Inferno (Blood for Blood #2) (12 page)

She rounded the car and came towards me. I squared my shoulders to appear bigger than I was. We were almost the same height and she was slight, too. She stopped too close to me and I stepped backwards, away from her citrus perfume. It took a moment to find her eyes underneath the bangs and the black kohl powder she had over-rimmed them with.

‘Sophie Gracewell,’ she said, appraising me with unashamed forwardness. Her voice was a lot softer than I expected it to be. It struck me again how young she was – she couldn’t be much older than me. She twirled her hands in front of her as though she was pointing me out to an invisible audience. ‘God, I feel like I’ve been trying to get you on your own for, like, my whole life.’ She smiled broadly, revealing two dimples so pronounced that it suddenly seemed impossible to be intimidated by her. Which was irritatingly misleading.

‘That’s funny,’ I said, not laughing. ‘I feel like I’ve been avoiding you for about that long, too.’

She nodded, her smile faltering as she heaved a sigh. ‘I’ve been freaking you out, I know. I’m sorry.’

Her contrition disarmed me, and, softer than I intended to, I said, ‘There’s a right way and a wrong way to approach someone, you know.’

She started chewing on the corner of her lip, smearing her fuchsia lipstick across her teeth. She was wringing her hands and I realized she was as jittery as I was.

‘I take it you’re a Marino,’ I said.

Her eyes went wide. ‘So you’ve heard of us?’

‘Somewhat.’

‘All good, I’m sure.’ She offered me a bashful smile, all doe-eyed, with those dimples again. There was a small gap between her two front teeth.

‘So my uncle sent you?’

I crunched my palms into fists, feeling the sweat on my fingertips.

She shook her head. ‘I didn’t think you’d have figured it out.’

Poof! There goes the truce
.

Thank God I hadn’t mentioned anything about this to Luca.

The girl’s grin betrayed a sense of lightness that was buried beneath the dramatic make-up and severe hair. ‘How did you know that?’

‘I guessed,’ I lied.

She broke off into a chesty laugh. ‘He said you were clever, but I think you had me figured out at the movie theatre. I’m sorry if I scared you. I was trying to get a minute to talk to you by yourself. No one else is supposed to know.’

It was hard to dislike her – as far as Mafia types went, she was surprisingly normal. I might have let my guard drop if I hadn’t known her surname. ‘What’s your name?’ I asked her.
‘Can I know that, at least?’ Anything to distract from the pulsing
Marino
in my head.

‘Sara.’ She feigned a curtsy and I found myself laughing before clamping my mouth shut. God, she was weird, too. What the hell was she doing running errands for my uncle? She should be out being a teenager.

‘Sorry,’ she said, seeing the bewildered curiosity on my face. ‘I’m kind of new at this messenger thing.’ Her expression turned sheepish. ‘I’m supposed to just give you something,’ she continued. ‘I’m not really even supposed to talk to you.’

‘Why?’ My pulse kicked into high gear.

‘Oh I don’t know.’ She smiled. ‘In case I tip over and all the family’s secrets come out.’

‘Right,’ I said, understanding perfectly.

‘Anyways, your uncle wants to see you.’

‘Not to be rude,’ I said, ‘but he could have called me and saved you all this running around …’
And creepy-ass stalking
.

Sara rolled her eyes so intensely her irises practically disappeared. ‘That’s what
I
said. The last thing I wanted to do was freak you out, but your uncle wanted to be extra careful now that he’s got, like, a thousand hits on him. He was hellbent on making sure you weren’t running around with …’ – she faltered and something dark flittered across her face – ‘… with people you shouldn’t be,’ she finished. ‘It’s important that the information reaches you and only you. It can’t leak. At least not yet. I guess this was the only way to ensure that.’

‘I see.’ It all seemed so intense, so clandestine … so dangerous. They didn’t want to shatter the truce yet. They obviously didn’t realize it was already hanging by a thread. I
swallowed hard. I felt like I had my finger in the dam, holding on to a secret that was swelling and swelling. ‘So where is he?’

