Mafiosa (Blood for Blood #3)

by Catherine Doyle

  I surged into him, wrapping my arms around him. He pulled me against him, his lips in my hair as I pressed my cheek against his chest and listened to the erratic rhythm of his heartbeat, knowing it would be the last time I ever heard it.

  ‘I love you,’ he whispered into my hair. ‘I’ll always love you.’

  I pulled back, just enough so I could look up at him. The tears were drying on his face already. ‘Come with me,’ I pleaded.

  He caught a breath. ‘You know I can’t do that. I can’t leave the family.’

  ‘You can,’ I urged, pressing my palms against him. ‘Of course you can.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Come to Colorado. Come to—’

  He raised his palm in the air. ‘Don’t tell me where you’re going. Don’t tell anyone.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I don’t need to know. As long as you’re safe, I don’t need to know. It’s easier this way.’

  He wouldn’t find me. Not if he survived into the New Year, not if every fibre of him pushed him to look for me, he wouldn’t know where to look. Panic surged inside me.

  ‘Please come,’ I begged. ‘We’ll make another life.’

  ‘There is no other life for me, Sophie. There is no other future.’

  ‘You’ll die, Luca. You’ll die in this place. I can see it in your eyes.’

  He didn’t look away; he didn’t deny it.

  ‘If you go to that yacht on New Year’s Eve, you won’t come back home. Please,’ my voice wobbled, ‘please, just come with me now. We’ll go somewhere else.’

  ‘Sophie.’ I could see the walls coming down, the careful shift in his expression. He was slipping into commander mode, and I could feel him drifting from me already. ‘I don’t want to fight with you.’

  ‘We’re fighting because we’re unhappy,’ I said. ‘But not with each other. We’re stuck here in this world where we don’t belong, trying to be something we can’t mould ourselves into.’

  ‘Exactly,’ he said, nodding now. ‘You don’t belong here.’

  ‘We don’t belong here!’ I half-shouted. My heart was racing. I took a shuddering breath and stepped away from him. I had one last-ditch attempt to save him, and he was already a million miles away. ‘Luca, you once told me I was ruled by emotions – that I couldn’t walk away from danger if those I loved were involved in it. You told me I was foolish – reckless. Now look.’ I gestured at him, at that hideous Falcone ring on his finger, at the office, and all the planned bloodshed its walls had seen. ‘You’re anchored to this family because you love them, because you can’t imagine walking away from them even though you know staying will kill you. First it will take your soul, and then it will take every shred of your beautiful humanity and burn it away, and after that it will take your body – and you’ll be nothing in the end, Luca. You’ll be nothing but a memory – nothing but the lives you’ve claimed and the hypocrisy you lived.’ I blinked my vision clear so I could see him crumple underneath my words. He needed to hear this – and, more than that, I needed to say it. ‘You don’t want this life. You never did. You know it’s wrong, you know you’re better than it, and yet, here you are, sinking with the others. And you want me to walk away. Without you.’

  His shoulders slumped, and his face fell. I could sense it rising between us – finality. He was done. Done with the conversation, with the dilemma. I was going. He was staying.

  I took a step backwards. ‘There’s nothing else I can say, is there?’

  He shook his head. ‘It is what it is.’

  I looked up at him, a smile dying on my lips. ‘I would go into the darkness with you, but you won’t come into the light with me.’

  His smile was sad. ‘That’s very poetic.’

  I took his hand, and pulled him towards me. ‘I’ve been spending quite a bit of time with this super nerd lately.’

  He wrapped his arms around my waist and gently pulled me in. ‘I love you,’ he said.

  ‘Just not enough.’

  ‘Too much, actually.’ He kissed me. It was fierce and passionate and full of every fibre of love we had in our bodies. And when we came apart, our eyes were wet and our hearts were broken.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  COLORADO

  Millie and I drove in silence, the tears streaming down my face, her hand in mine.

  ‘It will be OK, Soph. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but it will. You will survive this.’

  How many ways can a heart break? A shard for my mother, a shard for my father, and a shard for Luca. And all the empty space in between for me.

