I gaped at her, forgetting the card hovering between us.
‘What’s the matter?’ She smiled, revealing sharpened canines that spread into a generous display of white teeth.
‘You look …’ I shook my head. ‘You reminded me of someone, is all.’
All the good cheer she had been exuding evaporated in that moment. Her expression soured and she stepped away from me, still holding the card.
‘You insult me,’ she said, dropping her hand.
‘I didn’t say anything.’
‘The comparison was implied,’ she said. ‘I know exactly who you mean.’
I raised my palms in innocence. ‘I’m sorry if I offended you.’
She held up the card again and this time I snatched it from her.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t speak of a Marino and a Falcone in the same sentence. If you learn nothing else, learn that before you walk into Donata’s club. And whatever you do, don’t mention her sister.’
‘A club?’ I caressed the glossy card with my fingers, considering the ridiculousness of me parading through some Mafia club in the city amidst a whole other mob family. As if one wasn’t enough. ‘What’s to say I’ll even go?’ I shook my head. ‘I’m not sure I ever want to see my uncle again. He betrayed my mom and me. He doesn’t deserve it,’ I said, surprised at my willingness to confide in someone who had been unashamedly stalking me up until now.
Sara raised her hand to touch my shoulder but then stopped herself in mid-air, thinking better of it. ‘I understand, you know. It’s difficult being pulled in directions you don’t want to go in. And even more so when it’s your family holding the strings. But it will become clear to you, if you let it.’
Um, what? Part of me was curious. I couldn’t help it. It was like this festering, buzzing thing in the pit of my stomach. ‘I shouldn’t go,’ I said. ‘It’s not my world.’
She dropped her voice, even though no one but me could hear her. ‘You will have to see him, Sophie. Better that you go on your own terms.’
A caution – a whisper of something else. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
She loosed a weary sigh. ‘It means important things are happening and he will need to see you, one way or another, and soon. You should go to him or he’ll come for you, and this place is not safe for anyone right now. Not even me.’
‘You make it sound like I don’t have a choice,’ I said, feeling the chill in her words as they settled around me.
She offered me a half smile. ‘You have the illusion of one, at least. That’s more than I ever had.’ Another failed smile, and then, ‘Please don’t make me do something I don’t want to do …’
Before I could respond she was marching back towards her car. I stood, speechless, as she sped out of the lot, leaving me wondering about the quiet threat in her final words.
I studied the card in my hands – it was crimson. In the middle a tree with swirling branches was printed in black ink. Underneath, the word EDEN was written in calligraphy. I flipped it over. There was an address, along with the phrase ‘Lose Yourself’. Scrawled along the top, in my uncle’s handwriting, were three simple words: ‘Sophie. Tuesday 11 p.m.’.
I shouldn’t go. Jack had already gotten me in enough trouble. But if I didn’t go to him, he would come to me. He would come for me, whatever that meant. And the further I could keep him from Cedar Hill, and my mother, the better.
Something was going on, and if I had to see him I was damn sure going to try and find out what it was. I was sick of being kept in the dark – so close to the things swirling around me, and still out of reach. Enough was enough. For my father’s sake and my own, there were questions that needed to be answered, and I needed to know what my uncle planned to do next – to Nic, to Luca, to all of them, now that he was being sheltered by the Marinos, now that the truce was crumbling around them. I would accept the illusion of my free will and try, at least, to use it to my advantage in some way. Jack had shown up to protect my life once, maybe he would listen to me about the truce. If he walked away now, before any bloodshed – if he left town – he could prevent a war. And surely no one, not even my crazy, morally unhinged uncle, wanted a war.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE INTERCEPTION
The thunder of feet against the pavement startled me from my thoughts. I snapped my head up just in time to see Nic racing towards me. I shoved the card into the back pocket of my jeans.
He skidded to a halt right in front of me. His eyes held a wild, frenzied look. ‘What was that about?’
Surprise at seeing him was quickly replaced by bitter memories of my fight with Luca, and all the things that were said. Nic shouldn’t be here. And yet he was, and this time it definitely wasn’t for me.
I folded my arms and looked around him. ‘Hmm? What was what about?’
Nic frowned in a very obvious I-know-you’re-lying kind of way. ‘I saw you talking to Sara Marino just now …’
‘You mean your cousin?’ Their bone structures were identical; she had Nic’s cheekbones and Luca’s mouth.
Nic levelled me with a dark look, funnily similar to the one Sara had just offered me in similar circumstances. ‘Don’t call her that. She’s scum, just like the rest of them.’
Family politics can really feel like they’re sapping the marrow from your bones. Especially when somehow you get caught in the middle. I was like a goldfish trying to navigate its way through two opposing schools of sharks. ‘Where did you come from?’ I asked, changing tack.