Luca, Filippo Barone, and I bolted out of the SUV, watching a fleet of vehicles pull up behind our cars. The soldati accompanying us formed a barrier, and it wasn’t long before we saw two figures emerge from the newly arrived vehicles, pushed forward by Don Zaccaria’s soldati. The Don followed close behind, his silver cane poking at the dirt and reflecting the morning light.
“DAMN YOU, VICARI!” Antonio Palumbo bellowed, a trickle of blood running down his face. “WHERE ARE MY CHILDREN?”
I turned away without deigning to give him an answer and signaled to the two men behind me. Moments later, a woman and three children—the oldest not even eight years old—were shoved forward, gagged and terrified.
Palumbo tried to reach them, but Don Zaccaria’s men held him back.
“They promised me you wouldn’t hurt them if I cooperated!” Antonio Palumbo squealed, reduced to a wreck. He thrashed about in a vain attempt to reach his family. His wife cast pleading glances at him, a look similar to the one Daisy had given the cameras moments earlier, and the children let out muffled cries through the rags covering their mouths.Part of the job. “You gave me your word you’d let them go!”
I nodded. “Only when Accorinti surrenders and my woman is returned to me.Alive.” I exchanged a glance with Luca, who stepped toward Palumbo with a phone in hand. “Call your partner. Tell him to come out of the bunker and hand Daisy over to me.”
Palumbo had given up the location the moment we got his family. Apparently, Accorinti had two underground facilities. One in Milan, the other here, on the Calabrian coast, no more than thirty minutes from Reggio. The place was built into a coastal cliff and had two entrances. One where we stood, a hatch hidden under vegetation and rocks. The other a massive door on the face of the cliff.
There was no way we could easily enter the facility. Thatfiglio di puttanahad his bunkers built like military installations. I wasn’t even sure a bomb would be enough to blow the hatch.
“I don’t know the number by heart.Per favore, my phone… I have the contacts saved there.”
Luca looked in my direction suspiciously, and I fixed my gaze on Rinaldi, standing right beside Palumbo. The rat had tried to flee as soon as he learned that Zaccaria’s men were after Palumbo, but he wasn’t lucky. He ended up being intercepted the moment he set foot in a private marina while trying to escape by sea.
Terrible move.
I looked at Don Zaccaria, who immediately understood my expression and raised his cane, ordering his soldati to bring Donato Rinaldi forward. They made him kneel on the ground in front of me.
“Accorinti is going to finish you off. All of you! Just wait and see! We have very powerful people on our side.”
I drew the pistol from its holster and fired. A single shot. Right at the top of Rinaldi’s head, the bullet exiting the other side of his skull and piercing the ground.
Palumbo’s children and wife screamed, but the men remained calm.
“I have the phone in my coat pocket,” Palumbo blurted out immediately, meeting my gaze and realizing that the same fate would await his family if he didn’t cooperate. “Per favore.”
“Luca?”
“Wait, Camillo,” Filippo Barone interrupted, and Luca took a few steps back, suspicion dancing across his face. “Take us to Accorinti.”
“Filippo—”
Barone looked at me over his shoulder, his expression deadly serious. “Accorinti is a rat. If this place has more than the two entrances thismerdatold us about, he’ll send his men after us and escape with your woman.” He turned back to Palumbo. “We’d better go inside. For your family’s sake, don’t you agree, Don Palumbo?”
The man nodded frantically. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. There’s a way I can get us in. I’ll take you inside, but please, my family…”
“Your famiglia will be safe, as long as you cooperate. I give you my word.”
Antonio Palumbo was untied and reached for his phone, calling Cissio Accorinti in an instant. He tricked him, saying loud and clear that he was collaborating with Don Zaccaria to set a trap for me. That idiot Accorinti took the bait, and it wasn’t long before the earth shook under our feet. A click echoed through the air, and the metal hatch opened to reveal a staircase.
Hang in there,Piccola Furetta. I’m on my way.
Chapter 54
Daisy Peonia Mary Parker
August, 2025
Calabria, Italy
My dress was a blood-soaked rag. My mind, a dark and chaotic whirlwind.
I had dismembered a human being.