I felt myself go pale. Nic wanted to win me back, and he thought this was the way to do it. I swallowed hard, unwilling to deal with that part of the equation – not while I had a life to take, my own character to prove. I was done putting boys first.
Valentino misread my hesitation. He dropped his hands. ‘You don’t need to take Libero down, Sophie, you just have to deal the killing blow. You can use a knife if you prefer.’
‘No,’ I said, forcing my lips into something that didn’t resemble a horrified grimace. ‘I’ll use a gun. I like … I like guns.’
I like guns? Really, Sophie?
Amusement swept across his features. ‘That makes two of us.’ He sat back in his chair, those canines glinting at me. ‘If you do this, the next time you have a gun pointed at someone, it will be your uncle.’
‘Good,’ I said, baring my teeth right back. I didn’t have to force that one.
He opened another drawer and withdrew a wooden box. The lid, when it came up, was made of cherry wood, the outline of a falcon etched into it. The Falcones really did like to keep everything on-brand. He flipped the lid over and it landed on the desk with a dull thud. ‘This is for you, Sophie. This is for Saturday.’
He lifted a gun out of the box and slid it across the table. It was black and silver, like Nic’s, but it was smaller and the handle was curved. I picked it up, rotating it in front of my face. In such a short time, I had come to handle a gun with ease, the fear that I might accidentally shoot myself no longer holding me back.
I studied the sleek lines, the feel of the handle on the pad of my hands. ‘It’s nice.’
‘It is.’
‘It’s light.’
‘It’s empty.’
I glanced at the box. ‘Where are the bullets?’
Valentino offered me a half-smile. ‘You overestimate my trust in you.’
I frowned at him. ‘You think I’d shoot you? And in this house, of all places?’
Probably shouldn’t have added that last part.
Another glint of those canines. The more time I spent in his presence, the less like Luca he appeared. They used their features completely differently. Valentino didn’t wear empathy, or sympathy, or understanding. He wore astuteness and wry amusement. ‘I don’t take chances,’ he said. ‘Even in this house.’ He tapped the photograph of Libero Marino. ‘Maybe after Saturday, I’ll think differently.’
‘You will,’ I said, focusing on Libero’s dark eyes. ‘After Saturday, everything will be different.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MARINO BLOOD
Fear is a relative thing.
‘Don’t hang up whatever you do. Don’t you dare hang up on me during my hour of need, Sophie.’
It was 9.15 p.m. on Monday night, and I was in my bedroom on the third floor of the Falcone mansion. I was sitting cross-legged on my bed, my unfinished poetry assignment in my lap, my cell phone pressed against my ear. I had just finished two hours of shooting practice with Nic, and even though my trigger finger hurt like hell and my arm was aching, it was worth it.
‘I’m here,’ I assured Millie. ‘I wouldn’t miss this for the world.’
‘Stop laughing at me!’ she whined.
‘I’m not laughing at you.’
‘I can hear the amusement in your voice!’ she said, before descending into another bout of shrieking. It sounded like she was on a rollercoaster. ‘Oh my God, he’s coming right at me! Oh my God, OH MY GOD. HELP ME SOPHIE!’
Millie had been trying to kill a daddy-long-legs for the last fourteen minutes. ‘Run!’ I said, faux panic raising my pitch. ‘Run before he turns you into one too!’
‘Oh Jesus, I think there’s two of them, Soph!’ She fell deadly quiet, and then a gasp dragged in her throat. ‘I think they’re having sex mid-air! Oh, that is so gross.’
‘You insect voyeur, give them some privacy!’
There was a very audible thump on the other end. I imagined her throwing her chemistry book at the wall. ‘Damn,’ she cursed. ‘Missed them.’
I flopped back against my pillows and closed my eyes. I took myself out of Evelina, away from the homework and the guns and the threats and the boys, and imagined I was sitting on Millie’s floral bedspread beside her, watching her nearly twist an ankle as she tried to tackle a couple of harmless insects. ‘Calm down,’ I soothed. ‘They’re more scared of you than you are of them.’
‘Somehow I doubt that, Soph. If they were the least bit scared, they’d stop having sex, but they’re just floating around here, copulating in my face.’
Another thump. Another curse.
I tutted. ‘The nerve.’
‘I don’t think my heart rate has ever been this high,’ Millie panted. ‘I can feel it in my throat. Does that make sense? I can actually feel my pulse choking me.’
‘Why don’t you just learn to coexist peacefully with them?’
‘Oh, shut up, you’re not here,’ she hissed. ‘You don’t know the trauma I’m enduring right now.’
I opened my eyes – the stark white walls seemed to loom inwards, boxing me in. I could hear the distant sound of Elena arguing with someone downstairs. Two rooms over, CJ was playing obnoxiously loud rock music. Little Sal had woken up screaming every night this week. My gaze flicked to the side table, where the photograph of Libero Marino was staring up at me, daring me to look at him. ‘Yeah,’ I said, dispassionately. ‘I can’t possibly imagine it.’
‘You know, I think this is probably the most scared I’ve ever been,’ Millie panted.
‘Really?’
‘Not counting Eden,’ she added as an afterthought. ‘But it’s close.’
Millie was the queen of compartmentalization. Once a thing was over, it was over, in a neat little box in a filing cabinet in the back of her head, never to be disturbed again. I envied that in her. I would need that skill soon.
‘Should I just start vacuuming the air until they get sucked in?’
‘Sure.’ I was looking into Libero’s dark eyes, and wondering what Sara would say to me now. But Sara was dead. The blood war made corpses of good people.
Was Libero a good person?
Did it matter?
Another loud thump, and this time, the accompanying sound of triumph. ‘Yes!’ she whooped. ‘Yes! I got him and his lover! Oh, my God! It’s over. I finally did it!’ Millie was an entirely different version of herself now, all the good cheer returning to her voice. ‘I feel so accomplished.’
What would I feel like when it was done? Would it change me for ever, or would it invigorate me, the way it seemed to invigorate Nic?
‘Soph?’
I was still staring at Libero, tracing that silver scar, studying the quirk of his mouth underneath his facial hair. ‘Huh?’
‘I just want to thank you for your support. It can’t have been easy for you, hearing me in such peril.’
‘No,’ I said, pulling my attention from the photograph. ‘No, it wasn’t.’
‘Well, I’m fine now, so I’m going to hang up and watch Grey’s Anatomy.’
‘Sure, Mil, just use me and then discard me.’