Mafiosa

All the others were dead.

All the others were dead.

And I was alive.

Did I want to be alive?

‘Come on now.’ Paulie slipped his arm around my back. His voice was gentle but firm. We passed by the Marino casualties, and Felice in between them all. My kill. Paulie didn’t look back. Did he know he was dead? Did he know why?

Did it matter?

The Falcones were swarming in behind us.

Behind me, Elena and Nic were arguing in Italian. Luca and Dom were holding CJ up between them. He was bleeding badly from his left leg.

I looked at my feet.

One foot in front of the other.

One foot in front of the other.

Just keep going. Just keep going.

Walk it off.

Walk it off.

I climbed into an SUV and laid my head back until my face was tilted towards the roof. I didn’t want to look at anyone or anything. Someone climbed in beside me. I shut my brain off. I ignored my surroundings. I pictured a white, blank page.

We sped off, one car after another, away from the perfect row of houses, away from all those dead Marinos, away from Felice, away from my father and my uncle lying side by side on snow-tipped grass, and every last crimson shred of my old family.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

HOLLOW

The second I set foot in Evelina, I climbed the three flights of stairs to my bedroom, grabbed a towel and locked myself in the bathroom. I stood under the shower, and watched the steam rise up off my skin, the red smears fall away with the soap. I washed my hair so many times I lost count. I opened my mouth and swallowed the water. I sat down and curled my arms around my body, and let the beads slide down the back of my neck. I wanted to be clean.

I couldn’t make myself clean.

After an eternity, I shut off the water, wrapped myself in a towel and padded back towards my room. The house was eerily quiet. Paulie had said there would be an immediate debriefing when we got home. I had shunned it.

I slipped into sweatpants and a hoodie and climbed into bed. I didn’t know what time it was. The sky was beginning to dim outside. I tried not to think about what they were talking about downstairs. I tried not to think about my father, about Jack, about any of it.

I was bone-tired. Without triumph or contentment. There was no joy in watching Jack fall. There was no relief, as I had hoped. I just felt hollow; empty. I felt broken.

Irreparably broken.

Luca had been right. This wasn’t the answer. But I was so wrapped up in it now, it didn’t matter any more. I had cast my die. I had taken a life. I had lost every last tether to my old identity.

My mind slowed down, and the blackness crept in.

A quiet knock at the door. Luca. I peeked at him from underneath the covers. He had changed into a T-shirt. His arm was bandaged all the way up to the elbow. He was pale, his black hair stark against the rest of him.

He just stood there.

We watched each other, everything we might have said communicated in that one long look.

I’m sorry.

He sat down on the side of my bed, and brushed the hair from my face. ‘You were brave today.’

I blinked up at him. I thought this would unite us, but I could feel the hollowness in him, just as I could feel my own. This was no victory. Even if we had gotten Donata too, the emptiness would have stretched on, devouring the rest of me, until I was nothing.

I was nothing.

I was worse than nothing.

I had nothing.

Luca traced his fingers along my hairline, waiting. Waiting.

I was so tired.

‘I feel empty,’ I told him.

‘I know,’ he said.

You were right. I wanted to tell him he was right, but of course he already knew. He was wearing the anguish of today on his face, too. It was deep in his eyes, in every careful breath. There was no respite from Valentino’s passing, no feeling of a great wrong being righted. There was no relief in knowing my mother’s betrayer was in the ground, in seeing my father fall the way I once believed he deserved to.

I pushed the covers back and moved over. Luca lay down beside me, his arm around me as I rested my head on his chest, and listened to the sound of his heartbeat thudding beneath me. He curled his hand around mine.

‘Sleep,’ he said. He pulled the covers over us, and pressed his lips against my hair. ‘I’ll be here.’

I drifted into the blackness, into oblivion, as exhaustion swept over me like a wave.

Hours dragged by, when evening turned to night, and slowly, dawn crept in, flashing streaks of orange and pink across the sky.

When I woke up, Luca was gone, and I was alone again.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

BY THE SWORD

‘Have you packed yet?’ Dom was staring quizzically at me in the hallway. ‘Also, why does your hair look like a bird’s nest?’

I ran my fingers through it and felt the tangle. ‘I just woke up,’ I said defensively. ‘What do you care, anyway?’

Dom whistled under his breath. ‘Wow, killing really doesn’t agree with you, Sophie.’

It was only then that I noticed the duffel bag in his hand. ‘What’s going on?’

‘You obviously haven’t checked your phone,’ he surmised. ‘We’re moving to a safe house. The police are looking into the Marino murders and Luca wants us to lie low. Donata’s still at large, so we could be in danger …’ He trailed off, his brows lifting, the silver scar stretching to white.

‘What?’

He shrugged. ‘I suppose it seems kind of inappropriate to stay in this house … you know, what with you having shot its owner.’