ATONEMENT (41 page)

“What’s going on?”

One of the guards pointed at
Renalda
, “She insist
s
on leaving
to help find
Mrs. Diaz and refuses to go back inside!”

Sophie interjected, “She feels guilty about Selange and
only
wants to help.”

“Guilty?” Alfonzo’s eyebrow went vertical, “Guilty about what?”

The women were all talking now in rapid succession. “It was an earlier prank, that’s all.”

What the fuck were they talking about, Alfonzo wondered?

Adrianna’s blue eyes were ablaze, “No…no…Alfonzo,
they were
threatening your wife.
One
gave Selange a note, saying she was trash. Selange said nothing to you about this but I told her to tell you.”

“What?”

Lucia tried to explain, “Our initiation was a prank but it went too far…”

Crystalia
added, “
Renalda
and Lucia were pretending to kidnap
her the
first day she came
here…then
Renalda
threatened to kill her and the children…”

“What the hell?”

Renalda
spoke up for herself, “It was a bad joke and your wife hit me. Made my face swell and of course I said mean things after that but I have nothing to do with what has happened!”

Alfonzo was livi
d. Geez,
they
were
fucking tortur
ing
his wife and she kept this from him. Oh man, he felt like crap!

Vincent shouted
a command
and the women were ushered inside
. They had precious little time to mobilize and their ramblings were only delaying them. He turned to his boss, “We’ll have a few of the men check outside the grounds and another group driv
ing
into the city.”

Alfonzo’s face contorted into an angry mask, “How d
oes
she
leave
and no one s
ee
her Vincent…tell me that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Something isn’t right, if she didn’t leave on her own then how did someone take her…how?”

“We got guards all around the place. Someone should have seen her, unless someone’s lying and were inattentive. Maybe, went to use the bathroom or fell asleep.”

“Exactly!”
He stormed inside the house and found the women clustered
in a conspiratorial circle arguing quietly. “Where
is
she and you better not lie goddammit!”

                                        
***

Nico regained consciousness, blinking under the force of the light. He felt the sticky blood covering his eye and tried to will away the headache compressing against his skull. He was trying to focus, figure out where he was, scanning for any sign of Selange. Last thing, he remembered is stepping out the door, a gun being pointed at him, a fight. Yeah, someone cradled a broken wrist
and maybe even a nose if his memory served him right but that’s all he could recall.

He was bound to a chair, his mouth duct-taped and when the fog in his head cleared he realized he was in the middle of the floor of the safe house. Then he heard muffled sounds nearby and swiveled his head to see Selange. She was lying on the floor, feet and hands restricted by a cord interconnected. Her mouth was covered with duct-tape and she squirmed trying to get free. Nico’s eyes regained their clarity, someone would pay, he swore!

“Awake
?”

Then he saw the face, recognized it and he grew calm. There was no outlet for the anger and he had to reserve it.

“Remember me
Nico
?”

Of course he did. The man with the cut across his face was
Gina’s step-brother
Marco
Bocelli
. The dumb prick whose father he and Vincent sliced into pieces and tossed into the Mediterranean Sea as food.
 
His eyes twinkled at the humor of
this;
too bad he couldn’t share the joke with the fool.
Another man circled his chair with a makeshift splint on his wrist and the
mystery was solved. He actually chuckled at the pain worn on the angry man’s face. Punk-ass!

“Something funny?”
The punk-ass asked.

Nico chuckled again, he would answer but under the circumstances it was difficult to with the tape. A blow struck Nico in the ribs and he sucked it in,
and then
straightened up. Yeah, cliché, but in this case, punk-ass actually did hit like a girl.

Nico’s eyes went down to the floor, wow, they had torture tools. Yeah, this was getting good. The only problem, punk-ass was sliding them across the floor with his feet toward Selange.
Nico’s chest expanded angrily. They touch one hair on her head and he was going to rip out their hearts.
The fun was over!

Marco laughed, “Did you think those were for you?
No…no…no!”

The binds on Nico’s hands were pulled so tight his wrists were on fire. He tested the binds at his feet, found them tighter and chose to work his hands out if he had to take skin and bone to accomplish it.

