16. Gigi

16

GIGI

We've reached the third floor where several bedrooms are lined up along the corridor. I hiked those stairs as if everything hinged on me getting to the top floor, ignoring the echoes of pain from my arm to my lower belly. With the adrenalin and endorphins numbing me, it's easier than I thought it would be. I glance down the grand staircase with its wooden balustrade circling down all the way to the cellars of this mansion that's over two hundred and fifty years old. But it's not the only staircase in the house.

"This is me," I say as we reach my closed bedroom door. I glance to where another guard is standing sentry at the top of the stairs. Good.

The executioner leans past me, holding his breath, and swings the door open. As I scoot past him, I stumble, which isn't new. I'm a klutz that way, but for the first time, it's planned. I might even lean a bit in. The vomit flops and splatters in thick smears over his jacket and pants, then runs down to his shoes.

"Fuck," he hisses. "You bitch."

"Sorry." I bite my lip, seeing every emotion playing over his face. If I weren't Franco's fiancée, he would have slapped me so hard I would've gone flying. "There's a bathroom at the end of the corridor you can use."

He huffs. Looks one way then the other, peers into the room that has a king-size four-poster bed and sitting area, the walls decorated with elaborate floral wallpaper. "I'll be here in five."

"Sure. Please…just some privacy for the shower. It's en suite here."

He doesn't nod, only makes eye contact with the other guard, and lets me go in alone. I don't bother to lock the door and strip as I walk to the closet, dropping the soiled dress to the floor. I have no time.

I run my fingers through the hangers of old clothes I've left behind through the years. I grab some soft wide-legged pants and a T-shirt, get dressed, empty my tote onto the bed, and head to the bathroom, cellphone in hand as I hook my empty tote across my chest. There's a stash of sanitary products in the vanity's drawer, and I stuff a napkin between my skin and my panties to cover the bleeding from whatever Franco did on my lower belly.

Someone still has to bandage it properly, but I'm not sticking around for that. I can't look at it. I don't want to look at it. I'm still on an adrenaline high from the library, and I need to tap into it for a while. I can't crash now.

In the bathroom, I turn the shower's faucet on and let it run. Instead of getting in, I open the hidden door behind the towel railing. White towels hide it at first glance, and it helps how the tiles line up to fool the eye. I crouch in, and before I close the door, I make sure the towels hang neatly.

With my cellphone's flashlight on, I crawl along the dark tunnel that's part of the antique metal roof structure. I gather the odd spiderweb and kick dust clouds up, but I can see where I'm heading. This was my favorite summertime game with Carla—coming over at night to read stories long after bedtime. We haven't done this in more than a decade. Once I reach the other side and the entry to her bathroom, I knock softly five times.

Nothing.

I kill my flashlight. As I exit the hideout into Carla's bathroom, everything is dark. I feel my way along the wall and pad onto the soft bedroom carpet.

My eyes grow accustomed to the dark, and the moonlight falling through the bedroom windows helps. I glance around. Carla sits frozen on her bed, eyes wide. Waiting .

I put my forefinger to my lips, and she nods. She points to the wall where Vito Rossi blends into the shadows, guarding my sister like an angel. Or the devil in disguise.

He could be Vincenzo's man.

Vincenzo who just allowed what happened to me in the library. He took his omertà …there's no way he isn't in the loop with what Franco does to his girls.

God help us.

Why is Vito in her room and not outside? My whole plan crumbles to pieces, and I want to curl up and die. But Carla clambers out of bed, fully dressed, phone in hand. She read the situation in the library like a book. Code red. She types fast and shows me the message. He's with us.

Vito steps closer, and my gaze jogs between the two. I'm on a knife's edge. Trust my sister—easy. Trust a man I don't know except from a piece of paper—not so easy.

We don't have time, and I make a split-second decision I might regret for the rest of my life…which won't be long if this goes wrong. I signal to Carla, and she nods. We know where we're going next. This might have been a game a long time ago, but every game is some form of reality, past, present, or future.

We need to be quick. Carla makes to embrace me, but I shake my head and pull her to the bathroom. One thing my body can't deal with now is pressure. Against my ribs, my shredded arm, my stomach where Franco punched me, and lower, where the pain of a million paper cuts burns like acid.

I light up the drawer to quietly search through the collection of brushes, hairpins, and other accessories. I grab a few things, lay them on the vanity, and hand the phone to her with the light switched on.

This is going to be gross and freak her out, but I don't care. I indicate she should hold the light up, and I lift my arm. The Steri-strip is drenched in blood and peels off easily. I bite down on my bottom lip and flinch at the wound. Then I take a deep breath as I dig the tweezers underneath my skin. The pain is hideous and I want to cry out, but I bite down harder on my lip.

Carla's hand quivers, making the light vibrate. Vito steps in, shaking his head as he takes my hand. And I let him. I let him take the tweezers and dig out the implant while I clench the vanity with my fist, strangling my cries with pure will. Carla's hand is on my shoulder, breaths shuddering as she tries to control herself. I don't care. It's done.

