CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
SANCTUARY
After a long ride from the city, we pulled up outside the winding driveway of Evelina. I was surprised we remembered the way so easily – but then again, it had become the setting of some of my most scarring memories.
‘I’ll be nearby,’ Millie said as I got out. We’d agreed I would go in alone. It was safer that way, and I had already involved Millie way too much as it was. ‘Text me every fifteen minutes. If I don’t hear from you, I swear to God I’m calling the police and I’ll take my chances with the consequences.’
‘Thanks, Mil. I owe you a ton for this.’
She pushed her shades up her nose and sighed. ‘I’ll remember that if I ever need a kidney.’
I jogged up the driveway, pushing away the bubbles of anxiety as Millie pulled away and got lost, or hidden, somewhere in the surrounding countryside.
The doorbell rang inside the walls. The man who answered was the gentle giant who had tried to calm Millie and me down when we were here before … the Falcone who had lied right to my face about Sara’s fate. Paulie. Still, it could have been worse. It could have been his brother. It could have been Felice.
He glanced behind me. ‘Miss Gracewell. This is surprising.’
He had all the formal politeness of his brother but none of the slimy passive aggression. I studied his hand perched lightly on the doorframe. His fingernails were painted bright pink and yellow.
‘I guess it must be,’ I said, trying not to sound childish or vulnerable, both things I felt overwhelmingly in that moment. ‘I was wondering if I could speak to Luca?’
I could see confusion breaking through, the wheels in his head desperately turning, trying to figure this all out. ‘Would you like to come inside while I get him for you?’
‘Yes, please.’
His loafers fell soundlessly on the marble as he disappeared down a hallway. The grandness of the house crept up on me, the echoing sounds of my breath seeming louder than usual. I studied the Falcone crest etched into the floor and the three-tiered crystal chandelier that hung overhead and cast rainbows along the double staircase. High on the wall in the far corner of the foyer, there was a picture.
In the photograph, Felice was wearing a suit, and beside him was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. Her wavy chestnut hair was gathered high on her head in ruby-encrusted pins. She had wide blue eyes and creamy skin that belonged in a CoverGirl commercial. Clad in a lace wedding dress and clutching Felice’s arm, she was beaming at the camera. It seemed very much like love, I had to admit, and somehow, the softness of her beauty seemed to soften him too. He didn’t seem scary or evil, just young.
Evelina. Even in the photograph, the glint of her ruby ring caught my eye. It was just like the one in the Falcone mausoleum. Huge. Expensive. Red – the colour of love. The colour of violence. What had he done to drive her away? The letters F and E were carved into the bottom of the frame, the word Sempre glowing silver beneath them.
Always, I remembered.
What a lie.
Luca emerged from the hallway and stopped by the bottom of the staircase, keeping yards of distance between us. ‘I must be irresistible. You can’t stay away from me for more than twenty-four hours.’
I whirled from the photograph of Felice and his bride and took a deep, steadying breath. ‘I don’t really know how to even go about saying this …’ I conceded.
He leant across the banister, his chin resting on his folded arms. ‘Try putting one word in front of the other.’
His tone was teasing but I could feel him studying me. I drowned the urge to flip him my middle finger, and instead made the choice that meant there was no going back. I said the words that would make me a Marino enemy and push my life even closer to the knife-edge.
‘Donata Marino wants me to help her kill your family.’
Silence enveloped us. Luca’s expression didn’t falter. He just stared at me, his eyes barely flickering in recognition.
I decided it would be best to add something, just in case there was any lingering confusion. ‘I’m not going to. Obviously.’
He pulled back from the banister and stood straight, seeming so much taller then. He stopped when he was just a foot from me. He scanned me, briefly, but not quickly enough that it wasn’t noticeable. Was he checking for a weapon?
‘What did she offer you?’ he asked evenly.
I shrugged. ‘Safety, mostly … from your family.’
‘From us?’ he said. ‘But we have no interest in you.’
Something about that stung me. I shook it off; he was right. That was the whole point: the Falcones didn’t care about me any more.
‘I don’t know what she’s thinking, Luca,’ I admitted. ‘She’s going to hurt me and my mom if I don’t help her. We have nowhere to go. We have no money to get away from them.’ I cleared my throat to stamp out the quiver in my voice and then I thought, What’s the point? Luca knew the truth. I was sick of trying to hide it. ‘And I’m scared, Luca. I am really scared.’
‘When?’ he asked, his voice level. ‘When does she intend to move against us?’
It hit me then. This was Luca in commander mode. This was Luca putting his duty before his emotions. He was keeping cool because he was trained to. I had no idea what he was really thinking or feeling. I tried to put myself in that mode too, but my heart felt like there was an iron fist around it, and I couldn’t help thinking of my mother packing up all her stuff at home, waiting for me to come back to her with a plan, with money, with a way out.
‘Soon,’ I told him. ‘She said she’d come back for me first. They’re going to ambush your family at the diner. She wants me to help her.’ I hesitated, embarrassed by the implication, by the absurdity of having to say the next part to his face. ‘She thinks I’m a … Falcone weakness.’
