Aldo’s eyes grew. ‘Is that … is that … blood?’
I looked down at myself. Uh-oh.
Valentino followed Aldo’s gesture, and our eyes met. He dropped his face into his hands, his reaction muffled by his fingers. I was expecting a mild explosion but his response was weary. ‘Luca, why would you bring her in here looking like that?’
CJ lifted his head. He lurched forwards, bending over his knees. I thought he was going to be sick but instead he cradled himself, his fingers clutching at his sides as he stared down at the floor. He was probably smart enough to know it wasn’t my blood.
Luca looked at me sharply and I had the sudden image of him strangling me.
‘Sorry,’ I mouthed, hands raised in supplication. Millie and I backed away, into the semi-darkness of the hallway. We waited with our backs pressed against the wall and our hands squeezed tight while the conversation turned to angry Italian murmurs inside the room.
In the distance, down the marble stairs, we heard the purposeful clacking of heels. At the end of the hallway, coming at us like a bird of prey, was the crisp figure of Elena Genovese-Falcone. Her face was shadowed by the darkness but she glided with purpose, her black dress pooling around her. She was so like Donata and yet the idea of them once playing together as children seemed impossible. She was every bit the Falcone queen, marching through her dark castle. It was hard to decide who was worse between her and Donata, but they both definitely had a seat waiting for them in the pits of hell.
I pulled Millie against the window at the end of the hallway. Part of me wanted to open it and jump out into the garden. I’d take a thousand bees over Lucifer any day.
Elena came to an abrupt stop outside the room. She turned on the heel of her boot and pinned us silently with her eyes. Her lip curled, and in that plummy voice she said, ‘Did I not tell you to stay far away from my sons, girl?’
Millie gulped. I gulped.
She gestured at Millie, one wiry finger tracing her outline. ‘And now it seems you have multiplied.’
I felt an unexpected rush of indignation course through me. ‘I was staying away from them,’ I protested. ‘Maybe you should have told them to stay away from me.’
Millie pinched me. Shut up.
Elena flashed her teeth. ‘You think I didn’t?’
‘W-we d-don’t want to be here,’ said Millie. ‘It wasn’t our choice. We were in Eden when it all kicked off and we got caught up in the … in the hustle. We just want to go home, Mrs Falcone.’
Elena pitched forward and got right in my face. ‘Rubbing shoulders with my sister, were you, little Gracewell?’
I shook my head. ‘Of course not—’
‘Were you laughing about how your father slaughtered my husband?’
‘What? No, I went there to see my uncle—’
‘And what exactly has your uncle bargained with my sister for her protection?’
‘I–I don’t know,’ I stuttered.
‘Really, we don’t,’ Millie added.
‘Drugs? Money?’ she continued, watching us closely for any signs of betrayal on our faces. ‘What does that man have in his diner that would open the gates of my sister’s dynasty?’
My exasperation peaked, and too exhausted to reign in my annoyance, I half-shouted, ‘I don’t know! I don’t know anything about it!’
I blinked and her face was an inch from mine. ‘I think you’re lying.’ Closer still, until Millie was axed from my periphery. ‘I think there are lies in those eyes.’
I blinked hard – to hide the lies? Perhaps that’s what she thought, but the truth was that I was experiencing an overwhelming flurry of rage and I was this close to slapping her right in her face to get her away from me.
‘Secrets,’ she hissed, pulling back from me at last. ‘We all have them. And, girl, I will find yours and when I do, my sons will see you into the next life. If you’re a spy, I will find out.’
‘She’s not,’ interrupted Millie. Elena double-blinked, reminded that there were two of us.
Millie’s words came flooding out. ‘Neither of us are spies, actually. We’re not good at subtlety, to tell you the truth, so if we were you’d have found us out by now. We just want to go home and watch movies and go back to school in a couple of weeks. Please don’t kill us or ask someone to kill us or hurt us. We don’t care about your sister, I didn’t even talk to her at the club, which was really overpriced and kind of creepy, and even though I saw her in the crowds I thought she looked kind of haggard and definitely not as glamorous as you but then again I’m sure she’s like twenty years older than you and you got all the good looks in your family.’
