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He grabs my arm. “Where is Gianni?”
I shake him off. “What was the deal? That Marziale would go in, assault my wife, and slip away while Gianni turned a blind eye?”
Guilt flashes across his face.
“Thought so,” I say, my lips curling with disgust before a cruel smile curves them. “Did you think I wouldn’t have my own men watching yours?”
He staggers, almost tripping backward over a rock.
That’s right. What took place here happened because of his actions. Those men’s lives are on his conscience.
He runs to keep up when I walk around the house to meet the men stationed at the perimeter of the yard.
“Is the coast clear?” I ask when I reach the team leader.
He hands me a torch. “Yes, sir. We scouted the forest in a five-kilometer radius. A couple of men are checking the farther perimeters as we speak.”
Anger burns in my gut as I make the hike to the dense cover of the trees. Enzo half-runs and half-walks as fast as his slippers allow.
The first body lies just beyond the border of the pine trees. The farther we go, the bloodier the scenery gets. Both my and Enzo’s men were taken by surprise. They didn’t stand a chance. My men didn’t know what was coming, and Enzo’s men didn’t expect an attack that wasn’t part of the deal.
When my men spotted Marziale’s gang, they must’ve opened fire. With me and most of my army on the tail of the kids’ kidnappers, my men were vastly outnumbered here. Marziale didn’t bother to distinguish between my and Enzo’s men. He went in for the kill, eliminating everyone.
We take in the destruction and the waste of lives as we go deeper into the forest. My guards pinpointed the location of the bodies. Night reflectors attached to branches mark their positions. The infrared dots on the head torches of two armed men who stand in the dark foliage and knee-high ferns act like beacons.
Enzo jumps hurdles over fallen logs and shrubs, pushing the thorny branches of mulberry bushes away and shouting, “Gianni,” as he fights his way from reflector to reflector.
In a small clearing, he sinks to his knees next to a body and lifts his face to the sky. A wail tears from his chest. He collapses on top of the corpse, shouting unintelligible words and phrases of denial.
I stop next to him. In the light of my torch, Gianni lies white and still, his lifeless eyes staring at the treetops.
“Gianni, my son,” Enzo cries, rocking the body in his arms.
His suffering is palpable, but I feel nothing for him. He’s already dead to me.
He raises a pale, tear-stricken face to look at me.
Yeah. That’s what betrayal feels like.
The sorrow etched on his features turns into hatred. “Give me a gun. Let me come with you when you go after Mario.” His expression becomes fierce. “Let me avenge my son’s death.”
I don’t owe him a damn thing, but he has inside info on Marziale’s operations. They met. They negotiated. He knows the fucker’s warehouses. I still have a use for him. Plus, it’s best to keep him alive in case Marziale calls.
Turning without a word, I go back to the car. Dawn will break over the mountain in a few hours, coloring the landscape in gold and shining with a soft yellow light on the new green pine needles. Spring is around the corner. The dead of winter is over. New growth is on the way. I grab that promise of nature, making it my own as I get into the car and instruct the driver to go home. The only place I want to be is at the hospital, but there are things that must be done.
The kids are still up when I arrive. Heidi tells me they refused to go to bed before seeing me. I take care of the difficult task of bringing them up to speed with Sabella’s progress. I’m honest about the fact that she’s still unconscious, but I only say that she’s had an accident.
After assuring them that the doctor is taking good care of her, I tuck them in for a well-needed nap after their sleepless night, and then I go to my study to make a call I don’t look forward to.
Ryan answers with a stiff greeting in a voice thick with sleep.
I don’t mince my words. There’s no time. “Sabella is in hospital. She’s in a coma.”
“What?” he exclaims, wide awake now. “What the fuck happened?”
“She was attacked. I’ll organize flights for your family to come over. It’ll be best to fly to Marseille. I’ll have my skipper meet you there with my yacht.”
“What do you mean she’s been attacked?” he yells in my ear. “How? How could you let this happen?”
