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Chapter 11
Benny stiffened asMaddog shouted his name. “Stay inside. Use your phone for a light source, but don’t come out no matter what you hear.”
I opened my mouth to object but never got the chance. He dropped a kiss on my forehead and rushed outside, tugging the massive door closed with a heavy thud.
Plunged into darkness, I fought the panic rising into my throat. I didn’t like being shut into tight spaces in the dark. It made me feel trapped. Why? I wasn’t sure. Maybe some childhood trauma I couldn’t remember.
I dug into my purse and pulled out my phone, pushing on the flashlight in the bottom left corner of the screen as it lit up the inside of the mausoleum. Or tomb. I didn’t dwell on the implication.
The light bounced off the solid walls and illuminated Benny’s name on the bronze plate. I moved closer, staring at the empty casket I knew lay inside the crypt.
Space for a total of eight caskets filled the interior. Smooth mahogany granite finished the inner walls.
The inside had been designed as a place to visit the departed. A long marble bench lined the back wall below a stained glass window with a beautiful display of colors. If it wasn’t the middle of the night and I wasn’t stuck inside, I would enjoy staring at the sun as it blazed through the glass panes and sent the prisms dancing on the walls.
A shaky breath escaped my lungs as I walked the length of the mausoleum, pacing without realizing it. The silence inside this stone and granite building unnerved me. I wanted to know what was happening outside. Did Carlo come to the cemetery?
My thoughts decided to run rampant, conjuring scenarios where Benny could be harmed, tortured, or killed. It was irrational. I knew Benny, my phantom, could protect himself. It didn’t ease the ache in my chest.
As the minutes passed, I grew anxious. The walls seemed like they were closing in on me. Despite Benny’s order to stay inside, I crept to the door. I just needed to peek out and be sure everything was okay—no harm in that. I would shut the door again and stay hidden as soon as I confirmed Benny wasn’t bleeding out in the cemetery among the graves.
As much as I hated the darkness, I clicked off the flashlight on the screen and let the inky blot of night cover me again. I slowly opened the door with a soft sigh, cringing when I heard it creak as the bronze surface scraped the ground.
Outside, the moon shifted, appearing from behind a thick, fluffy ball of clouds. I heard something crinkling as I left the mausoleum. Maybe Benny headed back my way. Footsteps crunched dry leaves, betraying another presence. Was it my phantom?
I should have listened when he told me to stay inside.
A man stepped from behind a tall headstone, pointing a gun at my chest. “Bianca.” His upper lip curled into a sneer. “I hoped to find you first.”
I didn’t ask him to elaborate on the reason.
“You should be scared, Carlo. I know who hunts you.” Hearing the steady tone of my voice, I wondered how it didn’t sound as shaky as I felt. The fear I felt wasn’t for me. I worried that Benny was captured or injured or Carlo wasn’t alone.
“He won’t be a problem for much longer.”
“You don’t look too confident.” He didn’t. Carlo kept glancing around us, his gaze bouncing around the graves, crypts, and trees that spread beyond the cemetery gate.
“Shut the fuck up!” The gun discharged, scaring the hell out of me when the bullet grazed a nearby obelisk and shattered the structure. It crumbled far too loudly.
Was Benny close enough to hear?
I jolted when Carlo aimed his weapon at me again. “You don’t have to do this.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
“Why? Because of mynonno? He doesn’t have loyalty to anyone but himself.”
“True, but it’s not his money I’m after.”
I didn’t have a clue what he meant. “The Huber fortune belongs to him, and he doesn’t share.”
Carlo gestured with the gun, “Start walking to the gate at the front of the cemetery.”
