My composure faltered, his words breaking through my defences. ‘Shut up!’ I snapped. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about!’
‘Sophie,’ Nic urged from somewhere over my shoulder. ‘Just do it. End him.’
‘End me!’ Libero shouted. ‘End me the way you ended your own mother! No wonder she didn’t want to live in this world any more. No wonder she ran into those flames. Away from you!’
My finger was on the trigger. The world had fallen still. It was just me, Libero Marino and all that malevolent hatred spewing from his lips, wrapping around me, taunting me. ‘Shut your mouth,’ I said.
‘Your hand is shaking.’ Libero’s lips peeled back to reveal bloodstained teeth. ‘I can see it.’
‘Sophie,’ Nic warned. ‘He’s going to bleed out.’
My hand was shaking. But my aim was still squarely on Libero’s sweating forehead. I bared my teeth at him, feeling the ferocity in my face. ‘I’m going to shoot you now,’ I told him. ‘And you deserve it.’
His grin faltered. His eyes were big, so big. Just like Sara’s. I watched his Adam’s apple flare as he swallowed, and I could almost taste it – that feeling of fear. Bone-chilling fear. He knew I was really going to do it. And it made me feel … powerful. It made me feel completely unlike myself. And somewhere deep down inside, that terrified me.
‘Kill me, just how you killed my sister.’ His words tripped and slurred, the energy petering out of him rapidly now. ‘What’s one more betrayal?’
My heart clenched. My finger faltered on the trigger. Come on, Sophie. Come on.
‘Now, Sophie.’ I could sense Nic bristling. ‘Stop letting him talk.’
Libero’s head flopped forwards, his weakness dragging his body towards the ground. There was so much of his blood around him already. I could smell it. He forced his head up, his eyes glassy and red. ‘Shoot me,’ he said. ‘You fucking coward.’
‘Shoot him!’ said Dom. ‘What the hell are you waiting for?’
‘Do it,’ urged Nic.
So shoot! Shoot him!
I was freezing up. I was staring so hard at his face my eyes were starting to water. This face that was so like Sara Marino’s. My father’s dimples. My own fear reflected back in his eyes, hastily painted over with false bravado. Time slowed to an agonizing pace. A bead of sweat dripped into my eye.
Shoot him. You have to shoot him.
My hand was shaking.
Your mother would be so proud of you.
I took another step towards him, trying to propel myself into the deed.
Do it, you coward. Show him that he’s wrong.
He’s dead either way.
I tried to press my finger against the trigger.
I can’t. I can’t do it.
The door behind me swung open and the silence exploded. Sharp, angry shouting swept into the room behind me. My attention splintered in two. My arm lagged. My breaths were coming in quick short gasps. The adrenalin was seeping out of me and panic was rising in its place. Libero was bleeding out in front of me, and all my bullets were still in my gun.
Then there was a hand on top of mine, trying to prise the weapon from my grasp, and Luca’s voice, calm and insistent in my ear.
‘Give me the gun, Sophie.’ His other hand pressing gently against my back. I was still staring at Libero, his body folded over into a crumpled heap. ‘Give it to me.’
A prick of relief in the back of my eyes. My grip faltered, the cool sleek metal leaving my skin.
Nic was yelling at me. ‘Kill him! Kill him now, Sophie! You have to do it. She has to do it, Luca!’
Luca yanked me backwards. A gunshot rang out right beside my head just as Dom and Nic roared together.
‘Donata!’
I felt the vibrations of Luca’s recoil as the bullet sailed through the air towards Libero. And then, through the haze and the panic and the thwack of Libero’s body hitting the floor, came the sound of Donata Marino’s screams as her bullet sailed past my left ear.
I jumped away from Luca, stumbled backwards, as Donata marched through the doorway, her gun raised. Her trench coat was buttoned all the way to her pointed chin, her hair coiled tightly in a bun. Her foundation was thick and her eyes were over-rimmed in kohl. She looked like her sister’s shadow – her sharp features and cruel mouth as terrifying as the gun she wielded. Her lips were a slash of crimson in the dimness. Luca lunged to the side as her next bullet exploded in the space between us. Nic grabbed the back of my coat and yanked me towards the back door, pushing Dom with him while Luca opened fire on Donata, narrowly missing her next bullet. He backed up after us, using the moment Donata noticed Libero’s corpse face down beside the bar as a distraction. We sprinted back through the fire escape as her howls filled up the bar behind us like an aria.
‘Il mio bambino! Mio figlio!’
‘Move, move!’ Nic snapped, as we fell into formation and ran from The Sicilian Kiss like our lives depended on it.
We dropped into the parking lot, Luca out in front and Dom close behind him. Nic came around the back of me for extra cover as we sprinted towards the SUVs, our guns raised in every direction.
‘She’ll have backup!’ Luca called over his shoulder. ‘Keep your eyes open!’
A flurry of shots exploded around us, and I didn’t have to look back to know that Donata was out on the roof of The Sicilian Kiss, spending all of her bullets on us. We could all hear her wailing into the night sky. ‘Ti scuoierò!’ Shot. ‘E ti ucciderò!’ Shot. ‘Molto Lentamente!’ Shot.
‘Zigzag!’ Luca roared. We covered our heads, panting as we skidded between a wave of bullets. We reached the SUV, flung the doors open as shields and threw ourselves inside, gasping and shaking. A bullet ricocheted off the windscreen – bulletproof glass – as Luca slammed his foot against the accelerator and sped out of the parking lot.
Donata’s screams might have been thundering through the world outside, but all I could hear was Libero sneering inside my head, You failed! You failed! You failed! You’re a coward!
I knew he was dead. But he would always be alive in my head, taunting me, freezing me in that moment where I had faltered.
I failed.
I was a coward.
And now I had to face my punishment.
PART II
‘We … are all in the same boat, upon a stormy sea.
We owe to each other a terrible and tragic loyalty.’
G. K. Chesterton, All Things Considered
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION
Nic and Luca sat in stony silence up front, the car moving so fast it felt like we might break the sound barrier. Dom was beside me in the back seat, on the phone to Paulie, who had escaped to a nearby restaurant to wait out the Marino ambush. They were still trying to figure out what went wrong with their intelligence, how they didn’t know the Marino boss was planning to show up when she did.
Dom just kept asking Paulie the same thing, his voice tinged with a strange mixture of confusion and awe. ‘What the hell was she even doing there?’ By the sounds of it, Paulie wasn’t coming up with any good answers, because Dom kept saying over and over again, ‘She must have known we were coming. She must have.’