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“And I nearly killed Ian!” he protested. “Why do we need to hurt Podge?”
“You were in on this?” I demanded in shock, ignoring the woman with the gun.
“Of course he was,” Bella said irritably. “He was supposed to take care of you with the car crash before anyone guessed you weren’t me. He fucked that up, of course, and apparently, you weren’t quite good enough—Granda recognized you anyway.”
“So did Ian,” I said desperately. “He’ll know that some random gangster didn’t shoot me!” The car was getting closer, and I knew, I just knew it was Ian coming after me, coming to save me.
“I’m not going to shoot you unless I have to. You’re going to take a tumble down the cliffs on the west side of the land. It will be over fast and less painful than being shot.”
“Kind of you,” I said bitterly. “And you’re going to let her do this?” I turned to Marcus, who was looking helpless.
“Bella, please stop,” he said, stirred to action. “It’s gone too far...” They could hear the car now, racing up the road, and Marcus swore. He grabbed Bella by the arm, jerking the direction of the gun away from me. “Come on!” he said urgently.
I ran. Or I tried to run, but the thin heels of the shoes caught in the cobblestones, sending me sprawling just as a gun fired, the bullet smashing into the stone beside me. I tried to scramble to my feet, kicking off the treacherous shoes, when I saw Marcus wrestling with Bella. She was fighting him like a wild woman, clawing at his imprisoning arms, but he was massive against her small frame, and she was helpless as he grabbed the gun and threw it across the cobblestones.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Marcus shouted, and there was no missing the desperation in his voice as he half-dragged Bella to the Alfa, shoving her into the passenger side before leaping into the driver’s seat. She fought him, desperate to get back to me, to kill me, and I watched in horror, frozen to the spot where I stood. The engine roared to life, and then they were spinning on the cobblestones before they headed down the hill, almost clipping Ian’s car as they drove by.
He came to a screeching halt too near me, and Ian leapt out. “Are you all right?” he demanded. “What the hell did you think you were doing, going out alone with Bella? Don’t you have any sense at all?”
I found I was shaking. “I couldn’t believe she wanted to hurt me,” I said faintly.
“Believe it. She’d stab her own mother in the back if she had one. Where did she go?”
“She and Marcus took off.”
“Marcus?” Shock brought him up short. “Marcus knew?”
I couldn’t tell him the awful truth, that Marcus had almost killed both of us. “He took the gun away from her,” I said instead. “He didn’t want her to hurt me.”
“Jesus Christ!” Ian said. “I don’t believe it.”
“I’m not lying,” I said.
“I know you’re not. I just can’t believe that Marcus...”
“Mr. Ian!” Ian hadn’t come back to Mariposa alone—Salvador had accompanied him. “You need to stop your brother.”
“Let him go,” Ian said bitterly, staring after the speeding Alfa as it raced down the twisting road..
“No, you do not understand. I saw someone near the car, someone I did not know. I’m afraid it might have been tampered with. I was going to tell you, but there was no time.”
I had never seen someone’s face whiten the way Ian’s did. Without a word, he turned back to the car he’d driven up in, and I was a few paces behind him, jumping into the passenger seat as he was already starting the engine.
“Get out!” he snapped.
“No. I’m going with you!”
He swore beneath his breath. “I don’t have time for this shit.” He shoved at me, but I held on, and I barely had time to close the door before the car leapt forward.
He roared down the twisting roads, driving like a maniac as he chased after the bright red Alfa. He was muttering under his breath, half prayer, half cursing, and I held on for dear life. In truth, we were in greater danger than the car up ahead as we drifted around a corner, then sped up again, and I wanted to tug at his arm, beg him to slow down, when the explosion rocked the sky.
I couldn’t see the Alfa, I could only see the ball of fire that shot up, straight into the sky, the pieces of metal raining down on the conflagration. Ian slammed the car into park and jumped out—we were on the narrow edge of the road, overlooking the explosion, and I scrambled after him. The force of the blast had picked up the car and tossed it in the air, coming down on its side, and all I could see was the steel framework being engulfed in flames. Marcus and Bella were gone without a trace, lost in the powerful inferno, and I sank to my knees beside the road, staring at the conflagration in wordless horror.
I was barely aware that Ian had climbed back in the car and continued his breakneck journey down the twisty roads. I simply stayed where I was, shock and grief threatening to overwhelm me. I could feel the waves of heat from the burning wreckage, and I watched, numbly, as I saw Ian’s car reach the wreck. I backed away from the cliff, unable to watch as he searched for his brother. I knew there would be nothing left.
Salvador reached me first in one of the old farm trucks. Taking one look at my face, he bundled me inside, fastened the seat belt around me, and started back up the hill, passing several emergency vehicles as we went. I was barely aware of them. Marcus and Bella were dead, and I’d come far too close to meeting the same fate. I was too numb to feel relief—my insides were a great, yawning hole of grief and anger. This didn’t need to happen. Bella’s desperate need for money and control had set this in motion, and now she and Marcus lay dead, presumably at the hands of her gangster boyfriend. I felt a strange pull of grief in my heart. For better or worse, they had been my family, and now they were gone in the conflagration.
But the one who would be hurting the most was Ian, who’d lost his brother. I couldn’t see how he could be other than broken.
