“Shouldn’t have stuck that knife in her, you fuck,” Giovanni said, and slammed a knife into Barry’s good leg.

Up high. In his thigh. Almost an identical wound to the one his brother Ricco had made. Barry screamed. He couldn’t stop screaming as he fired the gun repeatedly at Giovanni. But Giovanni had vanished as if he’d never been. As if he wasn’t human. A phantom. A ghost. Barry wiped his eyes with his gun hand and slumped against the wall. He had to get out of there. He could hire someone to kill Stefano and his entire family. Wipe them out. He would get satisfaction from that. He didn’t need to see it done, just so long as it was done.

He wrapped the wound on his leg and headed for the kitchen, intending to go out the back way. There was a car waiting outside. There was always a car. He’d sent Arnold and Harold out to hunt the women down. If he was lucky, they were still alive and they could get out with him. He stopped just outside the kitchen. There was no door, only an archway. The room seemed quiet—so quiet he could hear the piano. Fang stilled played. He was still alive. The music sounded better than it ever had—but bizarre, as if the drama unfolding in the house was nothing more than a theater play that he was stuck in the middle of.

Arnold sat at the kitchen bar, a sandwich in front of him. There was a whole ham cut into thin slices on the bar beside the plate with the sandwich. Harold was against the wall behind the bar. Barry stepped inside and hurried to them. “Get up. We’ve got to get out of here. The Ferraro brothers are every . . .” He trailed off.

Arnold was pinned to the chair by a series of knives, his eyes wide open and staring in horror. Harold was held to the wall by knives going from his belly to his chest. Barry staggered back, reaching for the archway to hold his trembling body up. He looked wildly around. There was no one. Only silence. The shadows played across the back door as if daring him to enter them. He shook his head, sobbing. No way was he going out that door, not with the shadows moving across it.

“I like knives, Barry. Learned to cook in Europe when I was training there,” Taviano said, his voice close to Barry’s neck. “And to use knives for all kinds of purposes.”

Barry brought up the gun and Taviano slapped it away. Easily. So easily. Barry closed his eyes, knowing what was coming, trying to steel himself.

“I gave them a little demonstration, but they weren’t impressed, or at least they didn’t say so. You know you shouldn’t have stabbed her. She’s ours. Dumb, Barry, but then you always were a dumb prick.”

The knife went in on the other side, in the same spot where Emmanuelle had stuck him. He knew there was no sense in looking for Taviano. He’d disappeared, just as all the other Ferraros had disappeared. Like ghosts. Barry stayed very still, leaning against the archway, sobbing. He had no idea how long he stayed there, blood running down his clothes, his mind uncomprehending.

This couldn’t really be happening to him. He always won. He was always in control. Now he was staggering through this mausoleum, bleeding from multiple stab wounds, his men dead inside.

The sound of the piano penetrated through the lashing rain and shrieking wind. Lightning still lit up the sky, as if the storm stayed crouched over the estate he’d rented. Fucking Ferraro family. Think they own Chicago. He pushed off the wall and stumbled down the hall toward the great room and the sound of the piano. Fang was still playing, seemingly unaware of the deaths taking place around him. More, the concerto he played was intricate, difficult, something Barry wouldn’t have thought in Fang’s repertoire. Barry had gone to several concerts with his mother and heard the greatest pianists in the world play. Fang wasn’t one of them, yet his playing now was superb. The beautiful music sounded so incongruous as a backdrop for the ugliness happening inside the house.

Barry burst into the great room and the first thing he saw was George. The man was lying beside the piano bench, his neck at an odd angle, his eyes open and staring in horror. Fang was facedown, just on the other side of the piano. The man playing was Vittorio Ferraro. He turned suddenly, one hand lifting from the keys. In one movement he picked up the small throwing knife, turned and flung it at Barry, all the while his other hand still played. Then his second hand joined, even before the knife sank into Barry’s shoulder.

“Shouldn’t have stabbed her, Anthon,” Vittorio said, and dismissed him, keeping his back to him as he played the concerto.

Dismissed him. As if he were of no consequence. It was humiliating. If he’d still had his gun he’d have killed the son of a bitch. The knife barely hurt, not with the wounds in his thighs throbbing and burning. Not one knife had touched a vital spot. Not one . . .