  It would be over come New Year’s Day. Either the Marinos or the Falcones would be wiped out, and every last piece of my identity might be gone, too.

  Millie’s parents’ cottage was several hours outside Chicago, nestled inside a pine forest on the edge of a small lake. Luca had warned Millie to lie low here for a few days, and not to move through O’Hare airport or anywhere near Cedar Hill at least until New Year’s Eve. So I waited, quietly, as the days dragged past. I pretended to care about things I never thought about. I watched movie after movie, nestled between Alex and Millie. I made polite conversation with Cris when he came to visit. I lost at Scrabble way too many times to count. I won at Monopoly and didn’t care. Not nearly as much as I thought about Luca, about my father. About my uncle.

  I cried myself to sleep at night, my switchblade closed inside my fist – the last reminder that I had belonged somewhere. I wasn’t ready to let that go yet.

  The waiting was excruciating. The not knowing was even worse, but we didn’t get the newspapers at the cottage, so I could live, at least for a few days, in ignorant bliss. There was no internet, and I barely had two bars of coverage on my phone. The police called – eager to speak to me about my father’s death. I had already seen it; I didn’t need the specifics. I didn’t need the faux sympathy. I wasn’t ready to open that can of worms yet, so I let the calls go to voicemail. They didn’t come for me. They didn’t know where I was, and whatever Millie told her parents was enough. Because they didn’t push it either.

  I booked a one-way flight to Colorado with the money Luca gave to Millie.

  On the morning of December 31st, we left the cottage. Millie’s parents were heading to a New Year’s party in the city.

  Millie drove me to the airport, and walked me right up to the check-in desk, her fingers curled tightly in mine. The address was burning a hole in my pocket.

  ‘I can come, you know. I can come with you for a while. I know you won’t be gone too long but you don’t have to go alone.’

  If hugs could kill, I would have smothered her. ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said, trying to smile. The truth was, I didn’t know where I was going and whether it might be some last-minute Marino trap. It might have been my only viable option, but I wasn’t about to risk Millie’s life for it. ‘I’ll call you the second I arrive there.’

  She pulled me into a hug and I squeezed her so tight we lost our breaths.

  ‘I love you, Soph.’ She pulled back from me, her eyes wide and searching. ‘I’ll see you really soon.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, forcing my smile. ‘And I love you too.’

  She tapped my nose, and dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘We’re the real love story here. You know that, don’t you?’

  I wiped a tear from her cheek. ‘I know that, Mil. I’ve always known that.’

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Call me when you land.’

  I left her waving after me as I boarded the plane, and pointed my life in the direction of someone I had never met before, in a town I’d never been to, everything now pinned to the last words of my father and the hope that he loved me still, despite everything. My fingers encircled the bracelet on my wrist, my mind chanting the words over and over again: Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, ‘It will be happier.’

  I thought of Luca, and felt my heart crease. How could I be happy, knowing he was trapped?


  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  THE GIRL

  Isat back in the cab and watched the Rocky Mountains in the distance as we wound further up the hill. I had texted Millie to say I’d arrived safely. There was no one else to tell. I fogged the glass and traced a heart in it, feeling the chill through the windows.

  Boulder was beautiful. It was like another world – away from the madness, the bloodshed, the feeling that I was being watched. The police might still look for me, but it would take them longer to find me. Maybe they never would. As for the Marinos, or what was left of them now, I didn’t know. Perhaps they were waiting for me already. I tried not to think about it. I had already cast my die.

  It was New Year’s Eve. Tonight the Falcones would make their final strike in Chicago. The yacht party would be crawling with police. I knew in my heart that whoever stepped on to that boat wouldn’t make it out alive. I knew in my heart that I would never see Luca Falcone again. Beyond the grief and the sadness, the guilt and the panic, there was a sense of calm. Of numbness.

  Resignation.

  I had hit rock bottom, and I could barely put one foot in front of the other. Only for Millie. Only for the memory of my mother. Only for the life that Luca wished for me – the one I would have to lead for both of us now.

