CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
SPARK
‘So,’ Luca said. ‘Do you think you and I will ever run into each other in a movie theatre or a shopping mall, or will it always be prisons and cemeteries for us? Is that our thing?’
Where was that goddamn bus?
Anger surged inside me, but if I opened my mouth to say the things I really wanted to say I’d explode, and right now I just wanted to be at home with my mother, coming up with a plan. I folded my arms, like that could keep it all inside me. ‘I do not want to talk to you, Luca.’
I could feel the cold prick of his stare on the side of my face. I watched his hands in my periphery, picking at a thread in his dark jeans, settling and unsettling on his lap. ‘I didn’t kill her, Sophie.’
I turned away so my ponytail whipped out behind me and almost slapped him in his face. ‘You may as well have.’
‘No.’ His voice turned hard, and I imagined frustration drawing his brows together. ‘You do not get to paint me as a guiltless monster. Don’t give me a label I haven’t earned. I have enough deserved ones already.’
I didn’t answer. After a couple of seconds he got up, rounded the bench and hunkered down on the other side of me so I was looking right at him. His hands gripped the wood beside my thigh. Every time I tried to look somewhere else, he jerked his head and held my gaze. ‘Look at me. Listen to me.’
‘Don’t tell me what to do,’ I snapped. ‘How many times do I have to tell you: I don’t answer to you!’
‘I don’t care who you answer to. I just need you to know this.’ He raked a hand through his hair. ‘I tried to release Sara. Valentino wanted her as a bargaining chip, not collateral damage. She was still a teenager.’
‘She was innocent,’ I said, hearing the faintest quiver in my voice.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Una innocente. She wasn’t supposed to die. OK? I promise.’ His voice turned to a growl. ‘I promise.’
I swallowed hard. There was something earnest resonating in Luca’s promise – a realness that was always absent from the ones Nic made – but still, how could I believe him? Sara was dead and Luca was an assassin – convincing and dangerous. He was a rose with thorns, just like his brother. I had fallen for that before.
‘Did she jump into that lake by herself, Luca?’
He fell back on his haunches, a shadow falling across his features. ‘CJ just snapped. Delayed grief, or whatever. Felice had riled him up and then he had the gun pointed at her and she was gone and I couldn’t help her and I have her blood on my hands, and I know that. I know what Sara was at her core – she was nothing like the rest of us. Believe me, I hate myself for playing a part in her death, for not being able to stop a twelve-year-old with a gun, a twelve-year-old who shouldn’t even have a gun, the same way I couldn’t stop my brothers when they were twelve, so you can take your anger and hatred and pile it all the way up on top of mine if you want … but don’t for a second think it’s not eating me up inside.’
He got up and crossed back to where he was sitting, but this time he didn’t look at me when he dropped on to the bench. He dipped his chin to his chest and stared at his hands, and I saw in him the boy I had seen in Valentino’s portrait a long time ago. The person he really was – someone at odds with his life and trapped by a family much bigger than his dreams and desires. Grief surrounded him, and the only thing to do was keep on killing until the tallies were even. But that was the thing: they never would be.
I relented, not wanting to twist the knife any further, knowing now that he was already twisting it himself. ‘You’re not a monster.’
I caught the curl of his lip, the way his teeth nipped hard on it as though to draw blood. ‘What would you know?’ he said, his voice quiet.
‘I know you’re kind,’ I said, feeling a strange urge to comfort him, to soothe the emotional wounds he was inflicting upon himself.
‘Only in comparison to the others.’
‘No,’ I said, feeling surer now that what I was saying was true. ‘You’re like her.’ I remembered the last conversation I had shared with Sara, the way her eyes blazed when she spoke of a different life, another kind of existence she would forever be denied. He must have seen that in her, too. That’s why he picked her up that night, why he wanted to set her free. ‘You have the same heart.’
He snapped his head up and his eyes were so blue I almost lost my train of thought. ‘Are you trying to make it worse, Sophie?’
I offered him a sheepish smile. ‘I’m actually trying to make it better.’
‘You are not doing a good job.’
I shrugged. ‘It’s not exactly my forte. I’m good at changing the subject, though. Speaking of which, what the hell are you doing here?’
‘My grandfather’s brother was murdered in here yesterday.’ He gestured behind him. ‘Paperwork. I got the short straw.’
‘I heard about that.’ I tried to ascertain his level of grief but he seemed calm, his expression matter-of-fact. ‘I’m sorry.’
He tipped his head back so he was staring at the sky. ‘I’m sure you can guess what I’m about to say.’
‘“It is what it is,”’ I said, fighting the urge to roll my eyes. ‘It’s a pile of crap, is what it is.’
‘You’re so eloquent,’ he murmured.
‘You were right about the war,’ I said, wishing he would look at me and engage with the actual seriousness of his possible impending death.
‘Donata’s getting stronger by the day,’ he sighed. ‘There are rumours that the missing Marino twins have resurfaced. They’re rallying.’
