‘We wanted to give you a way out,’ she insisted. ‘I wanted to more than anything, sweetheart.’
Something shifted inside me as Nic’s forgotten words rose to the surface, wrapping around me. The world got very dark all of a sudden. ‘I’m bound by blood, Mom.’ My voice fell deathly quiet. ‘There is no way out.’
‘Oh, Sophie.’ She dragged her hands across her face. ‘Do you know that you’re the most important thing to me in the whole world? I love you.’
‘I know,’ I said, defeated. ‘I know that. I love you too.’
I sank to the floor and she sank with me. The key fell to the carpet between us. ‘I was trying to protect you,’ she said, clasping my hands in hers.
‘And I was trying to protect you,’ I told her. ‘And now we’re screwed.’
She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hands. ‘No.’ She got up and pulled me with her. ‘We’re going. We have to go. We have to go tonight.’
‘They’ll find us, Mom. There’s no way out of this life. Don’t you get it? Jack’s got all that money in the diner. He’s got all the resources in the world.’ I picked up the key and brandished it between us. ‘He’s got his damn safe in our diner. Donata’s watching us. I don’t know what the Falcones are going to do any more than you do, but I know we don’t have enough to get away from them. We won’t be able to hide. I was supposed to choose, and I chose wrong.’
Nic’s words rang in my head. She’s a fucking Marino.
The look on Luca’s face.
My mother took the key from my hand. ‘Well, then, let’s get the resources,’ she said, her voice spiking. ‘If they’re going to treat us like Marinos then let’s act like them.’
I eyed the key. ‘No way.’
‘Yes way,’ she said. ‘It’s the only way.’
‘We can’t take their money!’ I hissed. ‘Are you crazy?’
‘Yes! I’m crazy with worry and this is the only way out. Let’s take it and get the head start we need.’
I shook my head. ‘Dad would never—’
‘Your father isn’t here!’
We huddled around that key, scrolling through all the ways tonight could blow up in our faces. The underworld was moving around us. We had to go. Eat or be eaten.
‘It’s too dangerous,’ I whispered. ‘The Falcones are watching the diner. They’ll kill us.’
‘No, they won’t. They won’t suspect us. They’re looking for Jack, remember?’
‘You didn’t see them.’ I thought of the horror in Nic’s eyes. The moment he had looked at me like I had betrayed him. ‘You don’t know what they’re capable of.’
She stuffed it in her pocket. ‘I know the stakes, Sophie. We’ve got a little time. Donata thinks you’re on side, remember? She said she’d come here first to brief you. And she hasn’t yet. “Soon” is not tonight.’
‘I’ll go, then. You keep watch and I’ll go in.’
She shook her head. ‘You’re not a thief, Sophie.’
‘Neither are you!’
‘This is my job. I’m supposed to protect you. I’m supposed to keep you safe.’
I had a sudden flash of Sara Marino trying to claw the blood out of her arms at Eden.
There’s this blood in us.
‘No. I’m the Marino, remember?’
She shut her eyes tight. ‘You’re not going in there, Sophie.’
‘Fine,’ I huffed. ‘Then neither are you.’
‘Sweetheart …’
‘It’s way too dangerous. Let’s just get in the car and go. Leave the money where it is. We’ll find another way.’
There was a heavy silence. She chewed her lip, thinking. And then, at last, her shoulders dipped and she said, ‘Pack a bag. We’ll discuss it when we’re in the car.’
I left the pieces of my father’s past, the broken secret he had kept from me, and went into my bedroom and threw my whole life into a suitcase.
I was fishing a pair of shorts out from underneath my bed when the front door slammed. My heart slammed too.
My mother had reversed out of the driveway by the time I got downstairs. She sped away from me, leaving me screaming at the back of her car as the first drops of rain began to fall, heralding the storm.
She was going to rob the safe.
They were going to kill her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE SAFE
I didn’t care about the rain on my cheeks or the wind whipping through my hair as I charged through the darkness. I didn’t think about the lightning ignite the sky or hear the thunder clap like drumfire. Houses passed in blurs, the trees streaking green beneath the street lights.
I ignored the crippling need to stop, to bend at the waist and vomit. My exertion ebbed, vibrating like needle-points in my legs as I pushed myself towards the diner, towards my mother. I was running faster than I ever had before, every step pulsing through my ribs, calling old wounds to the surface.
I skidded into the parking lot. My mother’s car was parked in the furthest corner of the lot, nestled where the street lights weren’t shining. It wasn’t exactly the perfect disguise, but she had hidden it, at least. There was no sign of the Falcones but I wasn’t dumb enough to think they weren’t there somewhere, if they weren’t already inside Gracewell’s. If I had learnt anything these past few weeks, it was to expect the unexpected.