Hector thudded to the floor, mewled and curled into a ball.
Grunting, Nico swung open the door from the control room to the cable car itself. He leaned over to grab the boy, dragging him into the cable car and closing the door. Almost pitch black inside. This old machinery didn’t need any power, though. It was gravity operated. From here, two hundred feet above Villa Tosetti on the other side, all he had to do was release the clutch mechanism, the handle protruding from the floor in the middle of the carriage.
Nico cursed at Hector, still curled into a ball at his feet.
Stepping sideways, Nico stood in front of the clutch switch. It was over. He glanced to his left, noticed the other side door of the cable car was open into the empty blackness beyond.
From the shadows at the back of the cable car, Jess watched Nico slam Hector into the wall.
Anger, pure hatred boiled through her veins as she watched him drag the boy into the carriage. She killed three people in the past day. What was one more? Nico caused all this pain. Trapped her family here. Killed Giovanni. Tortured this child. She gripped the Medici dagger in her hand, felt the sharpness of its blade as a part of her.
Nico glanced left, at the open cable car door leading into empty space, a hundred foot drop onto the black rocks below.
Jess stepped forward, brought the blade around Nico’s neck with her right hand, and gripped his body with her left. The booming thunder of Monterufoli erupting echoed off the rock walls of the canyon, the stinking black rain spattering off the metal walls of the cable car, burning her skin and eyes.
Nico’s eyes darted down. “Ah, the Medici dagger.”
He sounded calm.
Jess gritted her teeth and blinked. Tears ran from her burning eyes. She resisted the urge to pull the blade deep into Nico’s neck and feel his hot blood splash across her face. “Why did you bring us here?”
“God brought you here,” Nico replied. His lip twisted into something between a snarl and a smile.
“That Facebook message, convincing my mother to come.” Jess needed to know. She expected him to fight, to try and twist away, but Nico remained loose in Jess’s grip.
Nico snorted. “That wasn’t me. That was God.”
Jess felt the rage rising inside her. She didn’t believe him. If it wasn’t him, then who? It had to be him. “Is this a game to you?” she grunted, forcing the words out between gritted teeth.
“No game. This is no game.” He held one hand out to the churning darkness. “But my hand was forced by events beyond my control.”
“Then what is it?”
“Revenge, you understand revenge, no?” He laughed, his voice hoarse. “I’m no monster, I wasn’t going to kill the boy.”
“Then why take him?”
“You want to know why?” Nico heaved labored breaths in and out. “I wanted nothing to do with this stupidity, but my uncle, Pietro Tosetti, was killed in a car bomb, ten years ago. He was a padrone in the Naples mafia.” The veins in Nico’s neck flared, his hands balling into white fists. “That bomb killed my wife and daughter. A bomb the Baron Ruspoli planted there.”
“You’re saying Giovanni planted a bomb?”
“An eye for an eye, that is the Old Testament, no? The Old God of vengeance is upon us today, and I claim the child as my own, for the child taken from me.”
“I can’t let you do that,” Jess said, his voice gravel in her throat.
“Then take your revenge. I know what you feel. Your blood is mine, your rage is mine.”
“It’s not the same.” She pressed the blade to his neck.
“It’s not?” Nico didn’t resist her. “Does it matter that an offense happened many years ago? Does time diminish a crime?”
“Giovanni didn’t kill anyone.”
The squall of black rain pelted the cabin, a sulfurous choking in the air. The cabin rattled as the ground rolled from side to side. Before Jess’s eyes, the other side of the valley slipped, fell into the churning black below in a roaring rush.
“Ask him why he was in Antarctica when his father died,” Nico snarled. “Sons answer for the sins of their fathers.”
There was no time for this. If she let him go, he’d kill her, take the boy. He’d never stop. Jess gritted her teeth.
Nico laughed, his body going limp. “The only thing that burns in hell is the part of you that won’t let go. Hell is no punishment, but a freeing of the soul. I’m not scared of dying, Jessica. If you’re frightened of dying, you’ll see devils tearing your life away at death, but if you’ve made peace—”
“Then you’ll see angels freeing you,” Jess whispered, completing his sentence. Where had she heard that before? Jess’s grip slackened.
“Yes, you see?” Nico lifted one hand and tried to pull the dagger into his throat. “I’ve paid my demons, now release me.”