Page 100 of Inferno
‘I’m a good shot,’ he protested.
I glared at him. ‘I’d like to be alone now.’
‘What?’
‘You’ve seen me. I’m clearly alive. I am not communicatingwith any “fucking Marinos” as you call them. I am putting food in my mouth and consuming water regularly. You can go home now.’
‘But I want to help you, Sophie. This isn’t good—’
‘Nic.’ I sighed. ‘There’s nothing you can do for me.’
‘I love you,’ he said, pleadingly.
The words hit me right in the chest. He had never said that to me before, and now here it was, laid bare, in the lowest moment of my life. There was nothing but truth between us – the cold, hard truth, and those three little words that suddenly felt so huge. I had wanted to hear that for as long as I could remember. I had wanted someone to look at me the way he was looking at me just then. But now that I had it… it felt hollow. It felt wrong. And I knew, deep in my gut, that I wasn’t in love with him. I never had been. I’d been infatuated with the idea of love, and at a time when I had so little of it in my life, he had waltzed right through my defences and become that idea. I didn’t know what or who he really was beneath that.
‘You don’t know me,’ I said quietly. ‘Not really, not properly. Our whole time together has been about trying to make it work against all these crazy odds. It’s been about obstacles, not about each other.’
‘I know what I feel,’ he said resolutely.
A little broken part of me wanted to laugh. ‘You couldn’t evenlookat me when you heard I was a Marino.’
‘I was caught off guard,’ he protested.
‘When you love someone, you don’t lie to them. You don’t point a gun at their head. And you don’t turn your back on them when they’re at their most vulnerable.’ I swallowedhard. ‘That’s not love.’
He shook his head.
‘I think you love the idea of me,’ I whispered. Saying the words out loud hurt, but there was a tinge of relief in it too, as if the twisted fairy tale I’d been trying to make work was over, and I was OK. I had stopped trying to change him, trying to change myself to fit with him. ‘But we’re not right for each other, are we? We end up lying to each other,hurtingeach other.’
Nic ground his knuckles against the doorframe. ‘I told you. I would never hurt you.’
‘There’s more than one way to hurt someone.’
‘Yeah.’ His face twisted, from confusion to something else that I couldn’t place. ‘There is.’
I scrubbed my hands across my face, feeling exhausted all of a sudden.
‘We can talk about this again,’ he said quietly. ‘When you’re feeling better.’
I didn’t want to look at him any more. How could I, knowing I had gone to him when I should have gone to my mother? How could I lean on him with the image of his pointed gun burnt into my mind? He would always put his duties before everything else. He was a soldier first and a person second.
When I didn’t reply, he sucked in a breath and said, ‘We’ve heard your uncle and Donata are in New York meeting suppliers. I don’t know what their plans are, but when you’re feeling up to it, I think we should talk about your safety.’
‘He won’t come back here,’ I said. ‘Not after what he did. There’s too much heat on him.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure.’
I slammed back against my pillow, fear and rage competing inside me. ‘I need to be alone right now, Nic.’
‘I’ll come back when you’re feeling better.’ He hovered in the doorway for a moment longer. ‘And Sophie? Thank you for saving my life.’
In place of hers, I thought, as bitterness twisted inside me. What was I supposed to say to that?You’re welcome?It didn’t matter. He had disappeared into the hallway. Something sour curled in my stomach. Skirting around that night had opened the gates, and the images were slithering into my mind like snakes, and I had to shut them out and block my ears to keep them away.Not yet. Not now.
I waited until I heard the soft thud of Nic’s feet reach the bottom of the stairs, then I buried my head between my knees and rocked back and forth in my bed, trying to calm my thoughts.Think of something else. Think of anything else.It was so hard; every part of me was bound up in my mother, in the diner, in my uncle. I dug my nails into my palms and concentrated on the little half-moons of pain. The minutes ticked by, slowly, and the cloud inside me got heavier. The sun had disappeared. It was getting dark and there was a quiet touch of relief in it.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWOTHE BREAK DOWN
‘Sophie?’
