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Gaetano tore open the drawer, rummaged through the folders, took the one labeledSuccursu di Murti. “I don’t even have to open the folder!I’ll find twenty-three contracts, not thirty! You have contracts only for the local boys, not the kidnapped ones!”
“Okay, yes! So what?” Tonelli sneered. “What are you going to do? Call the authorities? Good luck!”
“I’llkill you!” Dante raised the pick.
Gaetano stopped him. “Dante, don’t. We’ll find a way to bring him to justice. The law will deal with him.”
Tonelli burst into derisive laughter. “Ha! What law? Don Bruno’s the law, Palermo!”
“I’m taking every boy!” Gaetano shot back. “All thirty of them! I’m tearing up your ridiculous contracts.”
“The hell you are!” Tonelli reached under the cot, pulled out a pistol, and aimed it at them. “Drop the pick!”
Suddenly a strangewhooshcame from the doorway.
Dante turned toward the sound. A gleaming knife whistled past him and sped end over end toward Tonelli. Tonelli fired his gun, but missed Dante. The bullet blasted the wall, sending wood flying.
The knife found its target with lethal accuracy, burying itself in Tonelli’s chest. His gaze fixed instantly. He was dead before he could utter a sound.
“Lucia!” Dante cried, astonished. His heart leapt to see her in the doorway.
With a wizard.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE
Franco held Arabo’s reins, walking back to Don Bruno’s villa with Roberto’s body lying across his lap. He still couldn’t fathom that Roberto was dead, much less that he had killed him. He felt something come loose inside him, whatever it was that tethered him to reality, a thread that kept him moored to his fellow man. He felt himself spiraling away from humanity, entering a dark world of his own making, in which evil ruled over good, might made right, and the only law was his word.
Franco had thought that he wanted such a world, but he felt crazy, unbound by anything now that he was no longer tied to his twin, his brother, his other self, with whom he had shared a bloody and twisted cord that bound them to their mother.
Franco approached Don Bruno’s villa and he could see the Fiorvantis thronging in front, holding flaming torches and oil lamps in the twilight. Their heads began to turn to him, one by one, then they surged toward him. Franco realized he was weeping as the Fiorvantis reached him and discovered Roberto was dead, releasing an outpouring of shock and grief, a veritable tide of tears.
“No, no, no!” they wailed.
“Don Roberto is dead!”
“They killed him!”
“I’m so sorry,” Franco heard himself say, and it was true. He was sorry Roberto was dead, and he was sorry that he had killed him, and he was sorry that hehadto kill him. Somehow all of these things were true even though they were contradictory, in this dark kingdom in which he would reign.
Franco allowed Sebastiano to take Arabo’s reins, then dismounted, falling into the arms of his men, who gathered him up, held him close, and shared his agony. Roberto’s men tenderly took Roberto’s corpse into their arms. They all moved together toward the villa in a mournful throng, each feeling the agony of the other, like a real family.
Franco came to his senses, realizing he had to preempt any suspicion. “I can’t go another step,” he heard himself say, stopping to tell the story that would preserve the grim world he wasn’t sure he wanted to rule. “Men, I am sorry, so sorry. I tried to save Don Roberto, but I was too late. Don Bruno’s men killed him.”
“Oh no!” “Oh God!” “Madonna!” they shouted, grief-stricken.
“Let me tell you what happened. I was watching you from the mountain, then I noticed the old castle at its peak. I said to myself, ‘Castles are the safest place anywhere, always built on the highest ground, and Don Bruno’s men would know this castle.’ I asked myself, ‘What if they took a lesson from history? What if they brought Roberto up there to hide him, and not a mine?’ So I rode there, and I was right.”
“I never would’ve thought of that!” “You’re right, Don Franco!” “What happened next?”
“I rode into the castle calling for Don Roberto. I heard a scream that cut my heart. I knew it was him, I know his voice as my own. I raced through the rooms, then there was a strangled cry. I saw Don Roberto, my brother, mytwin, being murdered.”
“Oh no!” “They killed him!”
“I found them bending over Roberto,stranglinghim.” Franco felt tears brim in his eyes. “It took two of them. He was so strong, he was fighting them. I shot one and strangled the other with my bare hands.”
“Justice was done!” “They got what they deserved!”
“After I killed them, I threw their bodies off the cliff. Their bones broke on the stones. Now they’re food for wolves. There are no more Marescas!”
