Page 105 of Mafiosa
‘No, I’m fine.’
‘Are you sure? You don’t look so good.’
Say it, I dared him with my eyes.Address it.
He hesitated, a word caught on his lips. He pursed them and swallowed. ‘We’re leaving in half an hour. The drive is pretty long, so you might want to eat first.’
‘I’m fine,’ I said.
He narrowed his eyes a fraction but didn’t contradict me.Coward, I thought. His bedroom wasn’t on this floor. There was no reason to come up here, except to talk to me, and now he was here, he wouldn’t utter a word about it.
‘Was there something else?’ I said tightly.
He took a step forward.
‘Don’t,’ I said warningly.
He stopped. His hands were still in his pockets. There were no circles under his eyes, no lines of exhaustion, nothing tugging at his features.
‘I had to do it, Sophie.’
‘Did you?’ I asked.
‘He was a threat. A Marino.’
‘So am I.’
‘No,’ he said, more firmly. ‘You’re a Falcone.’
‘He was mydad, Nic.’ My voice cracked. ‘We were justtalking. Heshot Jack.’
Nic frowned. ‘He had to go. He was expecting it.’
Rage surged inside me. I pressed it down, down, calming myself. ‘How could you possibly know that?’
He had the audacity to hold my gaze. ‘You live by the sword, you die by the sword.’
‘You’re not sorry,’ I said.
‘I didn’t want to hurt you.’
‘Right.’ I gritted my teeth. ‘Well, that’s it, then. I don’t have anything else to say.’
‘Are you dismissing me?’ he asked, the ghost of a grin forming on his face.
‘Yes,’ I snapped. ‘I don’t want to look at you right now.’
‘You killed Felice,’ he pointed out.
‘You know that was different.’
He didn’t have an answer to that.
He turned around, and then paused, one foot on the stairs. He looked at me over his shoulder, his voice hard when he said, ‘Do you forget sometimes, Sophie, that it was your father who murdered mine?’
I came towards him, until there was just a yard between us. With acid in my mouth and fury raging in my heart, I kept my voice as steady as I could. ‘I suppose I forgot that your heart will always beat for revenge first, and love second.’
‘Unrequited love,’ he clarified.
