Mafiosa (Blood for Blood #3)

by Catherine Doyle

  It felt a little bit like I had been punched in the heart. The idea that Luca saw something of himself in me had never even crossed my mind. I thought he had wanted to help me, maybe even be with me, in some kind of alternative universe, but this … I had never imagined that I might be some kind of … project. A do-over. It hurt. It hurt.

  I tried to keep my expression placid. ‘Wow, Felice. Tell me how you really feel.’

  ‘I am saying this for your own good.’

  I cut my eyes at him. ‘Oh, I’m sure you are. I’m sure you came in here with the intent of looking out for me. I’m sure you didn’t mean it when you raised a gun to my head a few weeks ago and threatened to shoot me in front of your whole family. You care about me. Yeah. That seems really likely. I totally buy that. Oh, I believe you. Whoa, Felice, please stop caring so much about me, you’ll give yourself a heart attack. Please, calm down with all that genuine caring.’

  He frowned at me. ‘Are you done?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I shrugged. ‘That’s all I got.’

  ‘I see how Luca is excluding you from family business. Any attempt he makes to distance you from the glory in revenge is nothing more than a selfish preoccupation with his own shortcomings.’

  ‘Felice’ and ‘sincere’ were not words I would ever put together in a sentence, unless of course the sentence was ‘Wow, Felice is not a sincere person.’ Yet, there was a disconcerting level of honesty in his expression. He truly believed what he was saying. The idea that Luca might actually like or care about me hadn’t even crossed his mind. ‘Why are you telling me this?’ I asked. ‘What does it even matter?’

  ‘We are at war, Persephone. Everything matters now.’

  ‘You really should have majored in theatre, Felice. You would have made an incredible Lady Macbeth.’

  He bent his head to my height, his elbows propped across the desk. ‘Nicoli will show you the way forward. He knows the path and he walks it, undaunted. Gianluca will shut your eyes until it’s too late, and you will, I guarantee, meet the same fate as your mother.’

  I sucked in a breath, all dregs of humour evaporating in that instant. ‘My mother is not some cautionary tale, and she’s definitely not a weapon you can use against me.’

  He raised a hand, halting the venom on my tongue. ‘The fact remains that we are now all you have, Persephone. If you want to be part of this family and remain part of this family, you must choose to whom you are going to listen. That is going to make all the difference. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  ‘I understand,’ I said, if only to end the conversation. ‘Luca won’t help me survive in this world.’

  Felice’s grey eyes darkened, his lips twisting into a slow smile. ‘But Nicoli will.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  PRACTICE

  As I tracked across Felice’s back garden, the barn rose to meet me – it was tall and broad, and made of concrete. Fall had come and with it the air had grown crisper. There was a biting chill in the wind now, and the trees on Felice’s land were turning vibrant shades of orange and yellow. It was pretty, almost like a picture, this assassin’s palace. In another time, I might have felt at ease here. I might have grown to love it.

  I stalled behind the barn, hidden from the windows of the house, and wrapped my arms around myself. My winter coat was still back in Cedar Hill, stuffed somewhere inside my wardrobe. A million miles away.

  I watched my breath fog in the air and tried to imagine how cold it would be here in the middle of December. A blanket of snow and ice – and inside, crackling fires in every hearth to chase away the chill. December brought thoughts of Christmas. Of stockings and candy canes and turkey dinners. Of presents and eggnog and family. Would we all survive until then? How black would my soul be by Christmas morning?

  I heard his breath on the wind before he caught up with me. He fell out of his jog and offered me a surprisingly warm smile considering I had harassed him out of bed at such an indecent time. ‘Good morning!’ he said, beaming at me in all that Colgate splendour.

  Of course Nic had had the good sense to wear a winter coat. His hair was messy – ungelled, and flopping across his forehead. He pushed it back. He looked peaky – half warm and half pale, probably from being wrenched out of bed at such an ungodly hour.

  ‘You’re late.’ I tapped at an imaginary watch. ‘I said 7 a.m. sharp.’

  ‘I’m not a morning person,’ he said, his grin turning sheepish.

  ‘Is that why your smile is starting to twitch?’

