Mafiosa (Blood for Blood #3)

by Catherine Doyle

  ‘Come in,’ I said, brushing the homework aside until it fell on to the floor in a heap.

  Nic shut the door behind him. He swept his gaze across the floor, an eyebrow arching at the little bundle of notes, at the big fat poetry book squishing half of them. ‘Yeah, I don’t envy you right now, Soph.’ He stepped over them like they were toxic and plonked himself on the end of my bed. ‘I never was one for poetry.’

  I gestured at the discarded poem. ‘So, I guess you can’t help me pick a deeply emotional poem to identity with for this stupid assignment?’

  He pulled a face, his features growing almost cartoon-like with faux horror. ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘Oh well. At least I tried.’

  ‘I’ll ask Luca for you when he gets home. He’s a real nerd for shit like this.’

  I tried not to react to the mention of Luca’s name. The truth was, I hadn’t seen him since he had almost come to blows with my father at my mother’s ceremony. He had just disappeared, and had been gone all day. I guessed he needed some time to cool off, but that didn’t do much to soothe the squirmy guilty feeling in my stomach.

  Nic arranged himself model-like on the end of my bed, like I was about to draw him à la Rose in Titanic. He was dressed casually in a black T-shirt and dark blue jeans, his hair swept away from his face in finely gelled waves, a gold cross around his neck. Strictly speaking, Nic probably should not have been in my room, but I had bigger things to worry about right now. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked him. ‘Are you looking for a bedtime story?’

  ‘I’d usually request a lullaby, but I heard you singing in the kitchen the other day and I saw the milk curdling.’

  I slammed my pillow into his face. ‘You rude man-pig. How dare you.’

  His hands shot up in surrender. I rearranged the pillow behind me and lay back against it. ‘What’s really up?’

  Nic grinned at me. ‘Well, my excitement levels for one.’ At my confused expression, he gestured to the nightstand, where Libero Marino’s face was staring at the ceiling. ‘Valentino just gave me the good news. You got your target. Finally!’

  ‘Oh. Yeah.’ I tried to smile but my cheeks were twitching. ‘I did.’

  ‘Libero Marino.’ Nic laughed his name. ‘He was a real piece of shit when we were younger but he’s a joke now. He’s always high on something. You could pick him off with your little finger.’

  I swallowed hard, tried to ignore the ten thousand butterflies taking flight in my stomach. ‘Great.’

  Nic edged towards me, crumpling the duvet into little peaks and valleys between us. Concern swept across his face. ‘You OK, Soph?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ I said, in the least convincing attempt at a lie ever.

  ‘I thought this was what you wanted?’

  I looked at my hands, knotted my fingers together. ‘I do. I’m just getting used to it. I didn’t think—I didn’t expect it to be Sara’s brother, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said softly. ‘You thought it would be someone you didn’t know.’

  I nodded at the bedspread. ‘Yeah. I guess I did. It just feels a bit more personal than I was expecting …’

  ‘The Marinos are your family,’ Nic said.

  ‘Well, when you put it like that, I sound pretty dumb right now.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ he added. ‘Really, I do. It’s natural to have doubts, Soph.’

  I stared at all that honeyed warmth swimming in his dark eyes, and felt the knot in my chest loosen. He was silent for a minute. I soaked it up, waited for my breathing to return to normal. He moved his hands a little closer. Instinctively, I pulled away, not wanting to fan the embers of desire still inside me, not wanting to complicate an already complicated situation. ‘Nic …’

  ‘I heard about your mother’s ceremony yesterday,’ he cut in. Maybe I had imagined his nearness, the way his body seemed to be inching closer. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I would have gone if I had known.’

  I studied his face for clues of what Luca might have told him. Did he know about my father? His placid expression suggested otherwise. Another secret Luca had kept, then … another reason to feel grateful to him and guilty all at the same time.

  ‘How was it?’ Nic asked, his fingers still close to mine, a line of fresh bruises colouring the knuckles on his right hand. City work.

