He laughed softly, peering down into the crashing waves. He could do anything. He had that right. Here, in the world he’d created through his hard work, he was god of his domain. He loved reliving those moments of absolute power. He could stand there and think about how it would feel to throw Luigi’s wife right off the cliff. He fantasized about it often when she sat across from him at his dinner table talking endlessly about shopping with his wife.
A sound behind him had him whirling around. He felt a sting, as if a bee had landed on his neck and stung him. He slapped his hand over the wound and staggered a little as his legs turned rubbery. A hand caught his arm. Rough. In a vise. It hurt. He turned his head, finding it difficult to do that. His neck hurt and his motor movements were sluggish.
A man’s face swam into view. Cosmos opened his mouth to speak, to demand what was going on, but his shock was so great that for a moment, he couldn’t find his voice. He could only stare at the stranger, stunned that anyone would dare come onto his property uninvited and look at him the way that man was – as if he were scum. No one looked at him that way and lived. He’d grown powerful. Wealthy. He ruled his own little empire. No one looked at him that way, he wouldn’t stand for it.
He found himself sitting right there on the very edge of the cliff. For the first time he didn’t like being so close to the edge. He wasn’t in control of his movements. His body shuddered, breaking out into a sweat. He swayed and tried to hold himself rigid. Tried to make out the face – no faces – in front of him. The man was still there. A woman had joined him. The man was older, with silver hair. The man slipped on a pair of mirrored glasses covering his eyes – the eyes that held so much contempt. He was exceptionally strong for his age. The woman had glossy black hair, beautiful features, but was far too skinny for his liking.
“Do you know who you’re fucking with?” he asked, surprised his voice worked. He recognized a fast-acting drug rushing through his system. It hurt. Shredded his nerves. More, they hit him again with another needle. This one contained a dark liquid.
“You should have known Luigi would send someone after you. You killed his brother, murdered him. He wasn’t going to let you live.”
The woman spoke, her voice soft, even musical. She might be skinny, but her voice was all kinds of sexy. Cosmos recognized that even thinking about whether she was attractive or not under the circumstances was fucked up and he started laughing.
“He can’t have me killed. He knows I have proof he put me in his brother’s house so we could kill him. He had to cement his relationship with Angeline and her family first and then when it was done, when she agreed to marry him, I could let the dogs loose.”
He laughed hysterically again. Deep inside, Cosmos tried to stop talking, stop the flow of his consciousness from spilling every secret, but his nerve endings were on fire, and worse, he was beginning to feel as if he were drunk. He was drunk. He knew he was. His body swayed and he laughed again.
“Luigi and Aldo Porcelli are friends?”
“Luigi is tight with all the Porcellis. He’s like a shark swimming in a tank with a bunch of bottom-feeders. They think they know him. I can’t wait for him to take over – and he will. He says no, but I know he will and then he’ll kill that fucking moron of a wife. She’s so useless. She can’t even give the man a decent blow job, too busy making sure her lipstick is perfect. I want to be there when he does it.”
“I don’t think you’re going to be there,” the woman said softly. “You’re drunk and you’re very close to the edge of the cliff.”
He felt a hand on his arm. The man again. He found himself standing, facing them, the wind coming off the ocean blowing cold air across his neck and back.
“Do you know who I am, Cosmos?” the woman asked.
He shook his head. The action made the world spin. He recovered, holding himself rigidly upright.
“I’m Giacinta Abbracciabene. That little girl who followed you around and sat next to you at the table night after night when my parents invited you in for dinner so you wouldn’t be alone.”
His eyes widened. That child had flaming red hair like her mother. This woman couldn’t possibly be her. She was dead, wasn’t she? He didn’t know what happened to her. He couldn’t remember, his mind working very sluggishly. He shook his head. The action sent the ground under his expensive Italian shoes rolling. She stepped closer and he stepped back – into air. Empty space. The space where other bodies had gone before his.