‘Oh, Sophie,’ my mother said, falling head over heels into Donata’s manipulation. She pressed a hand to her chest. ‘I’d lose my heart.’

‘You’re not going to lose anything,’ I told her calmly. ‘I’m sorry about your daughter,’ I added, speaking to Donata and being careful to keep my features in check. I didn’t want her to know I had seen Sara after Eden that night – how close I had been to saving her. How dreadfully I had failed. ‘But I can take care of myself.’

Donata waved my words away, a manicured hand flying between us. My mother shrank further into herself. ‘Let me cut to the chase. I’m here to tell you what the Marinos expect from you, Sophie.’

‘The safe in the diner,’ I answered, without even blinking.

‘The money is no longer your concern,’ she replied, unfazed by my knowledge of the safe. ‘Your uncle thought you might remove it for us – but I think trusting you with that task given your current attitude is not such a good idea.’

So it was money. It must have been a whole lot, considering how hell-bent they were on getting back in there.

‘We intend to retrieve the contents of the safe ourselves.’ Her lips peeled away, revealing a line of yellowed teeth – a wolf waiting to pounce. ‘It will be more … opportune this way.’

I narrowed my eyes. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It means we will no longer back down from Falcone threats. We are going to hang them with their own noose.’

The explanation might have been vague but the image was horrifyingly vivid. I tried to blink it away, to school my features so she wouldn’t know how hard my heart was thumping, how it felt like it was climbing into my throat. I shouldn’t care. I shouldn’t show it.

Her smile was tight, pinching the hollows in her cheeks. ‘Their soldati are watching the diner. We know exactly how and where to get to them. When we take the safe, we’ll take the heads of the Falcones who stand guard over it, too.’ She inhaled sharply, her face reflecting some imagined glory. ‘We are ready for them.’

‘An ambush,’ I whispered. I thought of Eden, of all the pain and rage it had caused when the Falcones had made their move. I imagined the scene unfolding: a couple of Falcones outnumbered and trapped at the diner with Donata and her Marino soldiers surrounding them. Dom’s arrogance. Nic’s blind determination. I shook my head, my eyes growing wide at her polluted scheme. How could she roll the dice again, and so soon?

‘It’ll be a bloodbath.’

‘And you’re going to help us,’ she returned calmly, as though it had already been decided. ‘You’re their weakness.’

‘Me?’ I said, dread draining the colour from my cheeks. ‘How?’

Her smile grew, shifting the sharp planes in her face until she appeared more skeleton than human. ‘You’ll see.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I won’t see.’ I pushed away from the counter and stood in the middle of the kitchen, heaving. ‘I won’t help you.’

She knitted her arms across her chest. She seemed so infuriatingly sure when she said, ‘You will.’

I shook my head. ‘You’re crazy.’

‘This will be your task. When we come back for you, you’re coming with us. You’ll help lure them into our trap.’

‘I don’t want a task,’ I said firmly. Everything inside me told me to run, to hide. Everything was darkness and Donata, rage and ice, expectations and consequences. I could feel the walls closing in, my mother’s muted panic pressing against me.

‘If you do as I tell you when the time comes, you stake your allegiance with us and we’ll take care of you.’ Her eyes flicked to my mother. ‘You’ll be safe. Provided for.’

My mother hung her head. So she was shaming her. She knew about our money troubles, about my absent father, and she was using it as a weapon against us.

‘If you don’t kill them, they’ll kill you.’ She was still looking at my mother. ‘It’s only a matter of time now Jack is in the fold.’

‘What’s he offering you?’ I pressed. ‘Are you really so easily bought?’

The ghost of something sinister passed over Donata’s face. ‘If you fail to do what I’m telling you, then your allegiance is with them.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘And we will kill you.’

The flowers pulsed in my peripheral vision. I could never hurt the Falcones. Not in a thousand nightmares. ‘Can’t you just leave me out of this?’

Donata looked at my mother. ‘It is my experience that in matters of life and death, everyone should know what’s at stake.’

My mother raised her head. Her eyes were rimmed with red. She looked at Donata, shook her head, and sighed.

I didn’t say anything. I wouldn’t lie to her and agree to her demands, and yet I was afraid of refusing her. I needed her to leave so I could gather myself. So I could snap my mother out of whatever day-coma she was in. So I could find a way to warn Luca. I remembered Sara’s advice to me in Eden – I had to pretend. I had to pretend so Donata would slacken her grip just enough so I could breathe. So I could think.

Donata shifted and a gun appeared in her hand. Before I could move, she was pressing it into my mother’s jugular, lifting her to her tiptoes as she bent her backwards across the sink. I froze, a half-scream jolting from me.