“I can’t…” She stepped to the window, and I moved off the bed.Bang!She shot just over my shoulder. I screamed and froze in place. That was way too close. “Try that again, and I won’t miss. Back on the bed.”
I slowly climbed back on the mattress and swiped my hair clear of my face. I lifted my smelly hands and looked at them. What the hell was that?
“Your mother killed the one person I loved!” Tears streamed down her cheeks as she became more and more upset. “I can’t have loose ends, Sienna, I just can’t!”
“My mother never killed my father.” She was losing it.
“Did she tell you that?” She laughed. “So many lies. So many powerful people. She shot him straight between the eyes, as he begged for his life, begged to see you one last time.” She broke into a sob. “You will never meet the man who gave you life because your mother chose to take his.”
I wasn’t sure who to believe. My mother always said my father had been killed, but she never actually said by whom. Did it really even matter?
No. I squared my shoulders. I wouldn’t let the past rule me.
“Noemi,” I said softly, “you may have a gun, but what you do next will determine the rest of your life.”
“I’ve worked too hard to get where I am today. I can’t have it all come crashing down around me.”
“What about Niccola and Vinni?” I grasped at something that might make her rethink what she was doing.
“All of this,” she shouted, “is for them!”
“What do you mean?” I raised my hands to try to calm her, but she was too far gone.
She let the candle slip from her grip. It fell to the floor and ignited instantly in a massive whoosh of flame that took on instant life and jumped in multiple directions.
The smell was kerosene.
In the time it took for my head to realize what it was, my entire room was on fire.
“No loose ends,” she yelled over the fire, then she ran out the door, locking it from the outside, leaving me to die.
The flames became unbearable, and I watched helplessly as Anja was consumed by it. My eyes and throat burned, and I grabbed a shirt off a chair and held it over my face. The fire’s roar was deafening as I pressed myself against the wall. I was cut off from the door and knew I couldn’t get down from the balcony.
It was do or die, and I refused to be taken out now by some crazy woman. I backed myself up as far as I could and leapt right through the flames over the bed toward the door. I felt the flames nip at my skin, but I drove my heel into the old door handle and broke it, then I wiggled my fingers inside and slid the lock open. I raced out of the room, only to find the walls around me were on fire. I could hear screams as others tried desperately to escape. There was fire everywhere. Noemi must have soaked other places of the house as she left. Chaos and confusion were everywhere as I raced down the hallway for the stairs. I wondered desperately where Ugo was. Once I reached the bottom, I stopped a terrified maid I recognized.
“Ugo, have you seen him?” I yelled at her. I watched a man who was ushering people out the side door.
“Yes, he’s out,” she assured me. Oh, thank God.Sounds of things crashing and popping from upstairs told me this house wouldn’t be standing much longer.
Smoke alarms were wailing, and I tried to think. I wondered if the computer files had transferred, but it was too late to worry about that now. I knew I needed to get out of there.
“Move, move, move.” I tripped over a woman, sending us spiraling into one another. We both fell to the floor. As we scrambled to our feet, I looked at her. I’d never seen her before. She was about my mother’s age, with jet-black hair. She held a bag that overflowed with valuable items from the house.
“Alessia?” Her eyes narrowed in on me, and I glared at her as I knew she was stealing. “Oh, my God.”
The roof above us cracked and popped, and I glanced up. When I did, she ran, and I lost sight of her in the dense smoke. I knew I had to move, as the flames had now cut off the exit to the side door. I picked up a coat from the floor and wrapped myself in it for protection as I frantically looked around.
“What are you doing?” Elio’s soldier with the cross tattoos threw his arm around me and pulled me with him into a room and slammed the door. Ugo was there, and he raced forward and hugged me.
“Oh, thank God, you found her. Are you okay?”
“Barely,” I gasped as I coughed up a lung.
“Sienna, we need to get out of here, now!”
“How? The window?” I frantically looked around for a way out.
“No, the tunnels. Thank God they aren’t sealed off.” He pushed on the side of a long mirror on the wall, and it slid open, revealing a passageway. Cold air flooded us.