Marco
A noise rouses me. But there is no one in the dungeon. Now I am sure I am hearing things.
My brain tries to focus, but it is like slogging through quicksand. I am numb and weak, and every second I am conscious feels like an hour.
There. I hear it again. It is the door.
Cristo! No, no, no.
I shiver, the dread filling my veins like ice water. I try to remember what little words of prayer I can still recall. Please, help me.
There are more of them this time. I count at least eight men coming down the stairs. They are moving slower than usual. But why hurry, I suppose? I am not going anywhere.
I hear whispers but can’t make them out. That is odd. Usually Marcello is shouting at me, taunting me the second he enters the dungeon.
They come closer, but I don’t bother looking. I don’t need to see the smug satisfaction when he sees me, naked and crumpled, on the dungeon floor. I pray he kills me quickly, but I know he won’t.
Please.
“Don Rossi.”
No one has called me by that name in quite a long time. I open my good eye and squint, trying to make out a face.
I know that face.
It is one of my own men.
“Don Rossi,” he breathes, his gaze sweeping down my mangled body. “Thank God you are alive.”
The overwhelming relief causes tears to form, so I close my eye and relax into the dirt floor. Dio santo! They have come for me. Fucking finally.
Marcello doesn’t know that I have people close to him, people who will work to get me out, and I have prayed each morning it would be the day. I had all but run out of hope. I was certain after Marcello’s last visit that my time was up.
But I held out long enough. I will soon be free.
Voices carry on around me. “He can’t walk. We’ll need to carry him.”
“But I think his shoulder is dislocated.”
“We can’t fix it now. We don’t have time.”
There us rustling and I feel my body shifting as they get into position. I make a pitiful whine when they lift me, sounding more like a wounded animal than a man. The pain is excruciating.
I must have passed out going up the stairs because the next thing I know we are out in the fresh air. Gunfire pops in the distance and I crack my eyelid to see where we were.
They were carrying me around the side of Marcello’s castello. Bodies dotted the ground, the dirt dark and wet beneath them. My men surround me, at least ten of them, some holding me and the rest offering protection. The jostling and shifting nearly causes me to vomit, not that I have anything in my stomach.
One of my men fires his gun, the sound both familiar and strange after so long in isolation. I can barely breathe as more shots are fired, the hope and terror lodging in my throat. To be stopped now, when I am so close to freedom, would be worse than never having a chance at all. They will need to put a bullet between my eyes right here because I will not return to that dungeon under any circumstances.
They start yelling, but I am too weak and nauseous to understand what is being said.
Instead, I begin to pray.
I am too dizzy, so I have to keep my eyes closed. The shouts and gunfire grow louder, more intense as we go. One of the men carrying me stumbles, and horrendous pain goes all throughout my body. I feel my stomach revolt, but I am somehow able to keep from retching.
If they drop me, I’m not certain I will survive it.
“Almost there, Don Rossi,” one of my men says.
I can hear the rumble of a car engine, the most beautiful sound I have ever heard save for the first cries of my child when he was born.
“Open the door!”
More shots nearby and then they lay me down on a cool leather seat. Someone throws a blanket over me.
“Dai, andiamo!”
A car door slams. Dio, am I really going to get out of this place? It seems too good to be true. I try to listen to what was going on, catching pieces here and there.
“Wait!”
“What is it?”
“The shots have been reported and the carabinieri are on the way. They’ll approach from the north, so you must head south to avoid them.”
“Grazie. We couldn’t have done this without your help.”
“Just make sure he knows when he wakes up. He owes all this to Don Federico Caruso.”
Ah, so this was Federico’s man. Federico has always wanted the two of us to team up to destroy Marcello’s empire but I have always turned him down. So he took this as an opportunity to make me indebted to him. I am not surprised that he has done this for me. But there are no mere favors in the mafia. Every favor is a debt, and this is one debt I would be glad to pay.
“Of course, of course,” my soldier says. “Now, let us leave.”
More doors slam, and then the tires squeal as the car drives off. They hold me down to keep me from tumbling about, but with every bump and twist I fight to remain conscious.
“Should we take him to the nearest hospital?”
“No. To the docks, as we discussed.”
“But-”
“We just need to get him on the ship. The doctor can attend to him there.”
“I think he needs more than a doctor.”
“No . . . hospital,” I wheeze.
It is hardly more than a breath, but they hear me. We have to get as far away from Sicily as possible-and quickly.
If I am right, then all hell is about to break loose.