“Get out of the way!” Zwerger snarled. “He is a bandit—a criminal!”

“You’ve conducted no trial. You’ve presented no evidence. If you kill him now, you’ll make a martyr of him! And every one of us here will bear witness to your infamy!”

The crowd in the piazza, afire with rage, was growing by the minute. There had to be at least two hundred people gathered, more than enough to overrun Zwerger and his men.

But Father Bernardi wasn’t finished. “If you murder him, you will have to kill me as well, and likely scores of others in this piazza. Our deaths will stain your souls and consign you to eternal damnation. Is that a price you are willing to pay?”

A sweating, shaking Zwerger wiped his brow with his sleeve, and then he smirked, as if he’d just thought of something terribly clever. “Very well, Bernardi. Have it your way!”

He then turned to his soldiers, and whatever he said was impossible to make out above the rising protests of the crowd.

The soldiers began to advance on Nico and Father Bernardi, their guns at the ready. They pushed Father Bernardi away. And then they reversed their rifles and began to hammer at Nico with the guns’ wooden stocks, blow upon blow upon blow to his stomach, his back, his shoulders, his arms, and finally his head.

He fell, his blood pooling grotesquely on the ground.

He lay still, so piteously still. If Aldo had not been holding her, Nina would have fallen as well.

Zwerger waved his arm in the direction of the kübelwagens. Two of the soldiers grabbed Nico by his boots and dragged him to the back of one of the vehicles, and then, struggling to manage his dead weight, they tossed him inside.

“Where are you taking him?” It was Father Bernardi again, heedless of his own safety. “I demand that you tell me!”

Zwerger leaped down from the church steps and advanced on the priest. “Are you really that stupid? Do you honestly believe you have any control over what happens to your precious Nico now?”

“The archbishop will hear of this outrage—”

“The archbishop can go to hell!”

“But what will you do with him?”

“Whatever I like. And there’s nothing you, or anyone here, or anyone in your precious church can do to stop me.”

With that Zwerger strode back to his car, and in seconds the entire convoy drove off, taking Nico, bleeding and broken, away with them.

Away forever, for Zwerger had spoken the truth. He could do anything he liked to Nico and there was nothing they could do to stop him. Nothing.

Someone was speaking to her. “Nina? Nina! Listen to me.” It was Aldo. “We need to hide you. What if Zwerger comes back for you, too?” And he put her in the arms of another man.