Con of Humanity | Part 2

Beneath Mount Etna

Orazio’s body instantly disintegrated as it touched the scorching silver liquid, sending a harrowing stream of dark gray and brown smoke through the dense underground air. Clement shifted his arm to retrieve the pistol lodged within his waistband but a well placed bullet to his upper left shoulder prevented him from acquiring his weapon.

“The next one will kill you,” Nadine growled as she leveled her Luger at Clement’s sweaty skull.

“You mustn’t fire your weapon down here,” Clement pleaded in agony as he braced his gunshot wound with his opposite hand, “It’s too dangerous.”

Furious with the man’s audacity in telling her what she could or could not do, she fired a second round into the man’s upper right thigh.

Clement collapsed and yelped in tremendous pain and fear that the ignition of her pistol could cause the gasses in the air to also ignite, triggering the cinnabar. The woman across from him raised her pistol for a third time, finger eager to pull the trigger, but was instantly blocked out of view due to Rosalie’s looming frame.

“Stop!” Rosalie hollered out, in exasperation, “You don’t know what you’re doing!”

“I know exactly what I am doing,” Nadine hissed, with tones of hatred and annoyance, “I am going to kill you and your father. Once I have done that, the entire Tutino family will be erased from history and I will have obtained the Fuhrer’s ultimate prize and glory will be mine.”

Behind Nadine, Ulrich stepped into view from the stairwell. He was holding a thick rope in one hand but Rosalie was unable to see what was attached to the opposite end.

“Hello, Rosalie,” Ulrich said, with the vilest smile he could conjure, “I brought you something.”

Nadine stepped to the right to allow Rosalie a clear line of sight of a man being yanked into the light by a bloody noose tied around his bruised neck. He was badly bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds and deep lacerations across his hands, arms, neck and face almost made him impossible to identify. But Rosalie looked into the man’s blackened eyes, her heart breaking as exhausted tears pooled and cascaded down her reddened cheeks.

Garret.