‘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.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

THE FIGHT

Sanctuary was the order of extending protection and loyalty to someone not bound to the family by blood. It was the closest one could get to becoming a Falcone without being born as one. Luca told me it would take a vote – a majority verdict – to offer my mother and me the safety I had come seeking from them so casually. If approved, they would give us a safe house and enough to survive on until Donata Marino was silenced for good.

We stood in the foyer, the Falcone boys and me, presided over by Felice, as I was questioned about every solitary detail of my encounter with Donata. I told them everything I knew – or everything she had said, at least – not knowing how much of it I could really count on. Felice couldn’t understand why she would put her faith in me at all.