The Mafia Trilogy by Jonas Saul Read Free Book Online Page A

moved along in front of him. When they hit the back door, the driver’s body connected first, snapping his back in two, his body broken in the middle like a twig.
     
    The driver’s body cushioned Darwin, but almost dislocated his shoulder. The van’s impact with the road crushed the back doors as the roof caved in at least a foot.
     
    The van slid along the highway for what seemed forever. Finally, it came to a stop on the shoulder of the road. Darwin heard dirt and rocks slide under the van’s side wall.
     
    With his hands still cuffed behind him, and his shoulder on fire, Darwin got up and crab-walked along the side of the van, which was now the floor.
     
    Andre was dead. No doubt. The windshield had broken, cutting Andre. The oozing blood formed one big splotch of red across most of his body. Andre stared with open eyes, his jaw slack, and his neck broken so violently even the skin had snapped open, like a large, human Pez dispenser.
     
    Darwin spotted the keys in the ignition, the engine still running. A small handcuff key dangled from the keyring.
     
    With his hands cuffed behind him, he backed up and felt his way to the keys. His hands found the steering column. He felt his way up until his wrist bumped into the ring. He latched on and twisted, but they didn’t budge. He twisted the other way, and the keys turned. The engine shut off with a little protest. He leaned forward and yanked the keys from their slot.
     
    He had to get out of the van. People would be coming. Cops would show up. He’d have too much explaining to do. Two men lay dead. It was his fault. The police would want to know how he came to be their prisoner. Too many questions, no good answers.
     
    But what if people witnessed him running from the scene of an accident in handcuffs?
     
    That was a risk he would have to take. It would be better for people to speculate about his intentions than for him to be in custody and know what he’d wanted to do.
     
    Using caution, his anger dispelled like a dam broken open, Darwin stepped through the broken windshield and onto the hot pavement of the highway.
     
    Cars raced by on the other side of the median. Some slowed to look at the accident. He glanced around the back of the van. A long line of cars were now parked, glinting in the noon-hour sun. Limousines, buses, trucks, Smart cars and bikes, all waiting to get around the accident.
     
    He walked down the shoulder and into the ditch. After he’d gone twenty meters, a hole in the fence led to a large parking lot and what looked like a shopping center.
     
    He still had his wallet and passport. He would go into the mall, buy new clothes and use their bathroom to get fixed up. Then he’d rent a car, or take a taxi, and head back into Rome.
     
    It was time to call Special Agent Greg Stinsen, the lead FBI investigator tasked on the Fuccini Family meeting back in the abandoned hangar.
     
    The one who said to call if Darwin ever needed anything.
     
    They had tried to kill him. They had attempted to hurt his wife.
     
    They’d gone too far.
     
    He needed something now.
     
    He needed the Fuccini Family boss on a spit.
     

Chapter 3

    Rosina couldn’t help herself. The tears wouldn’t stop. Her hands shook and she felt like she was falling apart.
     
    On the way to the airport, they had ridden the Terra Vision bus, but when she ran back to the bus area, it was gone. She found a different one idling at the airport that said one of their stops was Termini Station. She had gotten on and taken a seat.
     
    Now they sat on the highway, not moving. An accident on the road ahead had temporarily blocked all the lanes heading into Rome, the driver had told them. It wouldn’t be long now.
     
    She leaned out into the aisle and stared ahead at the top of a vehicle that had flipped onto its side. At least twenty cars separated her bus from the accident.
     
    Wow, that was close. It would seriously suck if she got hurt in a random accident when she had