‘At least it’s Friday.’

‘What?’ I blinked her back into focus.

‘You’re looking very pensive and sad,’ Millie pointed out. ‘I thought maybe you’d forgotten it was Friday. You have all this extra time to make out with Luca now.’ She started making elaborate kissing noises.

‘Oh my God, shut up!’ I swatted her in the arm. I glanced over my shoulder, fearful that a rogue Falcone might be hiding inside a locker, or that Nic might be stuck to the ceiling. ‘That’s a secret. A huge secret.’

Millie wiggled her eyebrows.

‘He hasn’t kissed me since I moved in. He’s barely even spoken to me.’ He’s too busy trying to keep me as far away from him as possible, as far away from everything it really means to be a Falcone. I tried to pretend I didn’t care, but a big part of me couldn’t shake off the feeling of his arms around me, of his lips on mine, of how comforted he had made me feel. How the badness hadn’t seemed so bad when we were facing it together. But now that I was living at Evelina, things were different: it was like there was a pane of glass between us.

Everything, according to Luca, was temporary.

Temporary.

The word burnt inside me.

‘Well, he did make his entire family offer you sanctuary despite the fact that you’re … you know …’

‘A Marino,’ I supplied. ‘It’s not a curse. You can say it.’

‘Yeah, well, my point is he stuck his neck out for you, and from what I know of him, he doesn’t really seem like the type to do something like that so lightly. Maybe he’s biding his time … or,’ she raised her finger, ‘maybe he’s scared of something … or someone. It’s probably his twin. The bossman. Old blue-eyes-creepy-smile. What’s his name again?’

‘You know his name,’ I said. ‘And can you keep your voice down, please? I’ve taken a vow of secrecy and anyone could be listening to you right now.’

Millie rolled her eyes.

‘And no, I doubt Valentino would be thrilled at the idea of me making out with his brother. Especially after everything that happened with Nic.’

‘You know,’ said Millie who was now narrowing her eyes, ‘for someone with such a romantic name, he’s a real killjoy, isn’t he? He’s all, Ooh look at me, I’m sensitive and kind and I have a beautiful long name and pretty eyes, and then BAM! Psyche! I’m going to shoot you. You know what I call that, Soph? I call that false advertising, and I’m pretty sure it’s illegal.’

Dom was sitting in the driver’s seat outside school, so I made sure to climb into the back of the SUV.

‘Do you really have to be so childish, Marino?’ he asked. ‘I’m not going to bite you.’

‘I just don’t want to get any of your hair gel on me. It’s impossible to wash out.’

‘Trust me, this is not what I want to be doing with my afternoons either.’

‘I told you I can make my own way back.’

Dom snorted. ‘Until you prove your loyalty, Valentino is not going to let you swan around Chicago unwatched. For all we know you could be passing intel back to Bitch Marino and her crew of idiots.’

‘After she blew up my mother’s car and nearly killed me?’ I said. ‘Even you couldn’t possibly believe that.’

He shrugged, eyes forward. ‘I don’t know what to believe any more.’ Him and me both. ‘How’s your hot friend doing? I haven’t seen her in a while.’

‘That’s probably because she still hates you.’

He side-glanced at me, a smirk twisting on his lips. ‘Good. I like a challenge.’

I shifted forwards so that my fingers trailed the side of his headrest. I tapped them along the leather and studied the silver scar that swiped across his eye. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but if you and Millie were the last two people on earth and the entire future of the human race depended on you two hooking up, she would not even graze you with her pinky finger because she is so deeply, deeply repulsed by your general existence, not to mention your complete selfish disregard for women in general. She would see the world shrivel up and die rather than populate it with any tiny versions of you and your general shittiness.’

He turned his attention to the road. ‘How could I possibly not take that offensively?’

I shrugged.

He matched my nonchalance. ‘That doesn’t offend me as much as you might think it does, Marino.’

I flopped backwards, as the trees in Cedar Hill blurred by me in streaks of autumnal oranges and browns. My thoughts drifted to my old neighbourhood, to my mother’s things still locked up in my house. It all felt so unfinished. ‘Well, that’s because you’re an asshole.’

‘And when you’re pointing a smoking gun at some guy’s corpse and screwing over every last bit of your Marino loyalty, what will that make you?’

With my gaze still on my old town and the graveyard it had become, I said, ‘I suppose that will make me a Falcone.’

CHAPTER FIVE

VILLAIN

Iwas so not feeling the poetry assignment. The last thing I wanted was to trace someone else’s words about grief and pain while my own loss, raw and searing, sat so heavy in my chest. Still, it was a distraction, not to mention a necessary component of graduating, so I was doing my best with it. I had been scanning a giant book of poems for nearly an hour before my attention finally snagged on one. It was practically flashing at me on the page. Plus it rhymed, which meant it was a proper poem. It was called ‘We Wear the Mask’, by Paul Laurence Dunbar. I transcribed the first stanza and then started jotting down my reaction to it.