My father was still looking at me, his eyes glassy now. ‘And I’m sorry, Sophie. For not being there when you needed me. For not protecting you.’
I looked up at him. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I was still struggling to understand it all, to resist the sadness filling me up.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said again. ‘For everything.’
The air exploded and he fell to his knees. He grasped at the space between us as another gunshot slammed into his side.
I whipped my head around. Nic was running and shooting.
‘Nic!’ I screamed. ‘Nic, don’t!’
Another gunshot. My father’s face pressed towards the earth. I went to him, lifting his head in my hands, so I could look into his eyes as the life was leaving him.
‘I’m sorry, too,’ I said quickly. ‘Dad, I’m sorry, too.’
His lids fluttered. He opened his mouth but no words came out, only blood.
‘I love you,’ I said, my voice growing shriller, the fear vibrating in it. ‘I love you, Dad.’
A whisper of a smile, his lips wobbling as the blood painted them red, and then he closed his eyes and slumped forward, and I caught him, pressing my head against his and letting my tears soak into his hair.
I pulled myself out from underneath him, laying his body across the grass just a couple of yards away from his brother. Half red, half white. Bullet-riddled and pale as the snow around him. I got to my feet. Nic was standing there, his gun holstered, his expression unreadable.
I turned my face to his, all the things I wanted to say suddenly evaporating into nothingness. My legs were shaking. Luca was racing back up the garden towards us.
Nic held my gaze. ‘He had to go, Sophie. I’m sorry, but he had to go.’
Luca was beside us. He slammed his fist into his brother’s face, screaming at him as he went down. ‘You fucking idiot! You fucking idiot!’
I stumbled backwards, across the bloodstained snow and into the kitchen. I couldn’t see properly any more. My vision was blurring, my head was swimming. Everyone sounded impossibly far away. It had been less than ten minutes, surely, since we had arrived, but it felt like hours. Painful, slow hours. I must have dropped my gun somewhere. I was all wet now too, and my hands were dark red. I was freezing. My teeth were chattering and my legs were shaking so violently I could barely stand.
I reached the sink and anchored myself to it, my stained fingernails clawing at the metal. I bent over it and vomited until I couldn’t stand any longer. Then I sank to my knees and waited for the shaking to stop.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
ESCAPE
Paulie lifted me to my feet. I grabbed his arm and pulled myself up. My face was prickling uncomfortably, and my mouth had run so dry my lips felt like they might crack open. My mind was a tornado of thoughts – too quick to grasp, too loud to shut off.
‘We’re going,’ he said quietly. ‘Donata and Romano got away. All the others are dead.’
I nodded at the ground, my fingers still clutching at his sleeve. All the others were dead. Now there was only Donata. Only Donata. I tried to focus on that one thought, but the others were roaring inside my head. My father’s eyes, his last attempt to smile. Nic, standing there with gun in hand. Felice crumpling to the ground, that knife in Luca’s arm. Jack, staring, unseeing, at the sky.
All the others were dead.
All the others were dead.
And I was alive.
Did I want to be alive?
‘Come on now.’ Paulie slipped his arm around my back. His voice was gentle but firm. We passed by the Marino casualties, and Felice in between them all. My kill. Paulie didn’t look back. Did he know he was dead? Did he know why?
Did it matter?
The Falcones were swarming in behind us.
Behind me, Elena and Nic were arguing in Italian. Luca and Dom were holding CJ up between them. He was bleeding badly from his left leg.
I looked at my feet.
One foot in front of the other.
One foot in front of the other.
Just keep going. Just keep going.
Walk it off.
Walk it off.
I climbed into an SUV and laid my head back until my face was tilted towards the roof. I didn’t want to look at anyone or anything. Someone climbed in beside me. I shut my brain off. I ignored my surroundings. I pictured a white, blank page.
We sped off, one car after another, away from the perfect row of houses, away from all those dead Marinos, away from Felice, away from my father and my uncle lying side by side on snow-tipped grass, and every last crimson shred of my old family.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
HOLLOW
The second I set foot in Evelina, I climbed the three flights of stairs to my bedroom, grabbed a towel and locked myself in the bathroom. I stood under the shower, and watched the steam rise up off my skin, the red smears fall away with the soap. I washed my hair so many times I lost count. I opened my mouth and swallowed the water. I sat down and curled my arms around my body, and let the beads slide down the back of my neck. I wanted to be clean.
I couldn’t make myself clean.
After an eternity, I shut off the water, wrapped myself in a towel and padded back towards my room. The house was eerily quiet. Paulie had said there would be an immediate debriefing when we got home. I had shunned it.
I slipped into sweatpants and a hoodie and climbed into bed. I didn’t know what time it was. The sky was beginning to dim outside. I tried not to think about what they were talking about downstairs. I tried not to think about my father, about Jack, about any of it.
I was bone-tired. Without triumph or contentment. There was no joy in watching Jack fall. There was no relief, as I had hoped. I just felt hollow; empty. I felt broken.
Irreparably broken.
Luca had been right. This wasn’t the answer. But I was so wrapped up in it now, it didn’t matter any more. I had cast my die. I had taken a life. I had lost every last tether to my old identity.
My mind slowed down, and the blackness crept in.
A quiet knock at the door. Luca. I peeked at him from underneath the covers. He had changed into a T-shirt. His arm was bandaged all the way up to the elbow. He was pale, his black hair stark against the rest of him.
He just stood there.
We watched each other, everything we might have said communicated in that one long look.
I’m sorry.
He sat down on the side of my bed, and brushed the hair from my face. ‘You were brave today.’
I blinked up at him. I thought this would unite us, but I could feel the hollowness in him, just as I could feel my own. This was no victory. Even if we had gotten Donata too, the emptiness would have stretched on, devouring the rest of me, until I was nothing.
I was nothing.
I was worse than nothing.
I had nothing.
Luca traced his fingers along my hairline, waiting. Waiting.
I was so tired.
‘I feel empty,’ I told him.