  ‘It was depressing,’ I told him.

  He nodded knowingly, and just like that, my mood migrated from resigned to angry, my thoughts turning to everything Donata had taken from me. She had reduced my mother to a vase of ashes, a trail of memories that most people would soon forget. That was the truth of it. The cold, harsh truth.

  I balled my hands into fists, released the fire inside me. ‘I want to hurt her so badly. I can’t even put it into words, Nic. I want her to suffer the way she’s made me suffer.’

  ‘Good,’ he murmured, sitting up and squaring his body up to mine. ‘That’s the spirit, Sophie.’ He put his hands on my shoulders, dug them in until they started to sting. I ignored it, using the pain as fuel as he poured his strength into me. ‘You need to get fired up about this, Sophie. You need to feel determined and angry, and, most of all, you should feel excited. This is your time to fight back. Don’t you want to fight back?’ That smile again, full and white and dazzling. ‘Don’t you want to take from her what she took from you?’

  ‘Yes. Of course I do.’ I nodded, siphoning off some of that unbridled optimism, keeping it for myself. ‘I want her to pay, Nic. I’m going to make her pay.’

  ‘And I’m going to help you.’ He was nodding along with me, his fingers digging harder into my shoulders, but I didn’t care. We were in this together. I didn’t have to do it alone. ‘I’ll stand by your side until there’s no one left. Until Donata begs for mercy at your feet. I’ll be there right until the end.’

  A well of gratitude sprung up inside me. This was what I needed: strength, belief, support.

  ‘Thank you,’ I told him in earnest. ‘Thank you for helping me. I really needed this.’

  ‘You really want to thank me?’ He cocked his head, a slow smile curling on his lips. For a second I thought he was going to lean in and kiss me, but instead, he dropped his hands, made the shape of a gun with his fingers and pressed it against my forehead. ‘Thank me by putting a bullet in Libero Marino’s head this weekend.’ He winked at me. ‘Thank me in Marino blood.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MY SOUL

  When I got home from school the following afternoon and made my way to the library, there was a piece of paper with my name on it waiting for me on the coffee table. It was sitting on top of a book of poems I hadn’t seen before. I recognized the handwriting on the note as Luca’s.

  So Nic really had told him about my assignment, and Luca had decided to help me. I tried not to wonder why, tried not to imagine him poring over this poetry book, thinking about me. It would only drive me insane.

  I unfolded the piece of paper, unbearably curious to find out what poem Luca would think relevant to me, and whether I would consider it an insult or a compliment.

  ‘Invictus’ by William Ernest Henley. The poem wasn’t familiar to me, but then again, few were. Luca had handwritten the words in small black script. It felt … personal. I shook the thought away and read the first line aloud.

  Out of the night that covers me,

  Black as the pit from pole to pole,

  I thank whatever gods may be

  For my unconquerable soul.

  By the time I reached the final verse, my arms were covered in goosebumps.

  It matters not how strait the gate,

  How charged with punishments the scroll,

  I am the master of my fate,

  I am the captain of my soul.

  I read the poem three times, Evelina Falcone’s oil painting hanging over me, her gaze on the back of my neck. Another one of my father’s victims, another blot on his soul.

  In my hands, the words seemed to grow bigger and b
igger.

  I understood.

  I understood then why Luca had chosen this poem the day after Valentino had handed me my first official target.

  Subtle, Luca. Real subtle.

  That night, as I drifted off, those words swam around in my head, beside visions of dark eyes and gold teeth.

  I am the master of my fate,

  I am the captain of my soul.

  Five days.

  Five days and everything would change.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  WHEREABOUTS

  I was attempting to instil my artistic flourish on a sketch of the humble mitochondrion when the familiar beep of the school intercom sounded. The flurried scratching ceased as twenty pencils disengaged from their diagrams.

  ‘Can Sophie Gracewell please report to the principal’s office immediately.’

  I could feel the colour draining from my face, the stares of my classmates. A small chorus of oooohs came from the back of the room.