  I dragged my attention from the winding streets where red-brick buildings crowded side by side – hipster cafes, a string of restaurants and an Urban Outfitters welcomed me to Boulder.

  I laid my head back and closed my eyes. A split second seemed to pass before the cab door was swinging open and the driver was nudging me awake. I paid him, grabbed my bags from the trunk and stood in front of a small three-storey townhouse. The door was bright purple. It was tall and narrow, like something out of a storybook. There were flowers in the garden, peeking out from the snow. A painted mailbox with golden lettering: Miss Marla Flores. At least the address matched the name. I guessed that was something.

  I climbed the three wooden porch steps and paused to welcome a familiar rush of anxiety. There was nothing. Just dullness – a slight ache, a flicker of nerves, and then nothing. I rang the doorbell and a melodic chime rose up behind the door.

  It was almost sundown. The birds were still singing. It was cold, but the sun was out, and everything looked brighter than it should have been. I was about to ring the doorbell again when a frantic shuffling of feet galloped behind the doorway, followed by the sound of a lock shifting. I stood straight, going over my introduction in my head. Hi, my name is Sophie Gracewell. I think you knew my father …

  The door creaked open, and a little girl peeked her head around it. She had wide grey eyes and thick black hair that hung in ringlets around her face. She smiled at me. Her front teeth were missing. I tried not to be knocked off-kilter by the appearance of an objectively adorable little girl, but somewhere in my mind, I was thinking, Is this my father’s love child? And if it is, who or what am I going to punch?

  ‘Hallo,’ said the little girl. She didn’t open the door any further, so I couldn’t see behind her.

  ‘Hello there.’ I smiled, but it was twitchy. She didn’t look remotely like me, but I had been tricked out of a family before. ‘What’s your name?’

  She blinked her big eyes. There was something so familiar about them. God. I could almost feel it coming like a freight train. ‘Emilia.’

  Emilia. Those eyes … that grin.

  ‘Where’s your mother, Emilia? Is she here with you?’

  Emilia bit her bottom lip and made herself look very guilty. ‘She’s in the bathroom. I’m not supposed to answer the door, but I saw you in the window.’ She gestured to the side window, where a lace curtain had been pulled away behind a potted plant. ‘And I liked your hair, so I thought it would be OK. It’s like the sun.’

  She reached up to touch it, but a voice startled her back into the house. ‘Emilia! What have I told you about answering the door? Come inside now.’

  Emilia melted back into the house, and a heartbeat later, the front door swung open and I was standing face-to-face with Evelina Falcone.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  MARLA FLORES

  I grabbed the side of the wooden awning and tried not to pass out.

  I was staring so hard my eyes were vibrating. I had seen her photo a million times at Evelina – the one of her beaming on her wedding day, her head resting against Felice’s. I had memorized her oil painting, felt her gaze on the back of my neck every time I went to the library. I had traced the sadness in her eyes a thousand times, and felt it reflected inside me.

  She looked the same – just a few more lines around her eyes, a tightness to her mouth.

  She was beautiful.

  She was alive.

  I wanted to reach out and touch her to be sure.

  Evelina stood motionless, letting me take it all in.

  That’s how I knew she had been expecting me.

  I rubbed the shock from my chest. ‘You’re alive,’ I said, coming a little closer, as though she was an apparition. ‘You’re supposed to be dead. My—’ I froze and felt the colour run from my face. My father was supposed to have killed her. But he hadn’t killed her. He hadn’t touched a hair on her head. And if she owed us a favour, that meant he had helped her.

  ‘You’re really alive.’ And the relief was like ice in my bloodstream. My heart expanded, just a little. My father wasn’t a monster. He wasn’t irredeemable. He wasn’t a stranger, after all.

  And someone special, someone who had deserved to live, was still living. ‘You’re Evelina Falcone.’

  She sprung into life, hushing me with her hands. ‘I haven’t been Evelina since before my daughter was born,’ she whispered. She ushered me inside, and I went willingly, as though tied to a string. I had a million questions and more.

