“Fuck you!” I screamed and tried to push up. He had me pinned. He was sitting on my chest. I could barely breathe. He held my hands pinned above my head with one arm and then with his other, he reached down to undo his pants.
I brought a knee up sharply and managed to graze his groin. He groaned and briefly released my hands to lift my head by the hair and slam my head into the floor again. When he reached back up to pin my hands, I managed to get one hand free.
He was fumbling with his pants and then reaching for my thighs, trying to part my legs, when I heard a soft sound.
It was Nicoletta. She was standing behind him in bare feet, holding her heeled sandals in her hand. Her face was expressionless. She held a finger up to her lips.
I met her eyes. She gave me a slight nod.
Charles managed to part my legs. His head was facing down as he let go of my hand and used both of his hands to try to maneuver his dick into the right place. I didn’t fight back because right then Nicoletta walked over to the gun and crouched down. Using her handbag, she knocked the gun toward me. It skidded across the floor and came to rest by my free hand.
Before Charles could react, I had the gun in my hand and shoved under his chin.
His eyes widened in surprise but then went blank as I pulled the trigger.
I scrambled out from under the dead weight of his body, trying to wipe blood and bone off my face. As soon as my ears stopped ringing I heard shouting. I looked around. The room was empty. Nicoletta was gone.
I was pushing bloody sticky strands of hair back from my face when the police rushed in. Instead of helping me, they threw me on the floor and snapped handcuffs on me.
Forty-One
As soon as the district attorney saw the video I recorded, I was released from jail.
Dante picked me up.
“Jesus, Gia,” he said as he looked me over.
I was still covered in blood and bone. They threw a towel at me, but it hadn’t done much good dry.
I looked around the lobby as I followed Dante to the parking lot.
No James.
“I need to call James,” I said as soon as I got into Dante’s car.
“He’s not taking any of this very well.”
“He’s not?” I shouted in astonishment. “He’s not taking this well? How about me being a murder suspect and him not even believing I was innocent and me about to go away on a murder rap. And he’s not taking this well? Well, fuck.”
Dante explained that James had found out Nicoletta had used him for months. And she wasn’t pregnant. He’d gone to see her after my arrest, and she’d coldly told him she’d never been pregnant and never cared about him.
“He didn’t believe me. He believed her. I was almost raped and killed because he took her word over mine.”
“Is she in custody?”
“She’s cooperating with police,” Dante said. “She claims that Charles was threatening her. He told her if she went to the police about his plans, he’d kill her, too. She has a boatload of evidence proving Charles killed all those people. Apparently, he wanted the police to think that Hollingsworth’s murder was just one of a string of murders committed because of the controversial opera.”
“Why did he make me the scape goat then?”
Dante shrugged.
“Dante, they were fucking. I heard them. They were making plans to be together after they murdered Oliver Hollingsworth.”
“She was playing him then. Police found a one-way ticket in her name to Vienna, Austria.”
“So she was fucking him over, too. She was fucking him and James over. Literally and figuratively.”
“I think so.”
“I’m fucking furious with James,” I said. “How could he have been so stupid?”
“Gia,” Dante said calmly. “That’s why he’s so fucked up. Think about how guilty he feels about that? He’s taken a leave of absence. He said he had to get his head together. He didn’t believe you and you almost paid the price with your life.”
Dante was right. I was pissed. I glared out the window at the people walking on the sidewalk.
“In the end, it was Nicoletta who was responsible for the charges being dropped even if she didn’t realize it,” Dante said. “In her hurry to throw Charles under the bus, she basically proved that you didn’t do anything. She’s also helping them convict the guy who did the Deepfake video. He lives in Switzerland or something, so it could be tough to get him extradited.”
“What a cluster fuck,” I said as a BMW cut us off and Dante laid on the horn. “I just want to go home and take a shower and then sleep for the next year.”
“Home?” Dante said. “You think of the hotel as home now?”
He sounded so excited I didn’t have the heart to say something snarky.
“Yeah,” I said. “I think it will be home at least for a while.”
“Great!” he said. “Because we sign papers this week!”
“The old guy agreed even though we didn’t find out who was embezzling.”
“You did find out, actually. It was Maxwell. He knew Herr Janson was going to sell in a few years, and he wanted to buy it. He’s worked here since he was fourteen.”
“Idiot.”
“Dead idiot,” Dante said as he pulled into the circular drive at the hotel.
Up in my suite, Dante waited in the living room while I took a long shower and changed into a pair of baggy sweatpants and a soft T-shirt.
When I came out, he had a plate of hot pasta waiting for me.
“Remember I used to make this for you when you were sick, when we were teenagers and you were hung over?” he asked. “I snuck up to the restaurant and made it.”
“You’re sneaky. And fast,” I said and took a big
