In a millisecond, everything fell into place. There was a whole fleet of Falcones. I recognized Dom, Gino and Elena, but there were others – women with long, dark hair, polished men in suits, young teenagers, and even an old man bent over a walking stick.
Valentino was seated in the middle, his head tilted at the scene, his fingers steepled in front of him. On the grass, Sara was on her knees. Her hands were bound behind her back. Her head was lolling forwards, a stream of blood falling from her lips.
CJ was standing on one side of her; Felice was on the other. They were like chaperones, but there was nothing protective about their behaviour. Felice had a gun in his hand and he was brandishing it above her head. He was gesticulating at his rapt audience, his lips curving into his cartoon smile. This was his theatre, and she was his show.
I reached the glass door and my fingers curled around the handle. I pulled it and it swung open with a soft whoosh. Luca flung his arm around my waist and clamped his other hand against my mouth as he pulled me against him. We froze like that, half-in, half-out of the Falcone mansion.
He brought his lips close to my ear. ‘Don’t say a word.’
His breath shivered all the way down my spine.
Felice was speaking. ‘For Calvino, our fallen brother, and for everything he stood for … justice, honour, morality … we will have vengeance. We will make Donata Marino suffer as we have suffered.’ He brought the butt of the gun down and smacked it across Sara’s face. It knocked her sideways and she stayed that way, whimpering into the grass.
Luca’s hand stifled my reaction. He was trying to drag me backwards, but I was writhing against him. ‘Let me handle this,’ he urged. ‘You’ll only make it worse.’
Felice handed the gun to CJ, but when he spoke, it was to the line of Falcones watching him. ‘My boy, it is time for you to avenge your father. You must step up now and become the man he raised you to be.’ He peeled his lips back, his teeth glistening like fangs in the moonlight. ‘And what better way to begin than like this? After all, l’uccisione è personale.’
Dom was actually clapping. Somewhere down the line, a girl hollered her approval. The others stood in silence, waiting for Calvino Junior to do something.
I was being hoisted away from the scene. I tried to catch Millie’s eye. She was free to act; free to do something. But she was statue-like and bug-eyed as she watched the garden scene unfold. Her skin had taken on a distinct green hue, and it looked like there was a very real chance she would keel over.
Come on, Mil. Snap out of it.
In the garden, CJ was holding the gun limply in his hand. He looked around him, as if searching for something in the family. No one came forward. No one told him to go upstairs and grieve with his little brothers. They just stood there, waiting. This was his test, and he had to pass it.
Sara’s cries spluttered into the earth, her fingers fisted in the grass. She was too weak to stand, too frightened to turn her face towards the Falcones.
I was still grappling with Luca. I tried to bite his hand but I couldn’t get the right angle. Licking it wouldn’t do any good. We weren’t in middle school.
‘Come on!’ said Felice, gripping CJ by the shoulders. He pressed the heel of his shoe against Sara’s side and pushed. She faltered, swaying to the side. ‘I was just a few years older than you when I made my first kill,’ said Felice to CJ, but it was loud enough so everyone could hear him, so everyone could bask in his glory. ‘Two kills,’ he corrected himself. ‘I wiped out the Marino boss and his whimpering wife with just two bullets. And now here we are, in another generation with the truce broken once more and another Marino cowering at our feet. You can do as I did, and cripple that insidious family, take the boss’s jewel from her arsenal.’ He raised his gaze to the crowd, a lazy smile flitting across his face. ‘Poetic, is it not?’
CJ, who had been looking up at Felice with wide, unblinking eyes, snapped his head back into place. Something seemed to click inside him. He got down on his knees and leant over the girl. His mouth twisted, cruel and biting, and I saw shades of Felice in him – a whisper of the man he would become if he did what was expected of him tonight. CJ raised the gun high above him, like he was going to shoot at the sky. And just as Luca managed to swing me around, away from the scene, he brought the gun down hard. There was a crack, and this time Sara’s scream was a raw, animalistic screech.
‘Bel lavoro!’ shouted someone.
‘For Calvino!’
‘Tale padre tale figlio!’
Felice’s voice rang out. ‘We have only just begun.’
My tears were falling over Luca’s hand. He was half carrying me from the room. There were more whoops coming from the garden. They would kill her, right there in their self-made amphitheatre.
I had to do something.
I made myself go limp. My legs dragged along the floor and I flopped over Luca’s arm like a rag doll. We dipped towards the ground together.