  ‘I just downed two double espressos,’ he confided. ‘I think my face is vibrating.’

  ‘Well, you could never tell.’ I smiled at him. ‘Thanks for coming.’

  He shrugged, but my smile had brought on his own, and I made a mental note to be very careful about how this meeting progressed. It was business, not pleasure.

  Nic cracked his knuckles and rolled his neck around, warming up. ‘So, why do we have to be so secretive about this again? Valentino will be happy.’ He had asked me the same thing last night when I ambushed him in the middle of brushing his teeth.

  ‘I told you I don’t want anyone to know until I know what I’m doing.’

  Translation: I don’t want Luca to know.

  Even if Luca intended to risk everything to break the promise I made to his twin, I certainly didn’t.

  ‘You sure that’s it?’ Nic edged a little closer, his grin turning wolfish. ‘Or is there something else going on here that I don’t know about? Because you don’t have to make up excuses to spend time with me, you know. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be …’

  ‘Nic …’ I pressed my palm against his chest and pushed him back gently. ‘We talked about this.’

  ‘So, let’s talk about it again, now that things have changed.’

  ‘Nothing’s changed,’ I said gently. ‘We’re not good for each other.’

  A frown rippled along his forehead. ‘For the record, I disagree,’ he said. ‘I think we are good for each other.’

  My smile turned awkward, but I kept my tone light. ‘To be in a relationship with someone, both parties kind of need to agree that they’re good for each other, Nic … it can’t just be you. It’s not enough.’

  Nic shrugged. ‘Take as much time as you need, Sophie. I’ll change your mind eventually.’ His determination puffed him up, made him seem taller.

  ‘You’re always so sure of everything,’ I said, half-chastising him.

  ‘That’s because I always get what I want,’ he said, confidently.

  Not this. Not me.

  I decided to flip the subject before the intensity of where this was going steered us off course. ‘Do you have the gun?’ I whispered.

  Nic’s laugh shattered the morning silence. He backed up and made a show of looking all around him. ‘You really don’t have to whisper about guns in this house – you get that, right? This doesn’t have to be a secret.’

  ‘I don’t want anyone to find out that I’m learning,’ I said quickly.

  ‘Of course you’re learning. How are you going to drop a Marino if you don’t know how to shoot a gun?’ He regarded me quizzically. Then he laughed again. ‘You are so funny, Sophie.’

  Nic pulled a gun from his waistband and my heart did a miniature somersault. I really had to get a grip. ‘Can you hold this for a minute?’ He handed it to me and I took it on reflex, surprised at the weight. It was sleek and silver, with a black bar of colour running along the top. I was extra, extra careful not to brush the trigger as I studied it at arm’s length.

  Nic zipped up his coat until it reached just below his chin. Damn, he looked so warm. I was trying not to shiver. I was also trying to look totally nonchalant with a gun dangling by my side.

  He gestured at the gun. ‘The safety’s on, you can relax.’

  ‘I’m totally relaxed,’ I said, forcing a laugh that sounded like a dying hyena. ‘I’ve never been more relaxed.’

  I passed the gun back to him, the barrel end pointing aw
ay from us, laying it flat on the palm of his hand, like it was an ancient artefact.

  He laughed again. ‘You are so cute.’

  ‘Stop making fun of me!’

  ‘OK, sorry,’ he said, smoothing his features into a terrible attempt at seriousness. ‘I’ll do my best.’ He beckoned me around the front of the barn.

  I fell into step with him. ‘Why are you going in there?’

  He unlocked the door and pushed it open, pausing on the threshold to answer me. ‘Where did you think we were going to have the target practice?’

  ‘Um …’

  ‘Here?’ he said, gesturing at the open grounds – at the beehives dotting the back garden, at the clusters of trees in the distance, at the back of the house and all those breakable windows. ‘Just out in the open like this?’

  ‘Um, no …’ I said, looking at my shoes. ‘That would be bad?’

  Nic snorted. ‘Bad is one word for it.’

