Page 82 of The Sicilian Inheritance

“I do love you like my own blood, but you cannot remain in this world.”

TWENTY-THREE

SARA

I gasped for every breath. They shoved me face down in the back seat of the car, my hands tied behind my back. Nino’s tall henchman sat on my ass, the tip of the knife still digging into the small of my back. Every time I thrashed around, he shifted his weight and I could feel his erection through his thin sweatpants.

Eventually he yanked me up into a sitting position. We sped through streets not built for cars. Hard left and right, right again. A slam of the brakes, turn, turn, turn. Daedalus’s maze.

I’d assumed the men would take me out of Caltabellessa, down the mountain, but we kept climbing higher and higher. The road turned to dust. Scraggly branches scratched at the sides of the car.

We passed the old Norman castle, the cave of the dragon. If I could loosen the ropes on my wrists I could elbow the asshole in the face, roll out the door, and make a run for the cave’s opening. I’d be cornered, but at least I’d have a chance.

Nino parked Luca’s car in a small clearing of rocks and waist-high shrubs. He walked around to the back, opened the door, and dragged me out by my ankles, making sure my face slammed into the ground when he let go. He kicked me once, twice in the ribs. I heard a crack. From there he lifted me into a standing position.

“We should teach her a real lesson before we kill her.” The tall one exited the car and stood bowlegged in the headlights, one hand stroking his crotch.

“We will just get rid of her,” Nino said in English. He wanted me to know what was going to happen next. He wanted me to be afraid. “It needs to look like an accident.” We were close to the edge of the cliff, and I didn’t need to be able to see to the bottom to know the drop was more than three hundred feet straight down into a chasm of jagged rocks. “Or not an accident. But maybe like this crazy bitch killed herself. Get the car to town. I’ll walk down when I’m finished here.”

Within moments the tall one was in Luca’s car, heading back to the village. Their plan was so simple, really. If they got rid of me then there would be no obstacle to selling their land and my land along with it. They would get all the money they’d expected to get before I barged into their world. Nino would be able to pay off all his baby mammas and buy an apartment in Ibiza or wherever. But what I didn’t understand was why Giusy was helping them after everything I thought she’d done to help me. There could only be one answer. Money. They must have agreed to pay her more than she’d ever make from me selling the land. Of course, she had no real loyalty to me. I remembered what Agata told me back in Palermo. Giusy was only out for herself.

The tip of the knife poked into my back as Nino prodded me closer to the edge of the cliff. It would be impossible to overpower him, but I could twist and turn and force him to cut me and show signs of a struggle on my body so that whatever happened next wouldn’t look like an accident. But the threat of the pain of the blade slicing further into my spine was worse than the instant death of smashing into the rocks so I remained limp as he kept nudging me on.

My feet teetered at the edge. I heard a movement behind us, the unmistakable sound of footsteps. When I turned Giusy stood in the sliver of moonlight. She pointed a handgun directly at us.

Nino released a sharp hot laugh into my ear. “You are a cold-ass bitch, cousin,” he said to Giusy. “I knew I couldn’t trust you, not even with everything I promised you.”

Giusy’s emerald eyes blazed in the moonlight. She shifted her weight from foot to foot like a boxer.

Nino mocked her. “Put the gun down, Giu-giu. You are so dramatic, you silly slut.” I made the most of his momentary distraction, shifting my wrists right and left, the skin chafing against the twine binding them.

Nino kept going. “What is your plan? You’ll kill all three of us and get the land and the money for yourself? You know you won’t get away with it like you did when you offed your husband. They’ll throw your saggy tits right into jail. Then who wins? The Arabs? The mayor? Don’t be a stupid bitch. Put the gun down and help me throw the American over the edge.”

I could hardly make out his words with my pulse roaring in my ears. Giusy took one step forward, and then another.

She was a half dozen feet away from us when she raised the pistol over her head and shot into the sky. The crack of the gun distracted Nino enough that he completely loosened his grip on me, sending me tumbling to the ground. Suddenly I heard the clatter of metal on stone. An object had been thrown at my feet, a carving knife, one with a sharp curved blade on one edge and a nasty point on the end, the kind farmers have been using for slaughter for centuries. You hook it into an animal’s skin, pierce through a major vein, and then drag it up their torso to gut them. Before Nino could regain his footing, I squatted down and twisted my hands behind me, managing to grab the handle from the dirt. Giusy knew that a gun would be useless for me, but a knife in my hand was an extension of my own body. I twisted the blade around and around until the twine at my wrists began to fray.

Nino was back on me in an instant, cackling at Giusy again.

“Giussssssssssy. I knew you wouldn’t have the balls to shoot me. You’re a coward.” Her eyes filled with hate and disdain, with years of memories of being called an idiot, a bitch, a whore. Nino’s own knife was back in my spine. A rustling in the darkness. He turned toward it, letting me pivot on my bare heel, sharp rocks grinding into my skin. An image flashed through my mind. My daughter at my funeral, eyes glassy and confused. Her memories of me already fading. Adrenaline surged through my body as I broke completely free and plunged the knife as deep as I could into the softest part of Nino’s belly before gripping the handle with both of my hands and pulling upward, flaying his entire abdomen open. He fell to the ground in a pool of blood, his expression a mixture of surprise, terror, and respect.

I dropped to my knees in the dirt next to Nino’s body, doubled over, and gasped for air. A metallic taste filled my mouth. I must have bitten my tongue when I plunged the knife into his belly. I clawed my way back from the edge on all fours, desperate to get away from the corpse. Time stopped. My body felt cold and hollow.

When I finally looked up, I expected to see Giusy beside me, but she was gone.

Many minutes later, a cop car emerged from the darkness. It parked and Fina got out, along with the police chief I’d met on my first night in town. They surveyed the scene, the knife in my hand, the blood, Nino’s lifeless corpse. Fina’s expression held not even an ounce of surprise.

“I’ll have to take you in,” she said to me.

I’d already offered up my wrists for the cuffs.

—

“L’ha ucciso?” the detective asked me with an uncompromising glare.

I felt lost in a fog as I blinked up at the kind-eyed older woman from the consulate they’d assigned to help translate for me even though I didn’t need her. I understood exactly what he’d asked: Did you kill him?

My whole body shuddered. I ached. At least one, maybe more, of my ribs was definitely broken, and the pain in my abdomen throbbed. Salty tears rolled down my cheeks.

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