Page 31 of Vendetta
His fist closed around it and a flicker of relief passed over his features, relaxing them. ‘Thank you.’
‘I guess it’s for the best. You know, me walking around with a knife isn’t exactly a good idea. I’d probably fall on it or something.’ The words tumbled out in unbidden, high-pitched sentences, trying to distract from the awkwardness I was feeling. ‘I can definitely think of less embarrassing ways to die.’Could you be any more inappropriate?I winced right after I said it and then hopped out of the car before I could put my other foot in my mouth. ‘Thanks again for everything.’
‘Sophie?’ Nic leant across the passenger seat, his expression serious. ‘Will you do something for me?’
‘What?’
‘Don’t be thinking of ways to die.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Good.’
He pulled back with a small, controlled smile, and I shut the door.
I stood in the rain, watching the car until it disappearedaround the end of the street. Then I thought about the boy with the bruised hand and the inscribed switchblade who had just broken into my father’s diner, and found myself wondering why the hell I was feeling so sad to see him go.
CHAPTER TENTHE ARTIST
There was really only one thing to do with Nic’s hoodie. ‘This is perfect,’ Millie said when I called her the following morning to tell her about everything. ‘Use it as an excuse to go to his house and invite him to the party on Saturday!’
Because of the fight with Alex, Millie wasn’t Nic’s biggest fan, but she wasn’t a grudge holder either, and given that ‘boys will be boys’, she resolved that she could certainly ‘see potential’ in him and that he should still be invited to her house party. I had a pretty good idea of how Alex would react to Nic turning up, but Millie was adamant. Alex didn’t get to veto her guests. Especially since she had so few compared to him.
Besides, she took great interest in my pitiful romantic life, and since Nic was new to Cedar Hill and obviously in the darkabout my father’s recent past, she saw him as a rare judgement-free opportunity for me to fall in love. Whether he might be bad for me or not didn’t weigh into it. It only made her more curious about him and his family, especially considering that Dom had asked her out right after the basketball tournament.
‘I’m meeting Dom at six for our date, so call me later tonight if you find out anything juicy,’ she squealed down the phone. ‘And don’t forget to take pictures if you make it inside that house. You owe it to me. I’m too young to die from curiosity.’
I decided not to tell Millie that I would not be creepily taking pictures of Nic’s house without his knowledge. The idea of inviting him to a party was already terrifying enough. What if he said no? What if he said yes and then found out about my social-pariah status when he got there? ‘Only if you find out about Dom’s scar,’ I countered instead.
‘That’s a no-brainer. Good luck today. You won’t regret it,’ she chirped before hanging up.
By the time I reached the Priestly mansion, I was a bundle of nerves. Restored to its rightful regality, the house was like something out of a fairy tale. Beneath the sun’s heavy beat, the windows were sparkling like diamonds, and without the ivy that used to slither across the walls, the entire exterior was an unblemished alabaster white.
Just how was I going to do this?Hey, thanks for lending me your hoodie. By the way, why don’t you come to Millie’s party on Saturday? It’s coincidentally my birthday too, but most people there will just ignore me because my dad’s a murderer, which technically makes me the Devil’s spawn. So, how about it, will you come?Smooth. And what if Nic wasn’t home and Luca answered instead?Hey, tell your brother to come to Millie’s onSaturday, but make sure you don’t show up because you suck.If Gino answered I could just distract him with something shiny and hope Nic would come to the door eventually.
With the hoodie draped over my arm and my thoughts spiralling into all the possible ways this could go wrong, I rang the doorbell. When I didn’t hear it echo inside the house, I decided to use the brass knocker just to be sure. I waited. I knocked again.
What now? I hadn’t come up with any brilliant ideas about what to do if nobody was there. Was I supposed to just leave the hoodie outside the door and let that be the end of it? What an anticlimax. Without thinking, I drifted towards the side of the mansion, where the driveway tapered off into a narrow path that stretched around the house.
When I reached the back, I stopped in surprise. I don’t know what I had been expecting – a tennis court or a swimming pool, maybe – but certainly not what I found. Cramped and overgrown, the yard was a far cry from the affluent façade of the house. Around the edges, clumps of weeds tangled into withered rose bushes. The grass was higher than my knees, and was a sickly grey-green colour. At the very back of the ruined garden were the remnants of a fountain with elaborate bird carvings etched into chunks of stone; and in the centre of the grass, a large wooden table balanced on three termite-eaten legs.
Behind me, double doors inlaid with stained glass panes looked out on to the yard. They were slightly ajar.
I rapped my knuckles against the glass, nudging the doors open, and peered into a sprawling kitchen. The walls and cabinets were a stark white, and the pale wood floors looked new. A black cast-iron stove reached up to a high ceiling, whichwas studded with spotlights.
‘Who’s there?’ A musical voice came from within, startling me from my snooping.
I hesitated. If I didn’t know the voice, the voice wouldn’t know me, and so what good would my name be?
‘It’s Sophie,’ I said after a beat.
No answer.
‘I’m just returning a hoodie.’
I opened the doors another crack. More of the kitchen filtered into my view. On the white walls were several ornately framed oil paintings. I recognized one as da Vinci’sMadonna and Child– it had been a favourite of my grandmother’s – though the others, while also religious in sentiment, were foreign to me. I stared in surprise. I had never seen artwork like this in a home before – it was almost like a gallery, or a church, and I found myself feeling intimidated by the splendour. I considered taking out my phone and sneaking a photo to show Millie after all, but the rational voice inside my head stopped me.
Cautiously, I edged inside.