“I will ask a question
, you will answer with the truth. You lie, we cut a finger from the lovely hands of your
…um…mistress…girl
friend.”

He ripped the tape from Nico’s mouth.

“Marco…let the woman go. We can do this without her.”

“Today I set the rules,
vecchio
amico
.”

Nico
experienced stinging as his skin peeled
away
once he
started
twist
ing
his hands
. To stall the start of the question-answer session, h
e grinned, “You were always such a
vigliacco
,
Gina
did have
more balls
for a woman. I guess you weren’t really your father’s son after-all, she was
!”

Marco kicked over the chair and Nico tumbled backward.
“
Shut
-
up
!”

“Make me
vigliacco
!”

Being called a coward infuriated Marco
. His half-sister
Gina used
the term
often
to
humiliate him
in front of his friends when they were in grade school
.
Her teasing continued into adulthood, however the disparaging remarks were far worse in
the
later years because they were spoken
in
contempt.
He hated Gina and w
hen she disappeared several years ago, h
is world
became
nicer in her absence. –And now Nico sought to offend him. Lu
zo Palazzo’s notorious enforcer,
the Devil’s Angel had finally fallen out of favor
in La Costra Nostra.
Boning a prominent mobster’s wife yielded deadly consequences. In fact, he was surprised Nico lived.

He kicked Nico in the chest with his boot and his smile faded. “You’ve been a busy man.” Marco’s
bushy eyebrows collided, “Fucking your boss’ wife is a huge no-no. I am doing you a favor by being here. When I
’m
done, your death will be quick, unlike her husband who would have killed you very slowly.”

Nioc
heard a
muffled squeal and
turned to see
the broken-wrist man bending over Selange
, a
lascivious smile on
the
perverted
dry mouth. Selange
kick
ed at him with her feet
and his eyes
glistened in
lust.

“Hey dog, leave her alone!”

The men laughed, touched by his bravado.

Marco’s five foot five frame
elongated, he was in charge. The hour had come for Nico to be reminded of it.

Nico
t
urned
harder,
palms closed
, fi
ngers tight
, his flesh
the
friction to loosen
and…shit…he got loose
!

“So, here
’s
the question.
Where
is
the wedding
and is
Alberti
attending
?”

Ah, and so the mystery was answered. Gina must have reached out from the grave. She discovered or suspected, hadn’t she? Her idiot of a brother hadn’t
guessed
and
his lack of intellect obvious
.
Gina’s inept sibling hadn’
t connected the dots until now.
He wondered what triggered
Marco’s
sudden flash of genius; was it the inquisitive
journalist with
the endless
questions and theori
es
that brought
renewed interest in the rumored ledger?
Did he finally realize Alberti held the power all along
?
Yes, unimposing, charming Alberti was the most cunning of his brother’s.
Nico,
knew
this
for many years. A boy does not flourish in the house of a man nicknamed, ‘The Butcher’ without absorbing
a calculating heart. As a Giacanti, Alberti received an
Ivy League
education and given rudimentary defense training by his father. Nico knew this because Alberti told him. Nico and Vincent on the other-hand received a formal education in both military style combat and killing. This began from the age of six and
at eighteen they officially entered the family business. Their first independent assignment at the order of Luzo Palazzo, his father’s friend was eliminating Xavier
Bocelli
, the
father of
Luzo’s
young wife who had embezzled hundreds of thousands from his Gina’s trust fund. He learned later, this was a lie. Gina had no trust
fund;
she simply wanted her step-father dead for personal reasons. That was his introduction to the manipulative woman and the beginning of a long career working for Luzo Palazzo. He was eighteen and one of his youngest personal bodyguards –but then three years later, he got a new assignment. One Luzo said he couldn’t
trust anyone but Nico
to do. Thinking about it now, guarding an unsuspecting thirteen year old boy in a foreign country and remaining invisible was the hardest job of his career. He did it, though. Five long years in America, learning their customs, language, foods and most of all becoming an American to blend in. He had no social life, no family, no friends, only the occasional warmth
of random
women he screwed then hurriedly sent on their way without learning their names.