Page 7 of Mafiosa
Luca spluttered a laugh – it was hard and sharp. ‘Your vendetta,’ he repeated. ‘Do you know what it feels like to kill another human being? Just because we don’t talk about it doesn’t mean we don’t feel the guilt. Just because the people who die are not good people, does not make it any easier. You don’t get used to it. Sophie, the guilt is relentless. It drowns you. It becomes you. It’s all you are in the end – a collection of taken lives and the mask you wear to pretend you’re OK with it.’
I thought of Jack, of Donata as she flicked the lighter into the diner kitchen and sent my mother to the afterlife. The white-hot edge of rage still burnt inside me. I was already in the darkness, and I couldn’t conceive of a feeling worse than the one Jack had bestowed upon me, worse than the sick, creeping feeling of grief that woke me up every morning and rocked me to sleep at night, worse than seeing that car explode in front of me, of letting it throw me backwards, cover me in blood and ash. ‘I could handle doing to Donata what she did to me.’
Luca shook his head. ‘Every life has value, Sophie. They all leave a stain.’
I was so close to him now – when did that happen? His aftershave hung in the space between us. ‘So, when you let me come here, it wasn’t to prepare me to face them but to lock me away from them?’
He didn’t say anything. He just looked at me.
‘You’ll have to lie to Valentino,’ I said. ‘You’ll have to trick your own family. How is that going to work?’
He took a step backwards, towards the door, his hands clasped behind his back. ‘It will work because it’s only temporary.’
‘Temporary?’ I wanted to bridge the gap he was making, to tug him towards me.
He levelled me with a dark look. ‘When we’ve taken care of Donata and Jack, you’re going to leave us. And then it will be over for good. For ever.’
‘What will?’ I whispered, feeling like the ground was being ripped out from under me.
He swallowed hard – all the things that lingered on histongue – and his face re-shuttered, the impenetrable mask coming down once more. ‘This. Us. Everything.’
This.Us.
CHAPTER THREECOMMON GROUND
I wanted to say something, anything to distract from the feeling of hurt blooming in my chest, but in the next instant, he was gone, and I was alone again. Dwarfed by the sudden, jarring silence, the realization that I had just been dumped by the only person in this house I felt I could rely on. Dumped by someone who probably never felt a shred of what I felt for him. And what did that mean for my future? If I didn’t have this family, I had nothing. If I didn’t have my cause, then I had nothing to move towards.
I left the library and made my way back into the house. Elena was in the kitchen, soaking tea towels in disinfectant in a basin. She had been tending to Dom and Gino all afternoon. She greeted me by way of a hiss.
‘Save it,’ I snapped. ‘I’m not in the mood.’
She followed me across the room, stood over me as I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. I slowed my movements, tried to show her I wasn’t intimidated, even though I could feel her gaze in the hairs on my neck. ‘Well, maybeI’mnot in the mood for a Marino living under this roof, girl. Maybe I’m not in the mood for the gifts yourfamilysends us.’
I slammed the fridge shut and threw her a withering look. ‘Well, maybe you should get over it.’
‘You’re too close to my sister, girl.’
‘And yet it’syouwho share her blood,’ I pointed out. ‘I’ll never be as close to her as you are.’
Her expression changed, her eyes narrowing, and then something weird happened. Her lips quirked up, and she offered me a half-smile. ‘You’ve gotten tougher, little Marino.’
‘Trust me,’ I said, returning her smile and matching the faint maniacal undertone in it. There was no happiness in this moment. ‘This is only the beginning of my strength.’ I felt the slow burn of all that rage inside me and kept it there, ready to use as a weapon when the time came. Luca, or no Luca, I would have my revenge. I would finally stand up for myself. ‘I am going to kill your sister.’
Elena’s smile grew, stretching her cheeks wide. ‘Not if I get to her first, Persephone.’
There. My name. Not the ideal version, but still. It was better than ‘worm’. It was better than ‘Marino’.
‘I hate her,’ I said simply. ‘I hate her, and I want her to pay, and I don’t care how or when it happens, but I want to be a part of every second of it.’
‘Well,’ said Elena, stepping closer until the air between usbecame a potent mixture of her floral perfume and the faintest scent of smoke. ‘There is something, then, that we have in common.’
CHAPTER FOURBARBARIANS AND LIBRARIANS
‘This is literally the scariest thing I’ve ever had to do.’ Millie slammed her locker shut, and the clang of metal reverberated inside my eardrums. She hitched her bag on to her back and expelled a dramatic breath. ‘Seriously, Soph. I don’t know why I agreed to do this. I can barely live with the anxiety.’
‘There, there, Millicent.’ I patted her on the shoulder. ‘I’m sure you’ll rise to the occasion.’
She clenched her eyes shut. ‘That’s easy for you to say, you don’t have to deal with all this horriblepressure.’
