“Holy Mother of God,” Aldo gasped, and the tumult around them rose, and a voice emerged from the horror of it all. A familiar voice, strong and beautiful and beloved.

“You don’t want them.”

Nico had been there all along. The crowd parted and he walked forward, straightening to his full height, pulling off the hat he’d been wearing. “They’re innocent. I’m the one who has been a thorn in your side. And here I am. Unarmed. Alone.”

A gleeful smile split Zwerger’s face. “Let them go,” he ordered, waving his arm, and there was a further commotion as Rosa and Carlo were pushed into the crowd. “But not you,” he shouted, pointing a shaking hand at Nico. “You stay where you are.”

Another volley of German, too fast for her to understand, erupted from Zwerger’s mouth. One of the soldiers now tied Nico’s hands behind his back and pushed him away from the steps and toward the stone wall that flanked the church.

Trapped in Aldo’s arms as she was, Nina could only watch, unable to look away, unable to hide. She was frozen, a pillar of ice.

The other soldiers shoved the crowd back and away, and when they were done Zwerger started shouting again, his voice raw and rising. “I declare you, Niccolò Gerardi, guilty of aiding enemy aliens, banditry, and a host of other crimes I can’t be bothered to enumerate now. Any one of them is enough to see you hanged”—and here he looked around the piazza, as dramatic in his posturing as Mussolini himself—“but we appear to lack a decent tree. Ah, well. I suppose we’ll have to make do.”

More words in German, barked at an indecipherable speed. The soldiers rushed to obey, their faces pale beneath their helmets. One, the same who had bound Nico’s hands, now pushed him back against the stone wall, then returned to take his place with the others. The soldiers stood in a row.

And she knew.

She knew. She fought to free herself, run to him, but Aldo was far stronger. He tried to turn her head, to make her look away.

“No,” she implored. “Let me see.”

Nico stood alone against the wall. How many times had they walked past it together, arm in arm, content in their lives and their love? He stood alone now, tall and resolute, and surely he had to be frightened. He had to know what was to come.

His eyes searched the crowd, as if he cared nothing of the soldiers and their guns and Zwerger’s toxic presence nearby. He was looking for someone—for her.

“Nico!” she screamed.

He heard her. Their eyes met. He did not look away.

The soldiers shouldered their guns. The crowd fell silent.

“Stop this madness!”

It was Father Bernardi, bursting from the crowd so he might place himself in front of Nico.