‘I should go now.’ Sara fished a business card out of her pocket and held it in front of me. ‘Take it,’ she said. ‘Before they fire me!’ She pulled an elaborate mock frown; it dragged at her cheeks, revealing razor-sharp cheekbones. Her eyebrows sank low over her eyes and I was struck then by how familiar she seemed. That expression – I had seen it before.

I gaped at her, forgetting the card hovering between us.

‘What’s the matter?’ She smiled, revealing sharpened canines that spread into a generous display of white teeth.

‘You look …’ I shook my head. ‘You reminded me of someone, is all.’

All the good cheer she had been exuding evaporated in that moment. Her expression soured and she stepped away from me, still holding the card.

‘You insult me,’ she said, dropping her hand.

‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘The comparison was implied,’ she said. ‘I know exactly who you mean.’

I raised my palms in innocence. ‘I’m sorry if I offended you.’

She held up the card again and this time I snatched it from her.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t speak of a Marino and a Falcone in the same sentence. If you learn nothing else, learn that before you walk into Donata’s club. And whatever you do,
don’t
mention her sister.’

‘A club?’ I caressed the glossy card with my fingers, considering the ridiculousness of me parading through some Mafia
club in the city amidst a whole
other
mob family. As if one wasn’t enough. ‘What’s to say I’ll even go?’ I shook my head. ‘I’m not sure I ever want to see my uncle again. He betrayed my mom and me. He doesn’t deserve it,’ I said, surprised at my willingness to confide in someone who had been unashamedly stalking me up until now.

Sara raised her hand to touch my shoulder but then stopped herself in mid-air, thinking better of it. ‘I understand, you know. It’s difficult being pulled in directions you don’t want to go in. And even more so when it’s your family holding the strings. But it will become clear to you, if you let it.’

Um, what?
Part of me was curious. I couldn’t help it. It was like this festering, buzzing thing in the pit of my stomach. ‘I shouldn’t go,’ I said. ‘It’s not my world.’

She dropped her voice, even though no one but me could hear her. ‘You will have to see him, Sophie. Better that you go on your own terms.’

A caution – a whisper of something else. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

She loosed a weary sigh. ‘It means important things are happening and he will need to see you, one way or another, and soon. You should go to him or he’ll come for you, and this place is not safe for anyone right now. Not even me.’

‘You make it sound like I don’t have a choice,’ I said, feeling the chill in her words as they settled around me.

She offered me a half smile. ‘You have the illusion of one, at least. That’s more than I ever had.’ Another failed smile, and then, ‘Please don’t make me do something I don’t want to do …’

Before I could respond she was marching back towards
her car. I stood, speechless, as she sped out of the lot, leaving me wondering about the quiet threat in her final words.

I studied the card in my hands – it was crimson. In the middle a tree with swirling branches was printed in black ink. Underneath, the word EDEN was written in calligraphy. I flipped it over. There was an address, along with the phrase ‘Lose Yourself’. Scrawled along the top, in my uncle’s handwriting, were three simple words: ‘Sophie. Tuesday 11 p.m.’.

I shouldn’t go. Jack had already gotten me in enough trouble. But if I didn’t go to him, he would come to me. He would come
for
me, whatever that meant. And the further I could keep him from Cedar Hill, and my mother, the better.

Something was going on, and if I had to see him I was damn sure going to try and find out what it was. I was sick of being kept in the dark – so close to the things swirling around me, and still out of reach. Enough was enough. For my father’s sake and my own, there were questions that needed to be answered, and I needed to know what my uncle planned to do next – to Nic, to Luca, to all of them, now that he was being sheltered by the Marinos, now that the truce was crumbling around them. I would accept the illusion of my free will and try, at least, to use it to my advantage in some way. Jack had shown up to protect my life once, maybe he would listen to me about the truce. If he walked away now, before any bloodshed – if he left town – he could prevent a war. And surely no one, not even my crazy, morally unhinged uncle, wanted a war.