  The hallway was brightly lit, and Emilia was jumping down it with a blue skipping rope.

  Those big grey eyes.

  Felice’s eyes.

  Felice’s daughter.

  Alive and well.

  Unlike him.

  Evelina led me into an airy kitchen with bright green cupboards. ‘Lemonade? You must be thirsty after your journey.’ She didn’t wait for me to answer. She busied herself at the fridge, keeping her back to me. Her hands were shaking, just a little. Strands of hair were wisping out of her long dark braid. ‘Your father said you would come soon,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘He was here with us before … until Christmas Eve, that is …’ She trailed off, her voice dipping.

  Ah.

  He had stayed here. With her. He had bided his time far from Chicago, waiting for the perfect moment to strike against Jack, just as we had. We had all chosen Christmas Day.

  Did she know what had become of him? Did she know her Marino ally was dead?

  ‘I promised him I would take you in,’ she continued. ‘I promised him I would help you. I hoped you would come.’ She turned around, her eyes large, her expression earnest. ‘I hoped you wouldn’t get swallowed up in it.’

  ‘I thought you were gone.’ I was still trying to process her aliveness. ‘I thought my dad …’ I trailed off, conscious of Emilia drifting around us, her skipping rope clapping off the wooden floors. ‘I found your ring. Your ruby ring.’

  She laughed, a little grimly. ‘I told him to sell it. I wanted to thank him.’

  ‘When? How?’ I wasn’t talking about the ring any more. I was talking about everything. Everything, and all at once, and there wasn’t enough time in the world to get through it all but I wanted to try. I wanted to understand. This was a life raft, and I didn’t want to sink.

  Evelina glanced into the hallway, making sure Emilia was out of earshot. She dropped her voice, pouring the lemonade into two glasses. ‘Your father came for me one night in the city many years ago. I was at dinner with my girlfriends. The Marinos had been tracking us – he had been tracking me. I suppose you know what Felice did to his parents. I suppose you know your father was out for revenge. I shouldn’t have been uncha
peroned at the time but I was so tired of Felice by then. I was tired of always feeling afraid, of feeling trapped …’

  I nodded, feeling a shimmer of understanding.

  She stopped busying herself, cleared her throat. ‘He couldn’t do it, you know, when the time came. Even when it was just the two of us in the parking lot. Even when he knew he would have gotten away with it. He saw the bruises around my jaw. He saw the fear in my eyes. I was eight months pregnant at the time.’

  I tried to piece together the scene in my head. A deserted parking lot, doused in darkness. My father with a gun pointed at Evelina Falcone. Her hands covering her bump, her face marred by Felice’s temper.

  ‘He was broken by it all,’ she said. ‘The anger, the violence. And so was I. We could see that in each other. We were on different sides, but we were the same in that sense. I was worried for my baby. For myself.’

  ‘Of course,’ I murmured, trying to imagine that particular brand of fear, and failing.

  ‘It was strange. So strange.’ Evelina smiled sadly. ‘He dropped his gun. I didn’t run, and neither did he. We talked. I wasn’t afraid. I was never afraid of him. Not in the way I feared my own husband. He wanted to punish Felice and I wanted to run. Our desires weren’t exactly at odds. There was something about him. It felt like we already knew each other.’

  ‘So, he helped you then?’ I said, willing myself to understand, to believe. ‘He helped you get away?’

  She nodded. She was beautiful, lit up by the dying sun, her long hair gathered into a loose braid, streaks of caramel among the chestnut brown. A ghost come to life before me, and I couldn’t remember a time when I had felt so grateful for something. ‘He helped me take my life back,’ she said, simply.

  ‘Did anyone else know?’

  ‘Not a soul,’ she said. ‘Not until you.’

  I pressed the back of my head against the wall and took a deep breath. The ceiling fan whirred above me. There were paper butterflies tied to it, whizzing around, their wings painted messily in different colours. Here was something; a kernel of light. I had to hold on to it. I had to keep it safe. But there was still so much to wade through.