Elena opened her mouth to interrupt, but Millie ploughed on, oblivious, silencing whatever she was about to say.
‘Sophie didn’t even really talk to her either, you see it was Jack she went to see because he gave her a card, but you probably know that because your son stole it which is fine because he was looking for Jack so that’s totally his prerogative, but Sophie only showed up because she thought her uncle was going to apologize and try to make everything right but obviously he didn’t, he made it way worse, which means he’s just totally evil, and we know that now and we’ll never make the mistake of trusting him again, I promise you Mrs Genovese, erm, Falcone, Your Eminence, ma’am. We’re sorry. We’re not spies.’
Millie’s panting filled the silence. Elena’s mouth stretched in a joker-like grin, all teeth and no lips, and something that sounded like a snort of amusement rustled the air between us.
She raised her finger and pointed it at Millie’s forehead, and just when I thought she was about to poke her eye out, she said, ‘You, I like much more than her. You, I believe.’
I watched in silent shock as Elena disappeared into the sitting room, her dress cascading behind her.
‘Holy crap,’ breathed Millie. ‘Holy crap, she’s scary.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, incredulity mixing with fierce gratitude for my best friend. ‘And you managed to disarm her.’
Inside, the Falcones spoke in tones that rose higher and higher.
Elena: ‘Felice has returned.’
Nic: ‘I can do it.’
Luca: ‘No.’
Valentino: ‘It’s not about doing the right thing. It’s about doing the intelligent thing.’
Elena: ‘They’ve broken the truce.’
Valentino: ‘It’s my decision.’
Luca: ‘Don’t worsen the situation, Valentino.’
Valentino: ‘We need to show solidarity in this.’
The conversation dipped to low Italian murmurs.
After a while, Elena left the room with CJ in tow. Her arm was resting along his shoulder, pulling him against her as she strode along the hallway. Luca and Nic emerged next, ashen-faced. Something was definitely wrong. Even more wrong than it already had been.
Luca walked ahead of us. ‘Follow me. You can shower and get cleaned up in here.’
He led us into a bathroom halfway down the corridor. It had a gigantic marble-fitted bathtub and gold faucets. The business of killing really was so lucrative. Nic disappeared into a different room.
‘Where did your mother go with CJ?’ I asked Luca.
He opened a cupboard and dropped two bath towels on to the countertop by the sink. ‘Shower quickly, get dressed and then we’ll take you home. The sooner the better.’
‘Why?’ asked Millie, getting in on the suspicion. ‘What’s happening?
Nic returned with a pile of clothes. He dropped them at our feet. ‘These belong to our cousins. Some of it should fit.’
They shared a glance as they shut the door behind them. Millie and I pressed our ears against it but we couldn’t hear anything. The wood was too thick.
‘What’s happening?’ she asked. ‘Are we in trouble?’
I pressed harder, until it hurt my ear. ‘I don’t know.’
She took out her phone. ‘Should we call the police?’
‘And say what?’ I looked down at
my bloodied self. ‘I’d be implicated, Mil. We both would. My mom wouldn’t be able to handle it. It would destroy her. We barely made it through the warehouse.’
‘But we’d be safe,’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘Wouldn’t we?’
‘You mean if we brought a patrol of police cars to the Falcone compound …?’ I trailed off.
‘Right,’ she muttered in agreement. ‘I wonder how long that would last.’
We showered quickly, first Millie then me. We towel-dried our hair and got dressed. I squeezed into a pair of black jeans and a T-shirt that was a size too small for me. The tennis shoes were too small, too, but I crammed my feet into them until the ends of my toes curled and chafed.
We unlocked the door and emerged to the distant sound of screaming.
Luca was sitting on the ground, his knees pulled up against his chest. He shot to his feet. ‘Are you ready?’ Clipped tone, shoulders tense.
‘What the hell is going on?’