  The barn was a huge open space with concrete floors and a continuous line of windows so high up I couldn’t see out of them. Morning sunlight streamed through them, brightening the room. At the opposite end, there were twelve targets lined up in front of the wall – twelve thick wooden bases with black human cut-outs jutting out from them, just like in the movies.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, realizing exactly what this barn was here for. ‘I get it now.’

  Nic was leaning against a long wooden table behind us. ‘You didn’t think he harvested crops here, did you?’

  ‘I never thought about it.’ OK, maybe a small part of me had pictured a barn stacked to the rafters with thousands of honey jars, all black-ribboned and waiting for their recipients. In hindsight, that would have been a bit much, even by Felice’s standards.

  Nic pulled the drawer from the table and rummaged inside. He handed me a pair of safety goggles. I examined them dubiously. ‘Are these necessary?’ I rotated them in my hand. ‘I didn’t think you guys wore safety goggles when you were out doing family business.’ ‘Doing family business’. That’s right, Sophie, act more like a child.

  ‘Nah,’ Nic said, handing me a pair of foam earplugs. ‘But maybe for your first time, we’ll take some precautions. Just until you get used to the noise.’

  I half wished there were knee pads and helmets as well. I was not feeling confident about my skills. I slid the goggles on to my face. They were way too big, balancing precariously on the end of my nose. I pushed them back and they slipped down again. ‘Noooo,’ I said, colouring my voice with dismay. ‘My face is rejecting the glasses.’

  Nic pressed the goggle arms towards each other, so they gripped behind my ears better. I stared at his chest, his alpine scent covering me as he fixed them. ‘It’s because your nose is so small.’ He tapped my nose with his finger. ‘It’s cute,’ he murmured, looking at me beneath those thick lashes of his.

  It was hard, in moments like this, not to remember the first time we ever spoke, how he looked at me like I was the only person in the world. How he kissed me like it was the first and last kiss he’d ever have. The Nic I thought I knew – the one I thought I needed. There were shades of that desire inside me still, but I had buried them for a reason. I had to remember why.

  Nic was distractingly close to me now and my head was exploding with shouts of Don’t you dare touch him! Step away from the enigmatic assassin right now!

  I stepped backwards. ‘Nic,’ I said, chastising.

  He held a hand up in surrender, the corner of his mouth flicking upwards in a lazy half-smile. ‘I was just saying.’

  ‘We’re here to work, remember?’ I slipped the earplugs inside my ears.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ His smile grew. ‘Are you ready?’ I could only half hear him. I nodded. ‘OK. Watch.’

  He took two steps forward, planting his feet. Raising his arm, he aimed the gun at the other end of the room and fired off six shots in quick succession.

  Even with the earplugs, the noise was relentless.

  A bullet hole appeared in each of the first six target heads – right in the middle. He pulled a magazine from his pocket and reloaded so fast I barely caught the movement. The next six holes appeared in the left side of the chest of each of the remaining dummies. The whole thing took less than ten seconds.

  Twelve targets in ten seconds. And he hadn’t even broken a sweat. He was relaxed, his expression placid, his breathing slow and natural.

  When he was done, he lowered the gun, reloaded it and swivelled to face me.

  I gaped at him. If I didn’t think too much about the end goal of his shooting, and only focused on the skill, I couldn’t help but feel awed. It was all so quick and effortless. ‘Your aim is …’

  ‘Unparalleled,’ he finished, a self-satisfied grin spreading across his features. ‘I told you. Your turn.’

  I looked at the targets again. They seemed so impossibly far away now; I could barely see the holes he’d made. ‘Can I move closer?’ I asked. ‘Like way, way, way closer.’

  He shook his head. ‘Don’t chicken out before you’ve started. I’ll bet you’ll be good at it.’

  I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘No, you don’t.’

  He laughed again. It was loud and carefree and giddy this time. The feel of the gun – of shooting – did something to his whole demeanour. It made him happy. Really, truly happy. Beneath all the anger and fear and determination, there was a pinch of something else taking hold of me. It was jarring, that a boy so young could be so maniacally entertained by all of this. Still, this was the boy who was going to help me get what I needed – revenge – and in the moment, that was what mattered to me most.