Something flitted across Luca’s face – a passing shadow, an unreadable emotion. His jaw tightened, but apart from that he barely blinked. ‘Is that so?’
‘Apparently.’
‘And she told you all of this?’
‘Yes.’
‘Without provocation.’
‘She wants me to help her,’ I repeated, feeling the dim heat of embarrassment in my cheeks.
He narrowed his eyes. ‘Does she know you have no experience with weapons?’
I held my palm up, the cut facing him. ‘I would have thought that was obvious.’
He didn’t smile.
‘She’s so angry, Luca,’ I said, feeling the betrayal sing in my words. Donata would have my head for this. She’d have my head for even stepping through these doors, but if I was going to pin my hopes on anyone in this whole mess it sure as hell wasn’t going to be her. ‘Her grief is driving her crazy. She wants to destroy your family. Soon.’
Luca’s eyes darkened. He studied me in the silence.
‘That’s all I got,’ I said quietly. ‘That’s it.’
His concentration broke. I could see the mask shifting – the barrier coming down, unsmoothing his features. He scrubbed a hand through his hair, his fingers pulling at his temples as he closed his eyes. ‘A bold move for the Marinos,’ he murmured, a frown twisting on his lips. ‘What is she playing at?’
‘What will you do?’ I asked, fear spiking in me at the idea of a retaliation, at how quickly the blood war was escalating. If Eden was anything to go by, it wasn’t like the Falcones were shy of grand bloody gestures. Nothing was too bold for them.
He stared at me, his tone deceptively level when he said, ‘I won’t let her harm my brothers.’ There was a short silence, then he closed whatever he was thinking off from me, and instead asked, ‘What will you do, Sophie?’
I looked at the ground, at the majestic crimson falcon. Something crumpled in my chest and I felt the sudden urge to cry. I wasn’t a Marino but I wasn’t a Falcone either. ‘I’ve said it now. There’s no going back.’ I paused, collecting myself, and then conceded, in little more than a whisper, what we both plainly knew already. ‘She’ll probably kill me for it when she finds out.’
Luca dipped his head but I decided not to look him in the eyes in case I projectile-cried all over him. ‘Sophie, are you asking me for our protection?’
I knew when he offered me his help outside the prison that it wasn’t without trepidation. I knew it wouldn’t be easy – he had said as much – but I needed it now, and if it cost me my pride to ask him, to ask all of them, then I would give it, because my mother and I were desperate. This was our strongest option, and that, in itself, was terrifying.
‘I just … I need somewhere for my mom and I to hide until this is over.’ I paused, drilling down into what I really wanted. ‘I need to disappear.’
‘I’m not a magician.’
‘No,’ I agreed. ‘You’re more powerful than that. You’re the Falcone underboss.’
He didn’t deny it. He started chewing on his pinky nail, his expression turning contemplative. I zeroed in on the scar above his lip. Suddenly my shoulders felt impossibly heavy, weighing me into the ground. Why wasn’t he answering me? Because I was crazy, that’s why. But I had cast my die. ‘I didn’t mean to freak you out—’
‘I’m not freaking out,’ he cut me off. He wasn’t, I realized. He was completely serene, calm like a lake, and I was choppy and stormy and desperate. ‘I’m thinking about how I’m going to do this.’
‘Do what?’ I was halfway between him and the front door, in purgatory, and it was hard to tell which direction was hell.
A wry smile twisted on his face. ‘How I’m going to convince my family to protect Jack Gracewell’s niece and Michael Gracewell’s wife.’
‘Oh.’ Well, when you put it like that … My face fell.
A laugh rang out, echoing along the walls and crawling up the back of my neck. Felice emerged from somewhere behind me. ‘Isn’t it obvious, Luca?’ he said, his voice filling up the foyer. ‘We have to call a Council.’
The sound of more footsteps carried into the foyer – this time from above us. Had they all been there, listening, this whole time? Nic and Gino appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘What’s going on?’ asked Nic, peering over the balcony.
I waved up at him. ‘Guess who,’ I sang, feeling monumentally awkward.
He nearly fell over the banister. In lightning speed he descended the stairs, coming to stand beside Luca. Gino trailed behind him. ‘What’s going on?’
Felice’s laughter had tapered off. ‘This girl is a one-woman show,’ he said, without taking his lidless eyes off me. ‘I swear she’ll keep us all on our toes.’
I decided to bite my tongue. Impoliteness wouldn’t get me very far.
‘We’re calling a Council,’ Luca told Nic.
‘No way,’ said Gino disbelievingly. ‘How come?’
Nic was looking back and forth between Luca and me, trying to figure it out. ‘Why?’
Felice gestured at me in the most unnecessary dramatic way he could, as though I was his lovely assistant. ‘Your beloved Persephone Gracewell has just switched her allegiance and snitched on Donata Marino. It appears she is in need of Sanctuary.’
‘Sanctuary?’ Gino spluttered an incredulous laugh. ‘Holy shit.’
‘Sanctuary?’ I echoed, feeling the sense that I was missing the weight of the meaning. ‘Is that a thing?’
‘Yes,’ said Nic, his frown twisting. ‘It’s a thing.’