearly identical, follow.We’re like a long snake of town cars, much like would always be the case whenever we went anywhere as a family.One car for us, another for our bodyguards.That thought is softly comforting.
But then Matteo’s voice comes on in my head again.You won’t like it, but it must be done.
He’s in one of those cars behind us.But he might as well be in this one, that’s how strongly I feel his presence with me, and his sunshine gaze on me.It’s competing even with the glaring sunshine outside.
We pull into a meadow of sorts, then go up and down a hill, driving down a dirt road that makes the whole car bounce like a plane that’s hit turbulence.
And then we suddenly stop, the other cars pulling up on either side, forming a neat line.
Ferro turns in his seat to face us.“We’re here.”
In the distance I can see the flat, grey roof of a house but otherwise there’s nothing here.My heart’s thumping in my throat and it’s nearly impossible to keep the fear off my face.But he wouldn’t bring us all the way out here just to kill us, would he?He can easily do that at his mansion.In the garden there, if he wants to do it outside.
“What’s here?”Chiara asks sarcastically.
“You’ll see.”He gets out of the car, gripping that sharp, large tire iron of his.Now I remember him holding it the night I first saw him.It was dripping with blood then.The blood of our bodyguards, men who have kept my family safe all my life.I haven’t even had time to mourn them yet.
Two men come to the car, one on each side, open the doors and pull me and Chiara out.Matteo’s off to the side, a dark scowl on his face and eyes brighter than the sun.His face grows even darker as my hands are tied together with zip-ties so hard I wince as the plastic digs into my wrists.
“Is this really necessary?”Chaira asks and Ferro grins at her.Her hands are tied too.