I felt myself go pale. ‘What?’
‘Marino morale is high.’ Luca paused, chewing on his lip, before adding grimly, ‘and that is never a good thing.’
‘Where are they?’ I asked, wondering at the scope of revenge that was no doubt on their minds. Felice must be quaking in his expensive leather shoes.
Luca dipped his head further back, a groan of frustration catching in his throat as he exhaled. ‘If I knew that, I wouldn’t be lounging on this bench right now, Sophie.’
‘Are you worried?’ I asked, thinking of Donata and her troops, of all the ways she could hurt the Falcones. ‘About this … blood war?’
‘Yes, I am.’ He turned his attention back to me. ‘But I’m not worrying about my family, Sophie.’
‘Me?’ I ventured.
‘I don’t know what you were doing in Eden, or what your uncle wanted from you. I expect you won’t tell me anyway, but as long as Donata has access to you, as long as she feels you owe her something, you’re in trouble. I don’t know what your uncle bargained for that protection, but I’d bet it had something to do with you.’
The air was pressing down on us, and I could feel my back grow sticky with the rising humidity. ‘But what could I offer her?’
His jaw tightened, drawing hollows beneath his cheekbones. ‘I don’t know.’
‘I can’t give her anything.’
He inched forward, so subtly I barely noticed it, until I could make out the scar above his lip. He narrowed his eyes and asked, ‘Are you sure about that?’
Heat erupted inside me. I felt like I had been caught, but I hadn’t done anything. I knew about the safe, but it wasn’t like it had anything to do with me. It wasn’t like I was going to do anything about it. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m sure.’
‘Valentino’s looking into you, you know.’
Alarm spread across my face. ‘Why?’
He turned and flopped back on to the bench, exhaling at the sky. ‘My mother’s been in his ear.’
‘Oh.’ What a charmer she is. ‘Well, he’s wasting his time.’
‘Donata’s going to come back for you.’ He said it casually, like it was a conversation about the weather, but it stuck in my throat and I gulped it down, knowing it was true.
‘I’ll be OK,’ I told him. An image of my mother and me cramming our car full of trinkets and duvets popped into my head. ‘I have a plan.’
‘What kind of plan?’
‘The secret kind.’
He pulled himself up. ‘Sophie—’ He stopped, chewing on his words.
‘Yes?’ I prompted.
He frowned at the ground, his lips twisting. He was considering something.
‘What is it, Luca?’
I was about to poke him when he returned his attention to me. Hesitantly, as if the idea was still forming, he said, ‘If you need help, you can ask for it.’ At my surprised silence, he splayed his hands. ‘I mean you can come to us, Sophie. If you need to.’
I almost fell off the bench with shock. ‘What?’ I asked, my eyes bugging out of my head. ‘Are you kidding?’
‘Why would I joke about something like this?’ His expression was stony. ‘I know what Donata Marino does to people who won’t bend to her will. You don’t.’
‘A month ago your family was actively trying to murder me.’
‘I know.’ He paused, his fingers drumming below his bottom lip. ‘But things are different now … We can protect you.’
‘Reluctantly,’ I pointed out, reading his obvious hesitance.
He shook his head. ‘The process will be difficult,’ he told me plainly. ‘I don’t offer our protection lightly. But I offer it nonetheless.’
My shock faded a little, bewilderment rising in its place. I didn’t know exactly what he meant by process, but I could plainly see his offer was real, and important.
‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Why would you want to protect us? It wasn’t that long ago that you hated me.’
‘We didn’t know you then,’ he said, before adding, almost begrudgingly, ‘We didn’t care about you then.’
I clamped my hands together on my lap and felt their clamminess. Something squirmed inside me. ‘So, you care about me now,’ I said, meaning to make a joke of it, but it came out soft and low and full of something guttural that made me embarrassed. ‘Why?’
We both knew what I was really asking. What changed your mind?
Luca angled his body towards me, lost in quiet consideration. We were so close, if I edged forward I’d be right under his chin. Why would I edge forward? What was up with me today? When he spoke I could feel his breath on my cheeks, the only moving air in our bubble of stifling humidity. ‘Because I don’t know anybody like you. You’re like … a rare artefact. And it would be a shame if you got broken.’
Amusement spluttered from me in the most unattractive way. ‘Are you really comparing me to an antique right now? Oh my God, you nerd.’
He started laughing, and the carefree melody of it swept me up until I was laughing too, and it was absurd because our families were being threatened and murdered and there we were squished together in a hundred-degree heat outside a maximum security prison, and we used to hate each other and now we were laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes.
He composed himself first, but it took a while and I was left choking my laughter into silence. ‘What I meant was,’ his face twisted into a quiet smile that felt secret and deadly, ‘you’re a bright spark, Sophie. And I don’t want anyone to snuff you out.’
