‘Do I have a choice?’ Surly, but not unbendable. It was a delicate line.
‘No. Either you come or she’ll kill you.’ A sigh, a flicker of the man I used to know. ‘And we’ve lost enough already.’
We’ve. I contemplated lunging at him and clawing his eyes out. I might get one before he wrenched me off him.
‘You’ll have to come now,’ he said.
Focus. I stamped my foot. ‘This is so unfair.’
‘Hurry up and pack a bag. I’ll wait down here.’
I jutted out my chin. ‘Can’t we just stay here?’ The idea of having him anywhere near the last place my mother had laughed and lived made me want to scream, but he would expect some opposition to the move, and if I didn’t dig my heels in, he’d get suspicious and trail me while I packed.
‘We’re going somewhere nicer,’ he said impatiently. ‘Somewhere closer to the trade.’
‘Where?’ I whined.
‘Will you just pack? I’ll tell you later. Libero and Marco are waiting in the car.’
I couldn’t escape. Double crap. At least he hadn’t brought that murderous skeleton near my mother’s house. I didn’t know how much more my wavering restraint could take, and the idea of coming at Donata Marino with a kitchen knife was just too tempting.
‘Fine.’ I trudged back upstairs, blinking back the tears of rage that spilled freely down my face once I was turned away from him.
I hovered in my bedroom, staring out the window as hopelessness wrapped itself around me. My eyes fell on the wooden trellis crawling up the back wall – the last of my mother’s garden projects. Slowly, carefully, the threads of a plan unfolded in my head. I’d have to go out back. It was my only chance – my last chance.
I opened the window in my room and swung my already-packed bag out, angling my arm so that it landed in a bush to the right of the kitchen, away from the window. Then I stuffed an old rucksack with towels and sweatshirts to make it appear full. I stomped around for a while, slamming my feet against the floor above Jack so he’d think I was having a tantrum.
After ten minutes, I came downstairs. He hadn’t moved from the hallway. He stopped scrolling through his phone and registered the bag as I dropped it by his feet, taking care not to be any nearer to him than I had to be. I scooted backwards, arms folded across my chest. ‘There.’
‘Good,’ he said, stowing his phone in his pocket. ‘You’re cooperating. I knew you’d come around. It was all just a horrible accident, Soph. The wrong person died, but don’t worry, we’re going to take another run at those bastards, and this time they won’t get out alive.’
I sneered internally. He obviously didn’t know I was the one who had rescued them. Man, he was such a moron.
I forced a shrug. ‘Whatever. I can’t make rent by myself, and we both know I have nowhere else to go.’
The ghost of a smile flickered across his face, and I caught myself wondering what it would be like to cut it out of him and watch the colour drain from his lips. I smiled too as the image danced in my brain. One day I would find out.
Jack unclasped the front door and lugged my bag over his shoulder. ‘Ready?’ he asked, his tone already lifting.
I stalled. ‘I need to pee.’
His brows lifted. ‘What? Why didn’t you go upstairs?’
‘I was too busy rushing for you!’
‘Fine. Hurry up.’
I locked myself into the bathroom under the stairs and assessed the window. It was too small to fit through; I had overestimated my tininess. Dammit. I ran the tap and cursed loudly enough so he could hear me. Then I shouted through the door, ‘Can you please get me a toilet roll from the cupboard in the upstairs hallway?’
My heart thudded in my chest.
Please please please.
There was a loud, pointed sigh and then the heavy plodding of his feet on the stairs. I eased open the bathroom door, shut it quietly behind me and darted into the kitchen and out the back door. I had seconds at best.
I grabbed my rucksack from where it had landed, and catapulted towards the end of the garden. I threw the bag over the wall and started climbing, my feet scaling the trellis, my hands clawed tight against the concrete. I was halfway over the wall, my feet scrabbling against wood on one side and my fingers clutching stone on the other, when Jack’s voice rang out behind me.
He was running and I was struggling, heaving my body over the wall until it scraped along the top as I slithered over it. And then he was below me, lunging for my foot and wrapping his fingers around my ankle. With a primal shriek, I kicked out, anchoring myself with my hands as I bucked against him. He held firm. With my free hand over the wall I grabbed Luca’s switchblade from my back pocket and flicked it open. Jack yanked me by the ankle. I slipped towards him with the blade outstretched, and slashed it as hard as I could across his face.