Page 251 of Marcello

That set off a fresh round of tears.

I waited for nearly a minute before I whispered, “Is there a way I can sneak you out of the house? Some kind of hidden passageway from the mansion to the outside?”

I had considered the well but ruled it out. Even if we could avoid breaking our legs in the fall – and even if her family’s corpses hadn’t been down there, which I did not want her to see – we would have died in the labyrinth of tunnels before we ever found our way back to civilization.

“No,” she choked out through her tears.

“Damn it,” I whispered. “How did you sneak out when you came to see me in the past?”

“There’s a gate in the back, in the wall around our property. Can we get to it without anybody seeing us?”

I’d stationed a dozen guards outside the mansion, and I’d had to place some of them in the gardens out back. It would be incredibly suspicious if I suddenly moved all of them to the guardhouse.

Not to mention that plenty of people had gone outside to fuck. I had no idea how many drunk assholes we might run into if we tried to go through the gardens.

“No,” I said morosely.

“Then I’m trapped in here,” she moaned.

“Just for a little while. I’ll get you out as soon as I can, I swear. In the meantime, I brought you food, water, and a flashlight.”

She didn’t answer.

I felt like shit. “Giulietta… I never meant for this to happen. I didn’t tell you I was in the Camorra because I thought you would never want to see me again… but I should’ve. If nothing else, I could’ve stopped all this from happening. I’ll understand if you hate me for the rest of your life… but I swear to God, if it’s the last thing I do, I’m getting you out of here.”

Still no answer.

“I’ll leave the food and other stuff in the crawlspace,” I said, despondent. “It’ll hold you until – ”

Suddenly, there was the sound of little bits of mortar crumbling and falling.

I waited and held my breath –

Until two grimy hands appeared in the hole near the ceiling.

You ever see The Ring? The horror movie where the evil little girl comes crawling out of the television set?

It was sort of like that.

My heart thudded in my chest as the hands grabbed the edge of the hole and pulled her body forward.

Her head appeared next, hair hanging down like a curtain covered in cobwebs.

It was like she was clawing her way out of a crypt in a graveyard.

I took an involuntary step backwards. For a split second, I feared it really was like The Ring, and the thing crawling through that hole wasn’t the woman I loved, but a vengeful demon come to punish me for my sins.

Then Giulietta parted her hair with one of her hands and scowled down at me.

“A little help?” she asked in irritation.

I rushed forward and lifted my arms. She used my hands as leverage to pull herself out of the hole and fall down onto me.

I caught her and gently lowered her to the ground.

“Can you turn on a light?” she asked. “I can’t see.”

I’d forgotten it was pitch black and that I was seeing everything through night vision. I pulled the flashlight out of the bag, turned it on, and then pulled off my helmet and goggles.