Page 49 of Mafiosa
‘So,’ he said, his lip curling. ‘There are some things you deem worthy enough to kill for, Gianluca.’
Luca’s reply came in one steady breath. ‘Only one.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONEHOMEWORK AND HEADSHOTS
The next few weeks passed by in a blur of classes, endless assignments, nightly phone calls about the upcoming Masquerade Ball, and meetings back atEvelina, where I learnt the names of every Marino in existence and watched as the Falcone boys disappeared at random times of the day and came back in the dead of night. They were in the city, scoping out Donata’s usual haunts, collecting information, turning Marino allies into snitches, dispatching those that couldn’t be persuaded. The house was busier than an airport at Christmastime. Donata and her remaining children, Marco and Zola (Franco, I learnt, was still in prison) had come back for Libero’s funeral – the most heavily guarded procession in Chicago’s history.
My father was still on the run, but I hadn’t heard so muchas a peep from him. The police were patrolling Cedar Hill, on the lookout, following fruitless tips and making nuisances of themselves. I almost felt bad for them. It wasn’t hard to guess where my father was – at least if you knew what I knew. It wasn’t hard to guess what he was planning, but I couldn’t figure out what the hell I was going to do when I came face-to-face with him again. I wasn’t sure he truly wanted to protect me by sending me away to Colorado, but I knew he wouldn’t harm me, not deliberately. But if he was with Jack when we tracked him down, then we were going to have a problem.
The anniversary of Evelina’s disappearance passed and Felice sank back into his usual cartoon-villain self. I found it harder to be around him, knowing what he was capable of, and seeing how close he had come to actually doing it. He had left a ring of bruises around my neck, and I knew if I ever found myself alone with him away fromEvelina, it might be the last thing I ever did. He could never know what my father had done to his wife, or I’d be dead for certain.
Luca spent all his time with Valentino, painstakingly planning and dispatching Falcones to far-off places in the state. For now, I had one duty and one duty only: go to school, stay in school. In the afternoons, I sat beneath the oil painting of Evelina Falcone in the library and forced myself to complete assignments I didn’t care about. As time wore on, Evelina’s eyes seemed to grow deeper, the sadness behind them rising to meet me like a terrible wave. Her face haunted my dreams, her lips twisting as she whispered to me in the night,I see you, Sophie Marino. I see your fate.
I knew Luca was against my role in the family’s violence, but he knew, too, that when the time came to face the Marinofamily in earnest, he wouldn’t be able to keep me away. I still had to prove myself. It was the only thing I cared about, the only thing I spent my nights thinking about. I was not going to be afraid. I was not going to hesitate. I was not going to fail again.
I spent the weeks getting myself ready mentally, honing my shot, preparing to face my uncle and Donata again, and hoping against hope that my father would be caught and hauled back to prison before then. At school I was a different Sophie – upbeat, engaged, innocent. The mask slipped on so easily, sometimes it was hard to take it off again.
A couple of days before Halloween, I was loitering in the Falcone foyer reluctantly waiting to be chaperoned to school, when Nic barged through the front door, a half-eaten breakfast burrito in one hand.
‘Hey,’ he said, lighting up. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine,’ I said, shaking my head as he held out the burrito in offering.
‘You sure?’ he pressed. ‘It’s delicious.’
‘I’m sure you need the energy more than me.’You’re killing people; I’m studying poems and doing calculus.
‘I don’t mind sharing with my girl.’
He had taken to doing that a lot – referring to me as ‘his’, despite my repeated protestations to the contrary. Sometimes I wondered if he was just doing it to wind me up. ‘I’m not your girl,’ I reminded him. ‘As we’ve been over several thousand times.’
Nic rolled his eyes. ‘Right, right. I’m still in the friend-zone, but that doesn’t mean I can’t hop the fence.’
‘Actually, that’s exactly what it means.’
‘For the record, I disagree,’ he said, taking another bite of his burrito and laughing at my grimace.
‘What’s got you so giddy so early anyway,platonic male friend? Where were you last night?’
I was really askingwho did you kill?But I had quickly learnt that at the Falcone mansion, it is terribly uncouth to come right out and address the elephant in the room. They didn’t speak so openly of their murders. They were implicit things that happened beneath the fabric of their family.
‘You’re damn right I’m giddy,’ he said, shoving the rest of the burrito in his mouth and swallowing it in one giant gulp. ‘You’re not going to believe what I’ve got in the car with me.’ He bounded back outside. ‘Wait there!’
Dom came thudding down the stairs, and I scooted to the side before he shoved me out of the way. ‘Are they back?’ he asked. ‘Do they have the stuff?’
‘The stuff?’
He wrenched the double doors open so Gino and Nic could drag three black duffel bags into the foyer and deposit them on the marble crest. Gino was just as excitable as Nic, and Dom was rubbing his hands together as he stared at the duffel bags.
‘Who wants to do the honours?’ Nic asked, his gaze resting on me. ‘Wait until you see these, Soph. You’ll love them.’
‘Should we wait for Valentino?’ Gino asked.
‘He’s coming,’ said Dom, bending down and unzipping the bags. ‘I texted him. Come on, dig in. I want to pick my one first.’
Like little boys on Christmas morning, the three of them got on their knees and started rifling through the bags,pulling out guns bigger than my arms and legs. The kind of guns you see in war movies. The kinds of guns that spell instant, irrefutable death.
‘Whoa,’ I said, drifting towards the treasure trove of weapons. I knelt down next to Nic. ‘These arehuge.’
