Vendetta didn’t cry. She hadn’t cried since she was a baby. There were no tears inside her. She had had her revenge for Mauro. Ugo was gone and his palazzo destroyed. She would return now to her life in the mountains. She had always had a hard heart, now it would be even harder.

She turned away from the scene of carnage.

She could not have James. She knew now that that was not to be. God had chosen another fate for him, but there was always Stefano…

James, Zoltan, Tree-Trunk and Amy had made their way around the top of the mountain and were riding down the other side towards the Gulf of Orosei on horseback. They had found the horses in a stable set some way back from the edge of the dam. With no vehicles up here, this had been the only way for Ugo’s men to get around.

James was sitting behind the massive bulk of the tattooed Samoan and Amy was clinging on to Zoltan, as much to stop him from falling off as herself.

Zoltan looked very weak and sick, as if he had done all he needed and was giving up. He swayed in the saddle, his head lolling.

James didn’t know if he and Amy were prisoners or if they were all escaping together. The only thing he knew for sure was that he had to get off this cursed mountain and back down to safety and civilisation.

He felt empty and numb and couldn’t look at Amy, whose eyes were red from crying.

As they were leaving the ruined dam a group of Ugo’s men had shot at them half-heartedly from a distance. Zoltan had fired back to scare them off, emptying his Beretta, and they had disappeared.

After that they had seen no one.

It was very hot and James had nothing to shade his head. He sat there, staring at the complex tattoos on Tree-Trunk’s back and listening to the incessant clop-clop-clop of the horses’ hoofs on the rocky ground. He found the sound intensely irritating and even when the horses stopped the sound carried on, inside his head, clop-clop-clop…

After an hour or so they came to a small stream and dismounted. Amy wandered over to get a drink and stretch her aching legs. James approached Zoltan who was sitting in the shade of a tree, fiddling with his Beretta.

‘What are you going to do?’ he said.

‘I am going back to my boat where I belong,’ said Zoltan.

‘And what about us?’ James asked.

Zoltan looked up at him with filmy eyes. ‘Everything that happened is because of that girl,’ he said quietly.

‘Then let us go,’ said James.

‘I cannot. She is all I have now.’

‘Then damn you to hell!’ shouted James.

A look of fury came into Zoltan’s eyes, but it soon faded. He sighed and put his gun away.