‘Don’t worry about it.’ He slipped behind us and ushered us downstairs, his hand against my back, pushing, insistent, as we descended the marble stairs. Nic was lingering by the open door, his gaze flickering back and forth to the other end of the foyer. Luca guided us towards the entrance and the darkness beyond it. We were being herded.
Another shriek reverberated in the air. It was louder down here – it was coming from somewhere at the back of the house. It had to be Sara, but it all felt so devastatingly familiar, like I was listening to a distant memory of myself, screaming just as she was, begging for my life.
What Sara said at Eden was right. She was me, and not in a good way.
I rounded on the Falcones. ‘So this is what you do? You bring defenceless girls here and torture them?’
I moved backwards, towards the screams, but Nic pulled me into him, clamping me to his side. ‘Sophie, don’t,’ he urged, keeping his voice low. ‘We’re taking you home.’
Millie tugged at my arm. ‘Can we just go home, Sophie?’ She was crying again, the last dregs of her mascara smudging beneath her eyes. God, she was ruined, and it was my fault. She wouldn’t sleep again for a long time. But how could she walk away so easily? How could she stomach the guilt of leaving someone behind like that? She didn’t know what was happening. She didn’t know what was in store for Sara. But I did. Sara didn’t deserve this. She was good.
‘We can’t just leave her here!’ My teeth were chattering again. When did it get so cold? The dampness in my hair was chilling me.
Luca was stony-faced, but his jaw was tight. Nic was calm, feet planted firmly beside me, ready for the exit strategy, ready to deposit the potential snitches far away from the crime currently taking place.
Another ear-splitting shriek rang out.
I shook Nic off and pushed by Luca. He tried to block me but I shoved him away. He stumbled, caught off guard, and without formulating any semblance of a plan, I started sprinting towards the noise.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
REVENGE
I weaved towards the back of the house. It was like a sinister treasure hunt: follow the desperate wails. But Nic and Luca were both faster than me and I didn’t know the layout of the mansion. Luca caught me halfway through the kitchen. He circled me, blocking my way through.
Behind him, the kitchen continued through an archway, widening into a glass conservatory that jutted on to the garden patio. Felice’s beehives dotted the lawns beyond. I could see movement – people – and when the next scream rang out it felt unbearably close.
‘Move,’ I said.
Luca started to push me backwards. ‘This isn’t your concern, Sophie.’
Sara screamed again.
I gritted my teeth. ‘I said move.’
‘What exactly are you planning to do?’ asked Luca, playing for time, moving to the side slightly so that my view was blocked. ‘You know you can’t get involved in family business.’
‘I’ll call the police, Luca. Don’t think I won’t.’
He grimaced. ‘You know where that would get you.’
I did know. In the ground. ‘How could you let this happen again?’
Nic took a step towards me, blocking out Luca. He was obviously going to try and reason with me. He made his voice go soft, a whisper of intimacy, a moment shared between us. ‘Sophie, you both need to get back to safety and forget about all this. We should have brought you somewhere else, I know that now, but it’s too late to change it.’
His eyes were dark like molten chocolate. Lips, slightly parted, breathed warm air into the space between us. Nic had gotten the Eden card from me by acting like this. Two could play that game.
I looked at my feet, biting my lip in false reflection. ‘I don’t know …’ I murmured.
His shoulders dipped and he relaxed his stance. I pivoted around him, shooting for the double doors. I skidded into the conservatory. Outside, a sensor light was bathing the garden in harsh white light. I was just close enough to catch a glimpse of Sara Marino’s purple hair when she screamed again.
In a millisecond, everything fell into place. There was a whole fleet of Falcones. I recognized Dom, Gino and Elena, but there were others – women with long, dark hair, polished men in suits, young teenagers, and even an old man bent over a walking stick.
Valentino was seated in the middle, his head tilted at the scene, his fingers steepled in front of him. On the grass, Sara was on her knees. Her hands were bound behind her back. Her head was lolling forwards, a stream of blood falling from her lips.
CJ was standing on one side of her; Felice was on the other. They were like chaperones, but there was nothing protective about their behaviour. Felice had a gun in his hand and he was brandishing it above her head. He was gesticulating at his rapt audience, his lips curving into his cartoon smile. This was his theatre, and she was his show.