‘Oh.’ Well I couldn’t make fun of that. Was I supposed to say something back? Wasn’t that how compliments worked? The silence was growing and suddenly his words felt heavy and important and he was so close to me and I was perspiring and panicking, and … and I said, ‘And you’re kind of like a snowflake.’
Oh, Jesus Christ.
He masked his fleeting surprise with a quirked eyebrow. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Nothing,’ I said quickly. ‘I didn’t say anything.’
‘No, no,’ he said, rounding on me so his face was too close, his eyes too searing, his smile too irritating. ‘I’m a snowflake, am I?’
‘Shut up. Seriously.’ I pulled wisps of loose hair around my cheeks. ‘Shut up.’
‘I think you were trying to tell me I was special.’
‘Icy,’ I said. ‘I meant you were icy.’
I could practically taste his glee. I was floundering, and he was relishing it.
‘And unique, in that you’re uniquely annoying,’ I added. ‘God, you’re annoying. That’s what I meant.’
‘If I’m annoying, then they haven’t yet invented a word to describe you.’
‘Shut up. I’m perfect.’ I stuck my tongue out.
‘I suppose you’re not the worst.’ He removed himself from my personal space and refixed his gaze to the sky. His arms stretched out behind him, his fingers brushing my shoulder, but he didn’t seem to notice. ‘But goddammit you are stubborn, Sophie Gracewell.’
‘I’m not stubborn. I’m persistent.’
‘No. You’re stubborn.’ His smile turned rueful. ‘And you make terrible decisions. Especially in life-or-death situations. It’s like you always choose to do that one thing you’re definitely not supposed to do.’
‘I do not!’ I protested.
‘You know that saying, “If everyone was jumping off a cliff, would you jump too?” Well, I seriously think you would.’
‘So you are basically telling me I’m stupid, is that it?’
‘No,’ he said in a measured voice, like he was actually trying not to offend me. ‘I’m saying you are ruled by your emotions. And I’m afraid there’ll come a time when the smart thing will be to walk away from a dangerous situation, and you won’t do it, because your emotions will stop you.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Well, excusez-moi for having emotions. It’s not my fault you’re lacking in that department.’
He stared at me, his expression suddenly unreadable. ‘I have emotions, Sophie, but I don’t let them rule me.’
‘Whatever,’ I said haughtily. ‘I am very capable of making smart decisions, I’ll have you know.’
He frowned at me. ‘Why did you come to Eden, then?’
‘Why did you, Mr Double Standards?’
‘It’s different for me.’
He was beginning to annoy me – this holier-than-thou thing he had going on. He turned his attention from me, lost in his own world. For the first time that week I wasn’t thinking about all the danger swirling around me, or all the things I still didn’t know. Instead, I was thinking about how annoying Luca was. I was thinking about his superior attitude. That smug smile he had. The weird musicality in his laugh. I was thinking about how his hair swooped behind his ears in that stupid careless way. I was wondering about his eyes and whether their intense blueness ever caught him off guard when he looked in the mirror. I wondered if he was vain. He didn’t seem vain, but I never did have a proper handle on his character. It always seemed to change just when I thought I had figured him out.
He was looking at me again, his lips stretched wide so his smile was all teeth.
I slow-blinked. ‘What?’
‘You realize you’ve been staring at me for the past five minutes?’
‘No, I haven’t,’ I said. ‘I was staring into space. I was thinking about stuff.’
‘If I didn’t know better I’d say you were getting lost in my eyes.’
I sprang to my feet. ‘Oh my God, I was not. You are so full of yourself.’
In the distance the bus was rolling to a stop and I thanked the universe for small mercies. I was going crazy. He was making me crazy and I had to get out of there.
He eyed the bus with unconcealed disgust. It was really old, and even from outside you could just tell it smelt of sweat and broken dreams. ‘Do you want a ride back to Cedar Hill?’
I was already carrying myself away, hiding the pink in my cheeks. I waved over my shoulder. ‘No thank you, Zoolander. I’ll leave you to your vanity.’
‘You’ll melt on that thing. It’s from the Stone Age.’
I twirled my fingers in a queenly goodbye as I got on the bus.
My face fell. The driver was wearing a wife-beater. A half-smoked cigarette lolled from his mouth and he was tapping a sign that read ‘Air conditioning on board this bus is temporarily out of service. We apologize for any inconvenience.’
I backed down the steps, swallowing my pride as sweat beaded on my forehead. I whirled around to find Luca leaning against the bus stop, smirking, in his award-winning role as the actual personification of smugness.
I skipped over to him. ‘Sooo … about that ride you offered …’
‘I knew you’d come crawling back.’ He turned on his heel, his amusement flying over his shoulder. ‘How do your words taste, Sophie?’
I stuck my tongue out at the back of his head as I followed him to his car. ‘The air conditioner was broken.’
‘So your pride is worth the price of having cool air on your face?’
I wiped a stray bead of sweat from my brow. ‘Hey, Luca?’ He glanced over his shoulder, an eyebrow hiked up. ‘Shut up.’