Betrayal (40 page)

Nothing.

He had intended to strap bombs on his body and take out the Propovs in one magnificent explosion. Instead, he had defeated his enemy in a fight that raged between intelligence and brute force.

Noah was victorious. He had saved his family… perhaps.

He had failed Penelope… totally.

He touched the collar at his throat. Death couldn’t come soon enough.

Then… he heard the distinctive click of someone drawing back the hammer of a pistol.

Chapter 65

N
oah spun.

Penelope stood, covered with blood, pointing Hendrik’s pistol at Hendrik’s inert body.

Liesbeth sprawled facedown on the floor, unmoving.

Eli sat propped against the stairway, white faced but conscious, holding one of Nonna’s clean rags against his bloody shoulder.

“Penelope…” Noah whispered. He couldn’t believe it.

She was alive.

“I’m fine.” Penelope took a sobbing breath. “I’m fine. The blood… is your mother’s. I’m sorry, Noah.” Her hand, the one that held the gun, shook. “She’s dead. She saved me. She saved the baby.” Penelope shook her head over and over. “But… without her…”

Without Liesbeth, there was no way to disarm the bomb at his throat.

Penelope was alive.

But Noah was dead, condemned by the death of his mother to a wonderfully inventive, absolutely bloody murder.

He could see the knowledge in Penelope’s eyes: the anguish, the dying hope.

Without volition, he glanced at his watch.

Less than a minute left.

Penelope lowered the pistol. She tried to come to him, hold him, hug him.

He gestured her away. “No. We don’t know how violent the explosion will be.”

“I don’t care!” She gave a sob.

“Penelope… it’s okay.” He patted his chest over his heart, overflowing with love for her. “Look at me. I mean, look past all the bruises and the cuts, and really look at me!
You’re
alive. That means my baby is alive, and that’s more legacy than I ever expected to leave. I’d do anything if I could stay here and be with you and love you every day. If I could watch little Sarah grow up, I would praise God every day in all humility. Instead I’m grateful for the time we had together, and the life we made out of our love.” He took a long breath. A last breath. “Wherever I go, I promise I’ll watch over you both, and I will always, always guard your happiness. You believe me, right? You can see it in me, right?”

She stared at his anxious, earnest face.

For all of their time together, Noah had pulled a veil over his eyes, never allowing her to see too deeply into his soul. Because always he had been hiding his past, the truth about his mother’s family, and his inevitably early death.

Now, however, he had nothing to hide. The veil was down.

She could see him: warm, tender, and so in love with her, her throat closed. “Yes,” she whispered. “I believe you.”

From the floor came a hideous groan.

Penelope jumped.

Noah turned with a snarl.

Slowly, painfully, Hendrik turned his head and whispered, “I wish the goddamned bomb would go off early so I don’t have to listen to that shit.”

Penelope lifted the pistol. She wanted to kill Hendrik so badly.…

From the stair, Eli said, “Have you ever shot a gun, Penelope?”

She shook her head.

“Then give it to me. I’m conscious; I’ve got a good aim—”

Penelope hesitated. Eli looked pasty white, but his brown eyes snapped with pain and fury.

Eli continued. “—and one more comment out of the little prick who murdered my grandmother and I’ll be glad to kill him.”

Yes. Eli hated enough to kill.

Penelope walked over and handed him the pistol.

Noah said, “Twenty seconds. Penelope, why don’t you go upstairs and…?”

“No. I’m not leaving you.” She went to him, and although he tried to evade her, she wrapped her arms around his waist. “I love you, and I need to hold you. I
really
need to hold you.”

“How brave,” Hendrik sneered.

“No, I’m selfish.” She buried her anguish in a deep, hidden part of her soul. She smiled up into Noah’s face, wanting his last view on earth to be a memory to carry for eternity. “I want to be close to Noah until that far-distant day when we’re together again.”

Noah seemed to want her here, and yet he wanted to send her away from this scene of impending death. “This explosion is small enough that it won’t harm you… if you can bear the sight of—”

“It’s not about me and what I can bear, is it?” she said fiercely.

“Then stand behind me and hug me—quickly!”

She did as he commanded, pressed herself against his back.

“It’s time,” he said.

She braced herself to hold him, to hold the sudden weight of his dead body. She braced herself for the pain of his passing, for the grief she knew awaited her. She tried to look ahead to that time when she would hold his child and see his green eyes looking up out of that tiny face… but nothing could surpass the barbarity of this moment.