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE INTERCEPTION

T
he thunder of feet against the pavement startled me from my thoughts. I snapped my head up just in time to see Nic racing towards me. I shoved the card into the back pocket of my jeans.

He skidded to a halt right in front of me. His eyes held a wild, frenzied look. ‘What was that about?’

Surprise at seeing him was quickly replaced by bitter memories of my fight with Luca, and all the things that were said. Nic shouldn’t be here. And yet he was, and this time it definitely wasn’t for me.

I folded my arms and looked around him. ‘Hmm? What was
what
about?’

Nic frowned in a very obvious I-know-you’re-lying kind of way. ‘I saw you talking to Sara Marino just now …’

‘You mean your cousin?’ Their bone structures were identical; she had Nic’s cheekbones and Luca’s mouth.

Nic levelled me with a dark look, funnily similar to the one Sara had just offered me in similar circumstances. ‘Don’t call her that. She’s scum, just like the rest of them.’

Family politics can really feel like they’re sapping the marrow from your bones. Especially when
somehow
you get caught in the middle. I was like a goldfish trying to navigate its way through two opposing schools of sharks. ‘Where did you come from?’ I asked, changing tack.

He gestured behind him, to the side street by the library across the road. Much more subtle than Dom and Gino’s earlier stake-out point. But then again, they were idiots. ‘Calvino and I were watching the diner.’

‘Why?’

Nic narrowed his eyes. ‘We think there’s something in there,’ he said, cagily. ‘Something your uncle needs.’

‘What?’

Nic clamped his mouth shut and frowned.

‘Why are you giving me that dirty look?’ I asked him.

‘How long have you known he’s with the Marinos?’

‘I’m not getting involved in this,’ I told him sharply. ‘I don’t know anything about anyone.’

‘Do you know what this means?’ he said, but I got the impression he wasn’t really asking me. He was asking himself. The implications were huge. They were etched across his face.

‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ I said. ‘You don’t know anything for sure. That girl didn’t mention anything about Jack.’ It was a brazen lie, but better than letting the anger escalate, better
than fuelling the fire.

He pulled his hand through his hair, cupping the back of his neck. ‘Do you have to be so difficult?’ he murmured.

‘Do you ever take a holiday?’ I countered. ‘Like, do any of you just wake up and think “Today feels like a pyjama day.”? Or is it always, “Today is a good day for murdering and stalking.”? Seriously, Nic.
Seriously
.’

He came closer, until I could feel the heat of his body.

‘Seriously,’ he echoed, his voice strained.

I stared at his chest. I didn’t want to look at his eyes. ‘You are so … frustrating.’

Nic loosed a loaded breath, and I caught the edge of his smile in a mistaken glance at his face.
Don’t look at him
. ‘I know that feeling,’ he said, his murmur warming the shell of my ear. I wanted to scream, cry, shove him and then possibly make out with him.
Dammit
. It felt like my whole body was on fire. It occurred to me that I might be on the verge of having a breakdown in the middle of Gracewell’s parking lot. The stakes felt too high all of a sudden.

What was he doing here? What the
hell
was Jack playing at? What was in that diner?

And
where?
I knew every inch of that place.

‘Sophie,
ti prego
.’ Nic’s words were a quiet nudge. He curled his arm around me, pulling me into him. I pressed my fingers against his chest, feeling the quick
th-thump
of his heartbeat. Human, fallible.
Scared
, I realized. Scared of what was to come. Gently, he pressed his forehead to mine. ‘Everything will be OK,’ he whispered, his heartbeat galloping beneath my fingertips. ‘Just tell me what she said to you.’

I made the mistake of looking at him. I could smell the
faint scent of alpine, almost feel the heady blissfulness of the last time we had kissed. I swallowed. ‘She didn’t say anything.’

He inhaled sharply. ‘Fine, let’s talk about something else, then.’

‘Like what?’

His eyes were trained on my lips. His hand moved to the small of my back, the other cupped the back of my neck, pulling me into him. ‘This,’ he said gruffly.