Vito drops the tiny device in the sink, and we all stare at it as my blood stains the white porcelain. The device disappears down the dark hole. More blood runs down my arm, and I press the wound closed. Carla reaches in the drawer for a facecloth, and Vito tugs his shirt from his pants, then tears at it, making a long strip of linen. He nods at me and wraps the make-shift bandage around my arm, catching the facecloth in the process.

It's good enough. It needs to last just a few hours.

We're good to go, I signal. Vito's big, but we need him. And he's proven himself halfway. I hope he doesn't mind crawl space.

I light the way to another hidden door in Carla's bedroom. All the fake ceilings aren't connected, but this one gives access to the secret staircase leading to a tunnel away from the house and opens close to the street below. Far enough from eyes that will try to find us inside the house first.

As we clamber in, I beg and pray we'll be quiet enough and that this plan, which I hatched ages ago, will be foolproof. Vito is the only variable I hadn't bargained on, and until we've ditched him, I won't feel in control.

The stretch we need to traverse in the ceiling isn't far, but when I reach the trapdoor connecting with the secret staircase, we collectively hold our breaths. We listen. All is quiet. I lift the door and shine the light. Nobody.

I lower myself, biting down on the pain as I slide on my stomach until my feet touch the stone stairs. I guide my way lower with my hand on the wall, crouching in the narrow space as I hold the light for them. The others follow, and soon, we're a bundle of humans sneaking down the stairs, trying to make as little noise as possible.

I hardly breathe, my whole body locked in do-or-die. I don't breathe easier when we reach the tunnel, which is also connected to the cellar. From that side, its entrance is hidden by empty wine barrels. The old wooden door is locked, but a copy of the key is buried where I left it ages ago. It gets stuck, and after a few tries, Vito squeezes in and takes over. He isn't weak from shock and manages to unlock the rusty door, and with a shoulder, opens our final stretch.

Now that we're no longer directly under the house, we rush, still not talking, the flashlight whipping left and right as I jog, head bent low, to the exit. It's about a hundred meters from the house, hidden by a fountain in the lower garden and overgrown with shrubs. A few meters below, the road winds along. Tourists often park their cars here when space gets tight in summer. I lean against the wall to catch my breath, no longer caring that I'm a nest of spiderwebs, plant debris, and dirt.

"What next?" Carla whispers.

"I steal a car," Vito whispers back. "You drive to the nearest airport and get the hell out of here. Nowhere in Europe is safe. Franco planned this takeover for years. Randazzo's death only made it easier for him to implement." He leans into my ear. "You can't go to London, or any other hideouts linked to the Trapanis. He'll have men stationed there as soon as he finds out you're gone. We have minutes. Who knows how much Don Trapani revealed."

I close my eyes. Papa. Tonight might have been the last time I ever saw him alive.

"What if Franco kills him?" I ask, fear breaking my voice. "Because we're gone? We need to go back, I?—"

"No, you get out while you can. Both of you. I'll go back for Don Trapani."

For what it's worth. My heart bleeds, but this man…he's unexpected.

"Do you have anywhere else you can go where Franco's network doesn't reach?" he urges me on. "Australia? South America?"

I can't think. "No?"

"Think, Gigi. You have a world full of contacts." His hand is on my shoulder, stressing how this will be all for nothing if we can't disappear. "It won't be forever. Just until this tectonic shift has settled."

"Maybe."

Make it happen, cara . Go meet them. Charm them. Make new friends. Friends from America. And you know why. We might need them.

Don Trapani's words ring back in my head like alarm bells. Monsters are rising… No wonder he was so adamant I go meet the Scaleras. He knew this day was coming, but I bet he got the timing wrong. Nobody else knows about our connection with the Scaleras, Franco Fiore least of all.

"Yes. There's?—"

"Don't tell me where you're going. You've cash?"

"Fifty thousand euros in my handbag's lining." Plus some more in an account I've opened ages ago that's not even in my real name.

"Good. Passports?" Vito is working through his mental checklist.

"Yes, fake ones, for both of us." My business may all be above board, but I have contacts. Fake passports were the first thing I've secured after that talk with Papa on Carla's birthday. I've always had one, but I made sure Carla had one too.

He smiles. "Never underestimate a Mafia princess. Take the cash and ditch the bag and clothes as soon as you can do so safely. Get everything new. We don't know where they planted what. And you both leave your phones here. It's a risk you can't take."

Carla inhales sharply in protest, but I grab her wrist in warning. "We have no choice."

We blink at each other in the dark, and then Vito crouches and squeezes through the narrow gap between the stone and the fountain wall, working the overgrown foliage to the side. As he disappears into the night, all I can think is how I owe him, big time.

I told Matteo the Scaleras owe me—they owe us . The Trapanis never forget a debt, and I'm going to call in this one.