Tensed against him, she waited, every second crawling into the next second, and the next, and the next.…

She started to feel embarrassed. Did they have the wrong time? Had someone set the timer incorrectly? Was she so impatient to get the worst horror of her life over that she felt as if time were crawling?

“Hey, Noah?” Eli said. “It’s about a minute past your D-day.”

“Hm.” Noah pulled away from Penelope and looked around.

He looked very odd, mouth puckered, eyes thoughtful.
In a sudden motion, he reached up, pulled the latch free, and flung the necklace as hard as he could into the corner.

The dog collar hit the wall, landed on the floor, and just… sat there, innocuous and unexploded.

Hendrik’s vile curse made Penelope realize—Hendrik had expected it to blow up.

Why hadn’t it exploded?

Picking up a shard of glass, Hendrik focused on the necklace, and, on his hands and knees, he crawled over. Taking the leather in his hands, he started at the left side and counted the studs, and using the glass, he cut one particular stud free. He rolled it in his palm, examined it, then looked at Liesbeth’s body with such virulence, Penelope feared for her. “The bitch disarmed the necklace,” Hendrik said.

Noah laughed incredulously. He laughed again in absolute amazement. “My mother—she lied to me. She gave me the collar
knowing
it was a dud. She lied.”

“She lied?” Penelope couldn’t believe it. “She tried to control you by threatening to kill you? And she lied?” She was indignant. Not about the fact that Liesbeth had sabotaged the bomb at Noah’s throat. But that Liesbeth had been willing to destroy Noah to rebuild him in her image.

What a lesson for Penelope, facing all the long years of child raising.

Noah moved toward Eli, his palm extended.

Eli handed over the Glock; then, in slow motion, he slithered down onto the floor, his strength gone.

Noah touched him briefly, a single gesture of reassurance, then moved back toward the middle of the basement.

“She lied.” On his hands and knees, Hendrik scratched at the collar, ripping off the studs one by one.

“I never said she was a good mother. More like the witch who tried to bake Hansel and Gretel in the oven.” Noah laughed some more, low and deep, as if this moment meant something great to him.

Probably it did. Better to find out your mother didn’t try to kill you than to know she did.

Penelope’s nerves winched tighter. Something was going to happen. Something so terrible it would play in her nightmares forever.

Noah winced, put his hand on his neck as if it hurt, and winced again. Yet all the while, he kept his gaze on Hendrik. “My mother. God, what a piece of work.”

“Liesbeth. She disarmed the necklace before she ever gave it to you. You!” Hendrik rose to a sitting position. He glared at Noah. “You little nancy-boy.”

Noah still chuckled. “Poor Hendrik. It must sting to be defeated by a nancy-boy.”

Hendrik lumbered to his feet, his malevolent eyes fixed on Noah.

Abruptly, Noah stopped laughing. “My mother tried to convince me to kill you and take over the gang. Did you know that, Hendrik?” Blood smeared his face, dried on his collar, colored his taunts with crimson. “Liesbeth didn’t trust you. She didn’t think you were good enough to take her place.”

Hendrik’s swollen features resembled a prizefighter’s. “I’m going to slaughter you.” His fat fingers reached out—and he charged at Penelope.

She screamed.

Gunfire roared through the basement.

With her hands over her ears, Penelope dropped to her knees.

Noah had fired the Glock.

But when she opened her eyes and looked… on the stairs, Rafe stood, dirty and scraped, holding a large-caliber pistol. And he had fired, too.

It was over.

Hendrik was a crumpled body on the floor, his malice vanished, and he… not even a memory.

But Noah… was alive.

Chapter 66

B
y the time Penelope’s ears stopped ringing, Rafe was at the bottom of the stairs, lifting the rag Eli held over the wound, looking and talking. “Bao and I caught two of those bastards sneaking toward the house from the vineyard. Caught them by surprise. They didn’t expect resistance. They fought. Dead, both of them.” He probed Eli’s shoulder with his fingertips. “Hey, brother, good news. This gunshot wound—it’s a through-and-through. That’s good.”

“Chloë?” Eli gasped.

Rafe gave a brief laugh. “She’s fine. She and Brooke followed two of the others—”

Eli groaned. “The woman is trying to kill me.”

