Dario raced towards me and wrapped me up in his strong arms.
I hung onto him, finally safe.
After a second, he pulled away so he could see my face.
“Are you alright?” he whispered.
I nodded.
He smiled at me, happier than I had ever seen him before. “Let’s not ever do that again.”
I laughed behind the tape on my mouth.
“Is everyone all right?” Dario yelled as he felt for the edge of the tape on my face.
“We’re fine!” someone yelled from the third floor – Massimo, by the sound of it.
“This is going to hurt,” Dario warned me right before he peeled the tape off my face.
But after everything I had been through, the pain was nothing.
As soon as the tape was off, he asked, “Are you really okay?”
“Yes!” I cried out happily, tears streaming down my cheeks –
And he kissed me passionately.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back as hard as I could.
“Hey – get a room!” Niccolo’s voice called down from the second floor.
Dario and I broke off the kiss and laughed.
I looked up to see Niccolo, Massimo, and Roberto on the second floor, dressed in black and beaming. Behind them were another dozen armed men, the foot soldiers of the Rosolini family. They were cheering and giving each other high-fives.
Another figure came down the stairs, a high-powered rifle slung over his shoulder. He pulled off his black balaclava to reveal a shock of blond hair.
“Are you alright?” Lars asked me worriedly.
“What, you couldn’t see that from the kiss?” Niccolo shouted from above.
“I’m fine!” I assured Lars.
He looked strained and haggard. “That was the most stressful shot of my entire life.”
Dario put his hand on Lars’s shoulder. “I knew you could do it. That’s why I entrusted it to you.”
Lars nodded, and I hugged him. He finally relaxed and laughed as he hugged me back.
“Can we bring everyone out?” Valentino asked.
“You just want to look like the big hero,” Niccolo teased him.
“Hey, you heard her earlier,” Valentino said as he pointed at me. “She told me to take care of my lady!”
“Fine, whatever,” Niccolo said.
Valentino went down the hall and opened up a door. “It’s alright – you’re safe – you can come out now!”
Two dozen servants streamed into the hall, including a handful of armed foot soldiers who had been guarding them.
The servants were all dressed in pajamas like they had been pulled out of their beds just moments before.
Caterina was among them. She ran into Valentino’s arms, and he kissed her as he swung her around in the air.
Lars went over to control the crowd.
“What happened?” I asked Dario as I stared at the servants.
“When we saw you were coming on the surveillance cameras, we got everyone out of bed,” he explained. “But we couldn’t risk taking anyone outside in case the Turk noticed… so we hid them and had my men protect them.”
In an instant, I remembered my role in all of this. “I’m sorry, Dario – I’m so sorry – they had my father – ”
“Shh, shh, it’s okay,” he whispered. “None of this would have happened if I’d hadn’t been a fool and let you go.”
I broke down sobbing in his arms as he held me.
“It’s alright,” he murmured in my ear. “I’m never letting you go ever again.”
Then I thought of something else. “My father – he’s in the trunk of one of the cars at the base of the hill!”
“We’ll send someone right away,” Dario promised, then turned around. “Adriano, her father’s in one of the Turk’s cars – take some men down there and free him.”
“Should I search the bodies up here for keys?” Adriano asked.
Dario moved away from me as he and Adriano discussed searching the Turk’s men for keys.
That’s when I saw her.
Filomena.
The old woman moved like a sleepwalker out of the crowd of servants, her frail body draped in a white nightgown down to her ankles.
I thought she might look at me, and I dreaded meeting her gaze –
But something was wrong.
Her eyes were fixed on Dario and nothing else.
My eyes dropped to her arm by her side.
It was hard to see because of the servants and people crisscrossing between us –
But I finally spied something small and black in her hand.
A gun.
She was 12 feet away from Dario and getting closer.
If I shouted, there was no guarantee that they would know who to shoot –
And if I screamed her name, it would alert her –
And she might take the shot.
I had only a second to act –
And I made my choice.
I bent down and grabbed the gun that Dario had kicked over to the Turk.
I prayed that it was no more complicated than I had seen in the movies –
And I began to walk towards her as fast as I could.
Filomena started to raise her arm.
No one saw except me –
Because no one suspected an old woman would kill anyone.
Niccolo saw, though it was too late.
“GUN!” he screamed as he reached for his holstered pistol –
But by that time Filomena was only six feet away from Dario. Her arm raised the gun towards his head –
Which is when I fired.
BANG!
She jerked and fell to the floor.
Dario glanced down at her in shock, then looked at me with wide eyes.
I stood staring down at her body, the gun shaking in my hands as smoke curled up into the air.