I reached the glass door and my fingers curled around the handle. I pulled it and it swung open with a soft whoosh. Luca flung his arm around my waist and clamped his other hand against my mouth as he pulled me against him. We froze like that, half-in, half-out of the Falcone mansion.
He brought his lips close to my ear. ‘Don’t say a word.’
His breath shivered all the way down my spine.
Felice was speaking. ‘For Calvino, our fallen brother, and for everything he stood for … justice, honour, morality … we will have vengeance. We will make Donata Marino suffer as we have suffered.’ He brought the butt of the gun down and smacked it across Sara’s face. It knocked her sideways and she stayed that way, whimpering into the grass.
Luca’s hand stifled my reaction. He was trying to drag me backwards, but I was writhing against him. ‘Let me handle this,’ he urged. ‘You’ll only make it worse.’
Felice handed the gun to CJ, but when he spoke, it was to the line of Falcones watching him. ‘My boy, it is time for you to avenge your father. You must step up now and become the man he raised you to be.’ He peeled his lips back, his teeth glistening like fangs in the moonlight. ‘And what better way to begin than like this? After all, l’uccisione è personale.’
Dom was actually clapping. Somewhere down the line, a girl hollered her approval. The others stood in silence, waiting for Calvino Junior to do something.
I was being hoisted away from the scene. I tried to catch Millie’s eye. She was free to act; free to do something. But she was statue-like and bug-eyed as she watched the garden scene unfold. Her skin had taken on a distinct green hue, and it looked like there was a very real chance she would keel over.
Come on, Mil. Snap out of it.
In the garden, CJ was holding the gun limply in his hand. He looked around him, as if searching for something in the family. No one came forward. No one told him to go upstairs and grieve with his little brothers. They just stood there, waiting. This was his test, and he had to pass it.
Sara’s cries spluttered into the earth, her fingers fisted in the grass. She was too weak to stand, too frightened to turn her face towards the Fal
cones.
I was still grappling with Luca. I tried to bite his hand but I couldn’t get the right angle. Licking it wouldn’t do any good. We weren’t in middle school.
‘Come on!’ said Felice, gripping CJ by the shoulders. He pressed the heel of his shoe against Sara’s side and pushed. She faltered, swaying to the side. ‘I was just a few years older than you when I made my first kill,’ said Felice to CJ, but it was loud enough so everyone could hear him, so everyone could bask in his glory. ‘Two kills,’ he corrected himself. ‘I wiped out the Marino boss and his whimpering wife with just two bullets. And now here we are, in another generation with the truce broken once more and another Marino cowering at our feet. You can do as I did, and cripple that insidious family, take the boss’s jewel from her arsenal.’ He raised his gaze to the crowd, a lazy smile flitting across his face. ‘Poetic, is it not?’
CJ, who had been looking up at Felice with wide, unblinking eyes, snapped his head back into place. Something seemed to click inside him. He got down on his knees and leant over the girl. His mouth twisted, cruel and biting, and I saw shades of Felice in him – a whisper of the man he would become if he did what was expected of him tonight. CJ raised the gun high above him, like he was going to shoot at the sky. And just as Luca managed to swing me around, away from the scene, he brought the gun down hard. There was a crack, and this time Sara’s scream was a raw, animalistic screech.
‘Bel lavoro!’ shouted someone.
‘For Calvino!’
‘Tale padre tale figlio!’
Felice’s voice rang out. ‘We have only just begun.’
My tears were falling over Luca’s hand. He was half carrying me from the room. There were more whoops coming from the garden. They would kill her, right there in their self-made amphitheatre.
I had to do something.
I made myself go limp. My legs dragged along the floor and I flopped over Luca’s arm like a rag doll. We dipped towards the ground together.
‘Sophie?’ He tried to hoist me up.
I didn’t budge. My fingers were brushing against the floor and my legs were bent outwards from each other. In that moment, Luca made two crucial errors. He made the mistake of believing me, and he propped me against a chair.
Inferno (Blood for Blood #2) Page 13