Revenge (47 page)

A large package, unaddressed but beautifully
wrapped in crisp silver paper with a large white bow, arrived at
Enrico’s villa three days after the meeting with La Provincia.
Maddalena brought it inside and set it on the desk in Enrico’s
study.

Enrico looked at the box for a few moments,
his heart thumping. The package looked eerily familiar. He called
Ruggero, who advised him not to touch the box and to leave the
room.

He couldn’t stop staring at it, wondering at
the contents. When he noticed a trace of red seeping through the
wrapping at the bottom-right corner of the box, panic gripped him
in its fist and squeezed. Had Carlo gotten to Nico? To Kate?

His stomach churning, Enrico went out to the
front hall and called Antonio while he waited for Ruggero. Antonio
assured him Kate was resting in her room. He hung up when Ruggero
approached. Gesturing toward his study, he said, “It’s from
Andretti. I’m sure of it.”

Ruggero looked through the doorway at the
box. “It could be a bomb.”

“It seems to be leaking blood. Besides, a
bomb isn’t Carlo’s style. He likes his victims to suffer.”

Ruggero rubbed his chin. “You say Maddalena
carried it in?”

“Yes. So it’s been jostled.”

“That’s not the same as opening it.” Ruggero
pulled out his switchblade and walked into the study. When Enrico
followed him in, Ruggero stopped and looked at him. “The hallway,
please, Don Lucchesi.”

Enrico crossed his arms and stared at his
guard. Ruggero didn’t back down. “Let me do my job,
capo
,”
he finally said.

Throwing up his arms, Enrico walked out of
the room. He waited, fingers tapping the seam of his trousers, his
heart ratcheting up as he heard the long slit along the paper, a
rustling, then silence. And more silence. Finally, Ruggero’s voice.
“Don Lucchesi.”

He stepped into the room. The first thing he
noticed was the concern in Ruggero’s eyes. The look in them was
soft, pitying. Not a look he’d ever seen from Ruggero. He raced to
the box, seeing now that it was wood, and ornately carved,
reminiscent of the cigar box he’d received from Carlo in Rome.
Breathless, he looked inside, and then wished he hadn’t.

Fighting back tears, he looked up at Ruggero.
“I want him dead.”

“You shall have your wish.”

Enrico looked into the box again, unable to
hold back his tears. His father’s head stared up at him.
Surrounding it were bloody lumps Enrico couldn’t identify at first.
When he did, bile rushed up into his throat. The two biggest lumps
were his father’s hands; the strips of crimson-colored meat
surrounding them were his fingers.

All ten.

The digits looked like they’d been crushed
before being severed. He stepped away then, struggling not to
vomit. Breathing hard, he stared at the floor for a long time,
trying to burn the carpet’s design onto his retinas.

When he trusted himself to look up, Ruggero
and the box were gone.

Staring at the smear of blood left on his
desk, his eyes flooded with tears anew. His father had endured so
much heartache in the last three decades, only to meet a vicious,
ugly end.
Papà
,
I hope you’re with them again
. He
crossed himself and whispered aloud, “I will see you avenged.”

Enrico was in the middle of his fourth glass
of sambuca when it hit him: how had Carlo found his father? Don
Battista certainly hadn’t handed that information to him. So who
had
Don Battista told?

He’d reached a pleasantly blurry point when
he picked up the phone; it was almost enough to allow him to forget
what was in the box. Almost. He cleared his throat, willing himself
to be steady while he waited for Don Battista to pick up.
“
Ciao
, Rico. Why are you calling so late?”

“Carlo Andretti murdered my father. He sent
me his head and his hands.”

Enrico heard a wheezy intake of breath from
the old man. “I’m sorry, my son.” There was a pause. When Don
Battista spoke again, his voice shook with anger. “It’s your cousin
who acts against you.”

“How do you know?”

“Domenico called a few days ago and asked how
he could reach Rinaldo. I knew he was angry with you, but I never
dreamed he’d crawl in the gutter.”

“It could be a coincidence.”

“In my experience, there’s no such
thing.”

Enrico took another sip of sambuca. “I know.”
Damn him, he did know, but he had to be certain.
Dom
,
how
could you turn against your own blood
?

He ended the call with Don Battista, then
summoned Ruggero. It was time to see what use they could make of
Trucco’s death. Time to prove there were no coincidences after all.
Time for the traitor to suffer as his father had.

After all, as Dom had said about Trucco, now
was not the time for mercy.

Domenico paced his study, Kate on his mind.
How best to get her away from Antonio and the guards. How best to
get her to Carlo without being followed. He looked out the front
window of his home, sure Ruggero’s spy was still out there
somewhere, and sighed in irritation. The men Ruggero had picked to
watch him were very good. He hadn’t ever tried to shake them. Best
to lull them into complacency.

His mouth pursed. He was going to have to
kill the man watching him before he went after Kate. If he eluded
him, it would tip off Ruggero and Enrico. But if the man went
missing, that was a problem too.

He tapped his fingers against his lips. He
was going to have to eliminate them all, if Carlo wasn’t able to.
It was the only way. He couldn’t hope to avoid detection. Enrico
and Ruggero already suspected him, and Antonio wasn’t dumb.

Dom was still looking out the window when he
saw Ruggero’s spy drive off. He looked up and down the street for a
replacement, but didn’t see anyone. Perhaps they’d decided to lull
him
into complacency. But he knew about the GPS tracker
they’d placed on the car. It had been the first thing he’d searched
for when he’d learned he was being watched.

