“No,” I said, jutting out my chin and shaking my head.
“No?” Luca laughed freely; I gathered it was his real laugh, and it was a strange, silvery sound. “Gracewell, you really are something else. What did you think?” he asked bemusedly. “That we’re gun-toting, knife-wielding avenging angels without fault or sin? You saw Nic put that gun in Robbie Stenson’s mouth. You heard him cock the trigger. Do you really believe that the idea of revenge is above a dynasty of temperamental, hot-blooded, territorial assassins who have appointed themselves the underworld distributors of a kind of karma that shouldn’t be policed by anyone else on this earth? Do you think that everything we do is the right thing?”
He shook his head disbelievingly, and I cursed my na?veté. I had been stupid to get swept up in romantic notions of Nic as some sort of vigilante; he was a killer, plain and simple, prone to the same tempers and temptations as the rest of us.
I slid along the wall so I was out from under Luca. He let me, and I felt a pinch of relief. “You’re not going to hurt me …”
“No,” he replied. “I’m not.”
“Then why are you being so dramatic about it?”
Luca’s voice grew dangerously quiet. “Listen very carefully to what I’m about to say.” I had to watch his lips as he spoke because the shards of turquoise in his eyes were suddenly too intense. “I am the underboss of the entire Falcone dynasty, and if I’m telling you to keep your head down and stop coming around here, then you’d better believe I have a damn good reason. You need to get away from this house and as far away from Cedar Hill as you can. Nic might have deluded himself into thinking he can shield you from what’s going to happen, but he can’t. My father was a made man, and that means your family owes us a blood debt, Sophie.”
A blood debt. The air left my lungs in a swift gasp. Luca’s expression faltered, but he twisted away from me before I could catch the real emotion behind it. When he reached the door again, he turned around. I was rooted to the same spot like he knew I would be.
“Do you know what that jar of honey meant?” he asked.
My stomach twisted at his tone, at his knowledge of the honey. Although I think I had always known, deep down, that there was a connection, it suddenly felt more sinister now than I ever could have imagined.
I shook my head.
“It wasn’t a gift.”
“I didn’t think it was,” I lied.
There was nothing in Luca’s voice or on his face now; it was completely void of emotion. He looked past me into the night sky. “There’s a reason people in the underworld call my uncle Felice ‘the Sting,’ you know.”
I didn’t respond. I just stood there, trying to get my legs to work, as memories of his uncle’s bee-stung face crept across my mind.
“When Felice Falcone gives someone a sample of his black-ribboned honey, it means he’s going to come back for the jar.”
I tried to swallow the tightness in my throat, but it was unyielding.
“And when he does, he brings his gun. That jar of honey is the Falcone Gift of Death.” Luca shifted his gaze again, pinning me beneath his stare. “Let that be your final warning. Get out of here while you can.”
I blanched, my mind whirling frantically. I had all the pieces, I just had to make them fit. “But what are —”
“Talk to your uncle, Gracewell,” Luca cut in. “Or should I say, Persephone?”
Before I could respond, he was slamming the door in one deafening bang, leaving me shaking from head to toe.
I started home, pulling out my phone and dialing my uncle’s number. It rang and rang and went to voice mail. Come on. I could have smashed my phone in frustration. I called four more times in a row and still, nothing. I left two voice mails and finally I sent a text:
I know what the honey meant. We need to talk about the Falcones. Call me ASAP.
I was almost home when my phone started ringing.
“Jack,” I answered. “I think I’m in danger.”
“Sophie, I just read your text. Is everything OK?” His voice was edged with panic, and it was taking hold of mine, too.
“Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling you!” I exploded.
“Focus, Sophie,” he snapped. “I’ll explain all that later. Where are they now?”
“I don’t know,” I said. There were so many of them they could be anywhere, doing anything. I told him about Luca’s threats — about the blood debt and the honey, my words catching between breathless gasps as I spoke.
“Where are you now?” he asked once I had finished.
I skidded up my driveway. “I’m home,” I said.
“Go inside, lock all the doors. I’m sending someone for you.”
“Uncle Jack?” I was struggling with my keys. I only had three on the chain, but they kept frittering from my shaky grasp. “Are they going to hurt me?”
“No,” he answered too quickly. “Of course not,” he added after a beat.
“What’s going on?” The million dollar question, and I still hadn’t put all the pieces together.
“There really isn’t enough time to explain, Sophie.” I could hear him barking orders at someone in the background.
I slotted the right key into the lock. The click inside flooded me with relief. “If you knew I’d be in danger, why would you take off like that?”
Now that my fear was ebbing away, I was getting angry. Jack had been avoiding Cedar Hill like the plague for his own safety and he hadn’t bothered to tell my mother and me to do the same. So much for that promise he had made to my father. I made a mental note to call my mom after I was done with Jack. She was in the city at a series of bridal fittings until tomorrow evening, but I knew she’d freak out at being left out of the loop. Especially this one.