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"You need to leave.Call the police.Tell them what's happening."
"What if I call the wrong person?Stefano is with the Polizia."
She made a good point, but not every cop would be dirty, and Stefano was here on his own."Just go.Make the call."
"No.You do it."She shook her head with the same stubborn glint in her eye that Isabella often had."My daughter is in trouble, and Stefano—I can reason with him.I can make him let her go."
"You can't make him do anything.He just killed that man on the floor."
"I can't believe he did that."
"He did.And if you don't leave, you'll end up getting hurt, too.That would destroy Isabella."
"At least she'd be alive, and that's what matters.I have to try.And you can't stop me."
He silently cursed as she moved away.He wanted to tackle her to the ground, but that wasn't going to get him anywhere and would only make Stefano aware of their presence.Maybe her presence would benefit him.
Sylvie headed up the stairway that Stefano and Isabella had used.He'd go up the back.If she could distract Stefano, then he might have a better chance of taking him down.
He thought about calling the police himself, but if the police arrived and saw Stefano in trouble, they might shoot him instead.He moved toward the back stairs, taking them as fast as he could, each step shooting a dagger of pain through his head.But that didn't matter.He had to save Isabella and her mother.
ChapterTwenty-Seven
Isabella had found the third painting when her mother's voice rang out, shocking them both.Stefano whirled around.
"Sylvie," he said, shocked to see her."What are you doing here?"
"I was going to ask you that.Did you have me followed?"
"You need to leave," he said, ignoring her question.
"Not without my daughter."Her mother moved determinedly down the hall."What are you doing, Stefano?Did you kill that man downstairs?Did you knock Nick out?What has happened to you?When did you become a killer?"
Isabella could feel Stefano's tension grow with each question.
"Silenzio," he said, waving his gun in the air."I don’t answer to you.We are nothing to each other, Sylvie."
"We were once friends and then more than that.You loved me, and I loved you."
"You loved yourself.You never cared about me," he said bitterly."You never looked back.You didn't think I was worthy of you."
"That wasn't it at all.And if I had looked back, what would I have seen?A police officer sworn to protect the public threatening my daughter?"
"She got in the way.I told her to leave Rome many times.But she is like you, determined to get what she wants."
"You have the paintings you want.Let her go."
"I don't have them all—yet.I can't let her go."
Stefano's evil smile twisted Isabella's stomach.And she could see her mother's face pale through the light Stefano had trained on her.
"She knows too much," Stefano continued."So do you."
At his words, she tried to quietly slink down the hall, putting a few feet between them as she debated the odds of being able to take him out by hitting him over the head with the painting in her hand.He was taller than her, and the old frame would probably just split apart without slowing him down.She needed something else.As she turned her head, she saw a shadow at the opposite end of the hall.
There was someone there.She didn't know if it was Nick or another man in black.
The shadow wasn't moving now.If the person was tied to Stefano, he would have declared himself.He would have come to help.It had to be Nick.And she knew what he wanted to do.They'd spent so much time together she could read his mind.He needed space to take out Stefano without hurting her or her mother, but Stefano was between her and her mother, and she needed to get him to move so Nick would have a shot.