  Ms Henderson, my biology teacher, glared at me over her glasses. ‘You’d better go, Sophie.’

  I rolled my shoulders back and pushed my chair from the desk, trying not to appear worried. I walked, a lot slower than I could have, out the door and down the corridor to the principal’s office, praying that whatever was bringing me there was something minor.

  The secretary was already on her feet, ushering me into the office, her cheeks flushed bright pink as she muttered her own chorus of ‘Come on, come on, hurry up now,’ her hands flapping around me as if the slight breeze would move me faster.

  ‘Ms Gracewell, we meet again.’

  Oh, God, kill me now.

  ‘Detective Medina. Detective Comisky.’ I nodded curtly to each of them, keeping my smile tight, all the panic inside me corseting me in. ‘This is a surprise.’

  ‘Is it?’ said Comisky, his eyes slitting. He was leaning back against the desk. His suit was the colour of vomit. He gestured for me to sit. I sidled around Medina, who was hunched by a disused bookcase, and did as I was told, all too aware that by having the detectives standing above me, I was giving up vital higher ground.

  I was also keenly aware that Principal Campbell was outside the door with her ear pressed up against the glass. She obviously had yet to be told that frosted glass is, in fact, still somewhat transparent.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, eyeing them both up. ‘Of course it’s a surprise.’ I lifted my chin and met their penetrative stares with my own. I had nothing to hide.

  More or less.

  ‘We were sorry to hear about your mother,’ Medina said, flicking an affected glance at his partner. His eyes were softer, his stance a little more relaxed.

  ‘Is that why you’re here?’ I asked. ‘Because I told the detectives working the diner case that I don’t know any more than they do, and before you ask, no, I haven’t seen or heard from my uncle since it happened.’

  Oh, and the next time I see him, I’ll be killing him. Kk?

  Comisky shook his head, the movement bringing the faintest jiggle to his cheeks. ‘No, Ms Gracewell, that’s not why we’re here.’

  I channelled Valentino and kept my features smooth.

  ‘Where are you staying, Sophie?’ Comisky asked, dispensing with the formalities. His big grey moustache was twitching in anticipation. Honestly, why do people grow moustaches in the first place? Do they set out to look like human terriers or does the look just sneak up on them?

  ‘With my friend,’ I said. ‘Until the guardianship paperwork gets sorted out. What with my uncle still being away …’ I shrugged, and then decided to try out the old puppy-dog-eyes routine to diminish my underlying aura of sarcasm.

  Medina hunkered down until we were at eye level. I had the sudden urge to jump out the window and bolt all the way back to Evelina.

  ‘Ms Gracewell,’ he said carefully, ‘I am going to ask you a question now, and I want to make you very aware that if you don’t answer it one hundred per cent honestly, then you will be obstructing the course of justice and there will be consequences.’

  My palms were starting to sweat. I pressed them together and tried to keep my movements very still. My brain was exploding with theories. I tried not to let it show. Did they know about Libero? Did they know what I was going to do on Saturday? Had the Falcones been arrested?

  ‘Are you listening, Sophie?’ Comisky asked, over Medina’s shoulder. He shoved himself away from the desk and plodded over to me. ‘Will you pay careful attention to what we’re saying?’ He looked like a very angry, very stout grandfather. But not the sweet kind. The I-drink-way-too-much-at-family-gatherings-and-shake-my-cane-at-children kind.

  ‘I’m listening.’ I tilted my head and fluttered my lashes, preparing my lie before I even knew what I would have to say. ‘Ask away.’

  Medina shifted forward, his elbows finding purchase on his knees. ‘Sophie, do you know where your father is?’

  ‘Huh?’ I scrunched my nose. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Answer the question,’ he said.

  ‘That is my answer.’

  Medina fell back on to his hunkers. He looked up at Comisky and another uneasy glance passed between them.

  ‘What’s going on? Where is my father?’

