“What? What’s going on?” I cried as Mariano ripped my purse away from me.
“I told you, you were my little ace.” He snickered with enjoyment.
Fire lined my veins and my temper rose quickly as I twisted and drove my heel into his mouth, hearing a crack. I repeated the action, driving my boot into the top of his shoulder. He grabbed my legs and yanked me to the floor of the car, clawing at my skin in fury, trying to inflict pain wherever he could. I was too amped up on adrenaline to feel much and fought back with everything I had.
“Enough!” Nonna ordered.
Mariano let me go and pressed a hand to his face, furiously cursing, but stopped suddenly when Nonna cleared her throat. Jesus, she really did have power over these people. His watery gaze swung over to mine and glared. He spat out a tooth into his hand and studied it as blood trickled out of his mouth. If I wasn’t as scared as I was, I would have grinned at my handiwork, but instead my muscles locked in place with terror as I wondered what was in store for me.
“She’s all yours,” he hissed through his new gap, then chucked his bloody tooth into the car. Suddenly, Piero’s words about the family business came rushing back to me. “Proof of a hit is everything. Without proof, it’s just one man’s word against another.”
“Thank you, Mariano.” Nonna carefully dropped a baggie of drugs into his bloody hand, and my mouth dropped open. She moved her gaze down to me as she pulled out a gun.
“If you try to escape, I won’t think twice about pulling the trigger. Now, sit up in the seat.”
Cringing, I tucked Mariano’s tooth into my pocket as I moved to sit back on the seat.
“Do you know the things that man’s been up to?” I squinted at her. I needed to know if she had any inkling of what the rest of the family knew about that snake of a man. I couldn’t imagine she’d let someone like him walk freely through the family.
“I know enough.” Her wording made me wonder. I shook in my seat as the car peeled off down the hill. Several possible scenarios of what was going on passed through me, but none had a happy ending. “Men with habits are easier to control.” She tugged at her blazer. “Mariano is nothing more than a stupid boy with a big ego.”
“Ego?” I echoed, thinking just how far off the mark she was.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I tried not to react.
Carefully, I acted like my ankle hurt and leaned forward to rub it while I swiped the screen to answer it with the other hand. I had no idea who it was, but anyone was better than no one.
“Now,” she moved to get more comfortable, “here’s how this will go. I will drop you off, well away from town, and you will take this bus ticket and leave and never return.” She tossed it next to me. “If you do, I will kill you. If you contact Elio, Vinni, or Niccola, I will kill you. If you even so much as look in our direction again, I will kill you.”
“Can you just tell me why?” I begged, desperately trying to understand what she thought I’d done.
“I could,” she started to run her white rosary beads through her fingers, “but if you really don’t know, then I’m thinking it might just be best for us all if you stayed ignorant.”
I closed my eyes and let some frustrated tears fall. I pretended to slump in defeat and glanced down at the phone and saw it was still connected. Whoever it was hadn’t hung up.
Think.
“Why are we passing the old mill?” I blurted, and she stared at me. “Are we heading away from the ocean?”
“Be quiet.” She rubbed her head.
“Please just tell me where we are going.” I started to freak out. I had never been in this direction before, and I hoped the person on the phone would hear where we were.
“Shhh.”
When the car started to slow about an hour later, I felt numb and defeated. I couldn’t risk her seeing the phone and prayed whoever had been on the line was still there.
The car pulled over, and I saw a small sign. “What’s the Greenery Gates?”
“Get out.”
“No.” I shook my head and gripped the seat.
She tapped on the window, and Abramo opened the door and pulled me out, tossing me on the ground. I hit hard, and when I tried to get up, he pulled his gun and fired a shot at the ground next to me. I froze in terror, waiting for the next one to end me.
“You should have listened.” He shrugged then got back in the car. I watched as they sped away, leaving me in the middle of nowhere.
I stood on shaky legs and pulled my phone from my pocket. The screen was shattered. I tried to use it, but it was broken.