Where was that goddamn bus?
Anger surged inside me, but if I opened my mouth to say the things I really wanted to say I’d explode, and right now I just wanted to be at home with my mother, coming up with a plan. I folded my arms, like that could keep it all inside me. ‘I do not want to talk to you, Luca.’
I could feel the cold prick of his stare on the side of my face. I watched his hands in my periphery, picking at a thread in his dark jeans, settling and unsettling on his lap. ‘I didn’t kill her, Sophie.’
I turned away so my ponytail whipped out behind me and almost slapped him in his face. ‘You may as well have.’
‘No.’ His voice turned hard, and I imagined frustration drawing his brows together. ‘You do not get to paint me as a guiltless monster. Don’t give me a label I haven’t earned. I have enough deserved ones already.’
I didn’t answer. After a couple of seconds he got up, rounded the bench and hunkered down on the other side of me so I was looking right at him. His hands gripped the wood beside my thigh. Every time I tried to look somewhere else, he jerked his head and held my gaze. ‘Look at me. Listen to me.’
‘Don’t tell me what to do,’ I snapped. ‘How many times do I have to tell you: I don’t answer to you!’
‘I don’t care who you answer to. I just need you to know this.’ He raked a hand through his hair. ‘I tried to release Sara. Valentino wanted her as a bargaining chip, not collateral damage. She was still a teenager.’
‘She was innocent,’ I said, hearing the faintest quiver in my voice.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Una innocente. She wasn’t supposed to die. OK? I promise.’ His voice turned to a growl. ‘I promise.’
I swallowed hard. There was something earnest resonating in Luca’s promise – a realness that was always absent from the ones Nic made – but still, how could I believe him? Sara was dead and Luca was an assassin – convincing and dangerous. He was a rose with thorns, just like his brother. I had fallen for that before.
‘Did she jump into that lake by herself, Luca?’
He fell back on his haunches, a shadow falling across his features. ‘CJ just snapped. Delayed grief, or whatever. Felice had riled him up and then he had the gun pointed at her and she was gone and I couldn’t help her and I have her blood on my hands, and I know that. I know what Sara was at her core – she was nothing like the rest of us. Believe me, I hate myself for playing a part in her death, for not being able to stop a twelve-year-old with a gun, a twelve-year-old who shouldn’t even have a gun, the same way I couldn’t stop my brothers when they were twelve, so you can take your anger and hatred and pile it all the way up on top of mine if you want … but don’t for a second think it’s not eating me up inside.’
He got up and crossed back to where he was sitting, but this time he didn’t look at me when he dropped on to the bench. He dipped his chin to his chest and stared at his hands, and I saw in him the boy I had seen in Valentino’s portrait a long time ago. The person he really was – someone at odds with his life and trapped by a family much bigger than his dreams and desires. Grief surrounded him, and the only thing to do was keep on killing until the tallies were even. But that was the thing: they never would be.
I relented, not wanting to twist the knife any further, knowing now that he was already twisting it himself. ‘You’re not a monster.’
I caught the curl of his lip, the way his teeth nipped hard on it as though to draw blood. ‘What would you know?’ he said, his voice quiet.
‘I know you’re kind,’ I said, feeling a strange urge to comfort him, to soothe the emotional wounds he was inflicting upon himself.
‘Only in comparison to the others.’
‘No,’ I said, feeling surer now that what I was saying was true. ‘You’re like her.’ I remembered the last conversation I had shared with Sara, the way her eyes blazed when she spoke of a different life, another kind of existence she would forever be denied. He must have seen that in her, too. That’s why he picked her up that night, why he wanted to set her free. ‘You have the same heart.’
He snapped his head up and his eyes were so blue I almost lost my train of thought. ‘Are you trying to make it worse, Sophie?’
I offered him a sheepish smile. ‘I’m actually trying to make it better.’
‘You are not doing a good job.’
I shrugged. ‘It’s not exactly my forte. I’m good at changing the subject, though. Speaking of which, what the hell are you doing here?’
‘My grandfather’s brother was murdered in here yesterday.’ He gestured behind him. ‘Paperwork. I got the short straw.’
‘I heard about that.’ I tried to ascertain his level of grief but he seemed calm, his expression matter-of-fact. ‘I’m sorry.’
He tipped his head back so he was staring at the sky. ‘I’m sure you can guess what I’m about to say.’
‘“It is what it is,”’ I said, fighting the urge to roll my eyes. ‘It’s a pile of crap, is what it is.’