He smiled. He’d use their own toy against
them. Let the tracker lead them right into a trap. And double-cross
Carlo in the process.

The phone rang. It was Enrico. “We got the
traitor.”

A jolt of adrenaline ran through Dom. That’s
why the spy had driven off. “Who was it?”

“Trucco. He gave the master codes for the
house alarm to Andretti and he put a GPS tracker on the
Maserati.”

Dom’s eyebrows shot up. “He confessed to all
this?”

“More or less. He admitted he’d been helping
Carlo, feeding him information. He wouldn’t get specific. But there
was no reason to press the point.”

Was this a trap? There was something about
Enrico’s voice. “Have you been drinking?”

Enrico coughed and cleared his throat. “A
bit. It’s been hard.”

“I’m sorry. I know you were close to
him.”

Dom heard only silence for a while, then
Enrico’s voice again, a bit sharper. “You’d warned me to take care
of him, and I didn’t listen.” Enrico paused and cleared his throat
again. “I’m sorry, too. I’ve ignored too much of your counsel
lately.”

Dom froze, a little hope seeping in. If he
could avoid killing Enrico, he would. “You’ll give up the woman and
make peace with Carlo then?”

Enrico sighed. “I know it’s the right thing
to do. But I can’t.”

Dom exhaled slowly, unhappily. “Then it’s
still war with Carlo.”

“Not necessarily. I plan to meet with him and
Dario. Perhaps we can come to an agreement.”

“Have you spoken to him?”

“Not yet. I wanted you to make the
arrangements.”

Dom’s stomach clenched. This was it. No way
out. “I’ll see to it.”

After hanging up with Enrico, Dom placed the
call to Carlo, both of them knowing the meeting with Enrico would
never take place, but playing the game for anyone who might be
listening. Then he picked up another phone, one he was sure was
clean, and called Kate and told her his plan to get her away from
Antonio that evening.

He was glad he wouldn’t have to kill the tail
after all. He wasn’t like Carlo; he didn’t enjoy killing. And he
wouldn’t enjoy most of what was to come. But it had to be done.

He planned out the rest of what he had to do,
including when he’d render Enrico blind to his whereabouts. It
would be a simple matter to discard the tracker once he’d delivered
Kate to Carlo. The tracker would lead Enrico straight to the
Andrettis. If all went well, Enrico and Carlo would kill each
other, and Dom would be free.

Kate focused on her breathing, trying to
settle her fluttering stomach as she got ready for dinner. She’d
asked Antonio if they could dine at the hotel’s restaurant instead
of going out. She and Dom were counting on Antonio and the guards
to be lax, since they were staying in the hotel. They had no reason
to suspect Kate was going to run off, and she didn’t want to give
them one by acting at all out of the ordinary.

She made sure all her cash and her passport
were tucked in the money belt she wore under her slacks. She
wouldn’t be using that passport for a while, but she’d need it
someday, when she could go back to her normal life. Though she had
no idea when that might be. Surely Carlo would give up eventually?
If she hid for a year or two, that might be enough. Dom had
promised her a loan, but money would eventually be a problem.
Hopefully he’d be able to get her good enough documents that she
could work.

Her parents would help. But if she could
avoid involving them, she would. Her throat tightened; she couldn’t
see them, she couldn’t even see her cousin Terri. She had to hold
onto the thought that someday she would see them all again. And
she’d figure out how to stay safely in touch from a distance.

She heard a tap on her door. “Come in.” She’d
chosen a loose, gauzy top in black with matching black pants and
low-heeled shoes in case she needed to run.

Antonio was in a suit as usual. The dark blue
of the fine cloth brought out his eyes. When he came into the room,
he looked her up and down, a slight smile on his lips. “Ready,
signora
?”

She picked up her purse and crossed the room,
leaning into the mirror to check her makeup. Perfect. She smiled at
him. “That color suits you.”

A flush poured into his cheeks.
“
Grazie
,
signora
.”

She took his arm as he escorted her out of
the room. The guards fell into step behind them. “You know,” she
said to him for probably the hundredth time, “you
can
call
me Kate.”

He shook his head. “No, I cannot.”

“Why not?”

He glanced at her, his expression stern. “Do
not tease me.”

Kate bit her lip and looked away. Then she
squeezed his arm. “I wasn’t.”

“Perhaps not. But you forget, and you should
not.”

She looked at the richly patterned carpet
beneath their feet. “I apologize.”

He made a little sound of amusement, and she
looked up to see him holding back a smile. Realizing she’d been
had, she nudged him with her shoulder and shook her head. “You’re
incorrigible, Antonio.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I do not know this
word.”

“It means you’re bad beyond reform.”

He grinned. “That sounds like me.”

She returned the grin, then looked away when
she felt her smile start to falter. She was going to miss Antonio,
and she hated deceiving him. But it was the only way. She tried to
focus on her surroundings as they crossed through the lobby and
down the hall past the drawing rooms that served as the central
gathering places in the hotel.

The Villa d’Este was a former palace, and
that lent it a different air than most hotels. Its design wasn’t
the result of some shiny corporate vision; rather it had been built
to reflect the grandeur of the person who’d commissioned it. This
particular history meant that some things had been retrofitted in
later to make the hotel usable for guests. And one of those things,
the thing she and Dom were counting on, was that the restrooms for
restaurant guests were located below the ground floor, in a
basement area that had been used by servants in the days when the
hotel was a working palace. It was the perfect place for him to
meet her, since there was a service exit just down the hall from
the restrooms.