Page 25 of Vendetta
Nic’s forehead creased with concern. ‘I think you must have imagined that, Sophie.’
‘I didn’t imagine it,’ I protested.
Nic wasn’t listening to me. He was giving me that look – the one that adults use when they’re patronizing you – the Mrs Bailey look. ‘You had a traumatic incident earlier. I think you need to rest.’
I recoiled from him. ‘I know what I saw.’
I was angry now. One minute Nic was being light-hearted and attentive, and the next he was pulling a knife on my best friend’s brother and then making me think I was crazy when I questioned him about it.
‘We’ll talk about this again, OK?’ said Nic.
He gave me a brief nod before turning on his heel, leaving me glaring at the back of his head and wondering if I was going nuts or if he was the most convincing liar I had ever met.
I was about to go back across the courts and find Millie when something along the riverbank caught my attention. I followed the glint and in a flash I was combing through the grass and picking up the switchblade I had seen Nic pull from his pocket – sothisis what he was looking for. And I had thought his downcast expression was a display of remorse. I felt a strange mixture of triumph and nausea as I turned the blade over in my hand. It was six inches long and razor-sharp. I flicked it closed. The handle was heavy and gold and, in the middle near the base, a crest had been etched into it. It was jet black and inside it there was a perched eagle carved in ornate flourishes of deep red. Its half-spread wings brushed along the outline.
Below the crest, there was an inscription:
Nicolò, May 12th
I almost dropped it. This wasn’t just any switchblade; this was an expensive,personalizedswitchblade, inscribed with Nic’s name and, I guessed, his date of birth. It was important; it had meaning. And I had no idea what that actually meant.
I turned the handle over again, zeroing in on the bird inside the crest. I knew what an eagle looked like, and at a second glance I realized this wasn’t one. A hawk, maybe? Then it hit me. The bird inside the crest was a falcon. A crimson falcon. I didn’t know what that meant either, but I was sure now, right down in my gut, that it meant something to those brothers, andit sure as hell meant something to Nic.
The realization made me feel panicky, because I knew I wasn’t in control of my reaction to it. Even if my unclewasright about the Priestly family, I still couldn’t help the way my heart flipped every time I thought about Nic’s dark eyes – there was something about him, something I couldn’t ignore. I was developing feelings for someone who walked around with suspicious bruises on his hands and carried a weapon wherever he went, a weapon he was clearly prepared touse. A weapon he would come back for but wouldn’t find. I knew I couldn’t trust my illogical heart, and that meant I had to do everything in my power to stay away from him so I wouldn’t have to.
CHAPTER NINETHE BREAK-IN
My attempts at avoiding Nic Priestly and his brothers were short-lived.
By the time I arrived home from my dinner shift a couple of days later, the heavens had opened up, giving way to one of the worst summer storms I could remember.
I slumped against my front door as a roll of thunder groaned behind the clouds, raising the hairs on the back of my neck and heralding a fresh onslaught of rain. After rummaging through my handbag for the hundredth time, I conceded defeat. I had forgotten my keys, and since my mother was in the city at a client’s dress fitting, I was locked out indefinitely. The battery in my phone had died, so I didn’t know when she would be back, and I wasn’t about to melt into my stoop waiting for her.
I picked myself up and, trying not to notice how the rain waswelding me into my jeans, I hurtled back down the street, hopping over puddles as I ran. If I travelled at just below the speed of light, taking the fastest route, I would make the diner, which was nine blocks away, just as Ursula and the new waitress, Alison, were locking up for the night. Then I could slip inside, find my keys and be out in time to swim back home again.
As I ran, the sky flashed and rumbled, rattling my nerves. It hadn’t rained this badly since the night my father went to jail, and I was reminded, with an unpleasant twist in my stomach, of how frightening that storm really was. Ever since that night, the sound of thunder terrified me – it had become a sign of something sinister, something unwelcome. And now, not long after our delivery man was discovered drowned in his own bathtub, here I was, completely alone and trapped in one of the heaviest downfalls Cedar Hill had ever seen.
By the time I finally turned into the diner parking lot, my feet were swimming in shoefuls of water and my nose was completely numb. Inside the diner, all the lights were off. The whole restaurant was just a low concrete square cowering against the night sky.
I was too late.
I sprinted across the lot, hoping to find shelter beneath the awning at the diner’s entrance. I could wait out the worst of the storm, then make my way to Millie’s house.
If I had been able to open my eyes as normal, and if the storm wasn’t whipping my hair around my face in wet lashes, I would have seen the figure outside the entrance before I was charging into it.
‘Hey! Watch it!’
I stumbled backwards so that I was half in, half out of the shelter, but not before I’d seen that the stranger was pressed up against the door, his hands against the glass, like he was peering through. He turned and pulled his hood down.
‘Nic?’
‘Sophie?’
‘What are you doing here?’ we both asked at the same time.
‘I left my keys inside, and I’m locked out of my house.’
Nic nodded thoughtfully. I waited for his answer. After a long moment, he responded quietly, ‘I wanted to see you.’