  Medina stood up. ‘Sophie, your father was granted furlough from Stateville Correctional Center on Sunday morning for your mother’s remembrance ceremony.’

  ‘Yes.’ I could feel myself nodding, but all my immediate thoughts were wrapped up in what they were now attempting to tell me, and what I was praying wasn’t actually true. But I could feel it, sucking the ground out from underneath me, building and building, until it rolled back towards me like a tsunami.

  ‘And you were seen with him at the memorial service for your late mother,’ Comisky supplied.

  Again, I said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘We know you two were in contact.’

  ‘The whole town knows. It’s not a secret.’

  ‘Do you know where he went after that ceremony?’ asked Medina.

  ‘Back to prison?’ I said. ‘Where he was supposed to go?’

  Please say he went back to prison.

  Please tell me this isn’t happening.

  Medina’s lips disappeared, his mouth settling into a hard line. ‘No, Sophie. Your father didn’t go back to prison.’

  ‘He had an escort with him,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I saw him. He was there the whole time. My father was being monitored. He had a guard,’ I repeated, as if I could convince them.

  ‘Had being the operative word,’ said Medina. ‘That guard is now in hospital recovering from a severe concussion …’ He trailed off, expelling all the air in one long sigh, before adding, ‘Your father’s tracking bracelet has been deactivated, and your father is nowhere to be found.’

  I gaped at them.

  This was a joke. This had to be a joke.

  ‘We’ve been searching for him for several days,’ Comisky added.

  ‘And you’re only telling me this now?’ I said, more shrilly than I meant to.

  Another shared glance. ‘The situation is delicate,’ said Medina. ‘We didn’t want to alert you until …’ He trailed off.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘Until you definitely couldn’t find him and you started to suspect my involvement, right?’

  He nodded. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Sophie,’ interrupted Comisky, picking up the thread and being a lot more gruff about it than Medina was, ‘let’s speak plainly. We want to know if you’re hiding him.’

  Where were the words? Why weren’t they coming out? They were all jammed in a revolving door, struggling, pushing and prodding. I opened my mouth, all the dread piling on my tongue, gathering and pooling, until eventually, a sound sprang from me.

  And that sound was laughter.

  Manic, terrified laughter.

  ‘Detectives,’ I half-choked out. I patted my jean pockets for good measure, pretending to check if he was inside them. ‘Where the hell would I be
hiding him?’

  ‘You tell us,’ said Comisky. ‘That’s why we’re here.’

  I flopped into the chair, my head lolling backwards until all I could see were the flecks of grey on the ceiling. ‘Oh my God,’ I muttered. ‘Oh my God.’

  So the blood war raged on, and now my father was part of it too, standing across a trench of bloody history and relentless vendettas, right opposite me.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  BLACK FRIDAY

  The news of my father’s escape greeted me again when I got home that afternoon. It had filtered out of the cracks of Chicago PD and crept all the way up to Evelina. Now it was wafting through the Falcone mansion like a bad smell.

  Vince Marino walked free.

  And what exactly did Sophie Marino know about it?

  ‘Nothing,’ I protested, over and over again. ‘I don’t know anything about it.’

  It tipped the scales of my living conditions further from ‘free will’ towards ‘captivity’. With my loyalty balanced so precariously between two Mafia families, and my father running around between them, Saturday was now going to be more important than ever. Either Libero Marino was dead, or I was.

  I kept my head down. I avoided Luca, and spent my evenings in the barn with Nic, shooting at everything I could pin a target to.

  I was good. I was ready.

  Inside, I was terrified.

  By the time Friday rolled around, it felt like a family of pirates had taken up residence in my stomach and were stabbing me from the inside out.

  ‘Why are you so anxious today? It’s the weekend.’ Millie was appraising me. It was never a good thing when Millie appraised me. It made it infinitely more difficult to hide things from her.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, rubbing the dull ache in my stomach. ‘I don’t feel well.’

  She hmm’ed under her breath. ‘No, that’s definitely not it. You’re up to something. I can sense it.’