Rafe continued. “They drove cross-country in Chloë’s Porsche.”

“Dragged bottom?”

“Totally. They ran down the guy. He’s got critical injuries. The female got away.”

“That’s six.” Noah clicked the safety on the Glock, put it into his belt, and helped Penelope to her feet. “Get her, and you’ve got them all.”

“DuPey has the local police chasing her. They know the area. I’ve got my people guarding the house.” Rafe glanced at Noah. “You look pretty good, kid, for a guy who had his head blown off five minutes ago.”

“False alarm,” Noah said casually.

Penelope punched his ribs hard enough to make him wince.

But then… he was already hurt.

Rafe stopped his bandaging of Eli long enough to critically examine Noah. “I’d say you need some stitches.”

“And I think”—Noah flexed his hand, rolled his shoulder, felt his ribs—“maybe a cast and some bandages.”

“You have broken bones?” Penelope didn’t know why she was surprised. In a lifetime of watching Hollywood movies, she had never seen such a vicious fight in her life.

“Things are broken inside, but compared to how dead I thought I would feel… I’m pretty good.” Gingerly, Noah pulled her into his arms and looked toward his brothers. “Penelope saved us. She found the bottle and used it to bargain with them.”

“No. Really? Good job!” Rafe nodded approvingly at Penelope. “Where was it?”

“Under the stairs,” she said.

He glanced toward the bottom step. “Whoa. Where is it now?”

“Hendrik dropped it.” She glanced around the floor. “I think… someone grabbed it.” She tried to remember the details, but the last twenty minutes had been like one snapshot after another, moments frozen in time, all the focus on Noah. Noah. Noah. Stupid to be unsure, yet all
of her attention had been fixed on the struggle between Noah and Hendrik.

She hadn’t cared about the bottle of wine.

She had cared only about her lover.

In a disgusted tone of voice, Eli said, “It was Joseph Bianchin. He’s got the bottle. If Nonna were alive…”

“What?” Rafe grabbed Eli’s hand. “What about Nonna?”

Bao rushed down a few steps and stood above them, poised to run in any direction. “DuPey got the last one of the gang. The woman killed herself rather than let law enforcement take her. But where’s Mrs. Di Luca?”

“They shot her in the kitchen,” Noah said.

Bao and Rafe exchanged glances.

“No,” Bao said. “No blood. No blood trail. But she’s not in the house.”

Rafe looked at Bao, at Penelope, at Noah. “Find her.”

Sarah stood in her backyard under the widespread branches of the oak tree she loved so much, and pointed her cute little handgun, a Judge Public Defender, at Joseph Bianchin. “Put it down
now
.”

“Sarah, you know it’s mine.” Joseph held Anthony’s bottle of wine in his gnarled fingers, caressing it as if it were the woman of his dreams. “Massimo liked the Bianchin family better than the Di Lucas. My father always said so. It’s rightfully mine.”

“Massimo did not leave you without a gift.” Sarah was giving Joseph his last chance to redeem himself.

She considered herself generous.

“A silver rattle!” Joseph’s eyes blazed with indignation. “He gave me a silver rattle. Not the priceless bottle of wine he gave to Anthony, but a simple silver rattle.”

“It is a beautiful, antique piece of art,” Sarah reminded him.

“The wine… that was a celebration laid down to be enjoyed on Anthony’s twenty-first birthday.” Joseph bared his yellowed teeth. “The rattle… it’s a baby toy.”

“Put the bottle down.” Sarah’s gaze didn’t waver. Neither did her aim.

“You wouldn’t shoot me. You’re a woman, and a sweet woman at that. Stop pretending that you would.” Joseph smiled a smile of scorn and false sympathy, and turned away.

Sarah waited until he was about thirty feet away.

She shot him in the butt, a spray of buckshot that pierced his pants and his skin and ripped into the muscle and through the veins.…

He screamed in surprise, pain and rage. He dropped the bottle. He fell down and writhed on the ground.

She heard shouts from the house.

The children had found her. But she had a few minutes with Joseph before they got there. A few precious, much-needed moments.

She strolled over to him. She stood well away from his flailing body, and she spoke clearly and coldly. “Any woman whose husband was shot in a family feud and almost killed who doesn’t take shooting lessons is a fool.” Leaning over, she picked up Anthony’s bottle. “It’s taken you sixty years, Joseph, but I hope you realize now—I am not a fool.”