CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

THE EXPLOSION

I knocked my head backwards, smashing it against Donata’s collarbone.

‘Stop it,’ she hissed, wrangling me against her. ‘Or I’ll split your head against the stove and leave you here to burn with your boyfriends. If you’re not with us, you’re against us.’

Across the room, my mother stumbled to her feet, one hand clamped on her head and the other clutching her stomach. Watching the glazed expression on her face and the way her mouth was twisting with pain, I felt only dread.

‘Sophie?’ she slurred. She barely reacted to the fact that I was being restrained by Donata Marino. She double-blinked, flinching. ‘What is this?’

Her eyes grew as she noticed the acrid smell. She sniffed the air, her lip curling. ‘Oh,’ she gasped, whirling on Jack. ‘What are you doing?’ She staggered past my uncle, making a beeline for the stove.

Another metallic thump sounded and the floor reverberated. The lock on the door came unhinged.

My mother reached one of the burners. Jack dived at her. He grabbed her by the elbow and jerked her backwards, slamming her head against the island. She slid to the ground, leaving a streak of blood against the wood.

I screamed so hard into Donata’s hand that I almost suffocated myself. My knees buckled but she held me up, propped against her.

Jack yanked the gas line out from behind the stove and ripped it from the wall. It popped with a hiss and the air around it started furrowing. Coughing with violent force, Jack grabbed me and pulled me backwards, floundering across the kitchen, away from the fumes as they surged around us.

Donata took the duffel bag and retreated into the serving section as my uncle crushed me against him. My mother was lying in a sprawled heap between the stove and the island.

‘Let me go!’ I shrieked. ‘Let me help her!’

He held me inside the kitchen doorway, our backs to the diner, our faces to the metal door as it swung open. Through the thickness of the gas, Luca and Nic appeared in the doorway and every shred of hope inside me shrivelled up and died.

The alleyway stretched into the darkness behind them, where the dumpster had been tipped on its side. Trash was strewn everywhere. Wind and rain swept into the room, and the raging storm grew piercing and loud around us.

The Falcone brothers raised their guns.

In a flash, Jack manoeuvred me in front of him until I could feel his chin against my head, his noisy exhales rippling through my hair. ‘Go on,’ said Jack. ‘Shoot at us, why don’t you?’

Luca lowered his gun.

Nic hesitated.

The moment seemed to stretch interminably. In that instant, when even the thunder seemed to quell, my whole life rested at the mercy of Nic Falcone’s trigger finger. I looked inside the barrel of his gun, studying those two black circles, one delicately poised above the other, and felt the nearness of my own death.

‘Nicoli,’ warned Luca.

Nic’s arm was twitching. ‘I can still get him.’

‘Nicoli.’

My eyes were spiking with tears. ‘The gas,’ I rasped. ‘The gas is on.’

Nic’s gaze grew wide with understanding. Finally, he noticed the smell, the thickness in the air, and he flinched. He lowered his gun.

The door slammed shut behind them, teetering on broken hinges.

‘You’re scum, using them like this,’ said Luca to Jack. He was inching forward, moving without trying to make it look obvious. ‘You’ll have to walk out of here sooner or later, and when you do we’ll get you.’

‘You wouldn’t risk her life.’

He raised his eyebrows, his feet sliding soundlessly towards us. ‘And you would?’

Jack’s grip tightened, his arm clamped against my throat until I was choking. The lights in my brain were flickering, the edges of my vision blotting with black smudges.

Dimly I saw my mother’s hand clutching the island as she tried to lift herself from the floor. Her hair was streaked with blood but her mouth was moving, slowly, testing out syllables.

‘Do you want to find out what I’m capable of, filth?’ said Jack.

Luca curled his lip. ‘I’ll gut you, Marino.’

Jack shifted with alarming speed, pushing me backwards through the door. I tumbled into the main diner as he slammed the kitchen door behind us.

‘Mom!’ I screamed as Donata appeared from the darkness behind me and flicked her Zippo lighter through the server window.

The blast erupted in a flash of bright orange. It ripped across the kitchen, exploding in a resounding boom that shattered all the windows. The walls shook and I was thrown backwards, across the till counter and on to the diner floor.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

INFERNO

The kitchen was bursting with flames. Dark, grey smoke billowed out through the serving window. The wood was crackling, breaking off into huge splinters that plummeted towards the floor.

Behind me, Jack and Donata had made it to the front entrance with the duffel bag. My uncle’s hair was singed, his face blackened from the blast. He was doubled over, clutching the doorframe. ‘Come on!’ he panted at me. ‘We have to get out of here!’

‘My mom’s in there!’

I stumbled towards the kitchen, screaming.

Howling.

Shrieking her name.

‘She’s gone, girl,’ Donata shouted.

Jack’s voice arced above hers. ‘Come on!’

I ignored them, and this time my uncle didn’t come back for me. They charged into the night, their bounty won.