  ‘OK,’ he conceded, ‘I don’t think you’ll be an expert on your first try. But I do think you’re very teachable.’

  The gun was hot in my hands. I embraced the heat and let the warmth filter up my arm.

  ‘Don’t fear it,’ Nic said. ‘This gun is your ally. It works for you.’

  ‘What if I shoot myself?’

  ‘Have some confidence, Sophie. You’re taking back your power. Stand up straighter.’ He laid his hands on my shoulders and I leant back into them, raising my chin. ‘Good,’ he breathed, his voice against my ear. ‘You’re ready for this.’

  He lingered a couple of seconds more than necessary.

  ‘OK.’ I squared my jaw and locked eyes with the targets. ‘Teach me.’

  Nic dropped his hands and came to my side, his attention trained on my stance. ‘Plant your feet.’ The amusement had drained from his voice. This was the Nic I needed. This was the Nic who was going to teach me what I wanted to know. ‘Bend your knees just a little. Good. Now square your shoulders towards the target. Fully extend your strong arm. Now pull the slide back with your other hand.’ It clicked into place. There was a sickening thrill in the sound.

  ‘Bring your left arm around and cup the other side of the gun. No – not so loose.’ He moved around me, his arms coming over my shoulders against my own, his chin resting against my hair as his hands covered mine. ‘Like this,’ he said, shifting my left hand so my fingers cupped the gun. His breath was hot on my neck. I tried to ignore it. He moved his right hand over mine, shifting it higher. ‘Just one finger on the trigger,’ he said, his finger pressing mine into place. ‘Three fingers on the grip.’ He squeezed the rest of his hand over mine, dwarfing it. ‘Keep your feet planted. You need to be able to absorb the recoil.’

  I tried to focus. I was not supposed to be feeling this urge to make out with him. He was still morally corrupt – still dangerous, still bad for me. He was still that same boy that had pointed a gun at my head inside the diner. He was still the brother of the guy who was kind and good and smart … My brain knew that. Even my heart did. But right now, in these close quarters, my body didn’t.

  ‘I’ve got it,’ I said, shuffling out of his grip. ‘I can do it.’

  He stepped away from me, leaving my back cold and tingly. ‘OK,’ he said, pointing towards the targets at the other end of the barn. ‘Now bring the
gun up to eye level, keep your arms straight out in front of you and aim.’

  I hunched up my shoulders, my arms bordering both sides of my peripheral vision. I pointed the gun at one of the middle targets at the end of the room.

  ‘Picture someone,’ he said. ‘It will make it seem more real.’

  I let out a breath. ‘I see Donata.’ I lowered the gun a little, tracing the imaginary lines of her expensive designer suit, her bony neck. ‘I’m aiming at her heart.’

  ‘Good,’ he murmured. ‘She took yours, now you’ll take hers.’

  My mouth had gone dry. My arms were buzzing, and my breathing was coming more rapidly.

  ‘Let the adrenalin steady you.’ He was behind me again, his hands on my shoulders as he turned me just an inch to the left. He squeezed once – a reinforcement – and then withdrew. ‘Let it focus you.’

  I envisioned Donata’s overly made-up face, her sickly grin. I imagined her pallor drained by fear as I aimed my gun at her skeletal frame.

  ‘Fire,’ he breathed. ‘Kill the bitch.’

  I fired.

  My hand snapped backwards, the gun veering towards the ceiling on its recoil. ‘Shit,’ I hissed, releasing the trigger. ‘I didn’t think it would be so strong.’

  ‘You’ll get used to it,’ Nic assured me, unfazed by the fail. ‘Keep your hand steadier this time. Don’t let the recoil push your grip backwards.’

  The exhilaration of firing the gun was fast being eclipsed by the fact that I didn’t get anywhere on the target. I squinted. ‘Where did the bullet go?’

  Nic pointed towards the ground on the right of the Donata target. ‘It’s lodged in the wall.’

  ‘Well, that’s embarrassing.’

  ‘Your arm lagged.’ Nic stood behind me again. He lifted my hand with his until the gun was in front of me again. ‘You have five more bullets in this magazine. Five more chances to hit a target before we reload.’