‘Yes,’ said Millie softly. ‘But I’ll go with you. I’ll take you as far as you want.’
‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘You can’t come with me. Not while there’s so much heat on me.’
She grabbed my hand. ‘I’ll take you to the airport. I’ll wait until you get on the plane. You’ll call me when you get off. I’ll be with you every step of the way. And then, in a month or so, when this has all died down, we’ll sort something else out. You just have to lie low for a while.’
‘By myself,’ I said. ‘With a complete stranger.’
‘Better there than here,’ Millie said. ‘There will be no survivors from this, Sophie. You know that. Luca knows that.’
I heaved a shaky breath, the paper still clutched in my fist. Was I really going to pin all my hopes on my father’s word? On someone I had never met before? Was I going to walk away from everyone I knew and loved?
Yes.
My mother’s voice inside my head.
Yes.
My father’s voice.
‘OK,’ I told Millie. ‘OK.’
She reeled backwards. ‘Thank God,’ she said, passing a hand across her forehead. ‘I’m so relieved, Soph.’
There were tears in her eyes now, too. She smiled – it was small and watery. She was pulling me out, and I could tell it was the only way. If I wanted to live – if I wanted to claw my way out of the darkness – I had to go with her. I had to crawl towards my light.
And Millie was my light.
‘I want to say goodbye to him,’ I said. ‘I need to.’
‘Of course you do,’ she said gently. ‘Of course you can say goodbye.’
I turned back towards the house. It felt bigger, colder, more remote. Inside, the assassins were swarming, ready to move again. I started walking towards it, towards the boy I loved. The boy who was locked up in the heart of this place. The boy who would go to his death with his family.
‘I’ll get your things,’ Millie said, following me up the driveway. We entered together. She went one way, and I went another, pushing my feet towards the Don’s office, towards Luca.
Towards goodbye.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
NO RETURN
Ishut the door to the office behind me, and kept my back pressed against it. Luca was already standing up, his arms crossed over his chest as he leant against the desk. He had dark rims under his eyes, and his shoulders were slumped. Only one of us had slept last night.
Anger flared inside me, quashing the jarring need to cry, to reach out to him and beg him to think of some other way for us to be happy. My defences shot up, and I felt myself shutting down.
‘Your plan’s come off,’ I told him. ‘Millie’s outside waiting for me.’
For a long moment, he just looked at me, his expression blank. Then he blinked, slow and heavy, and with a sigh, came his response. ‘Good.’
‘So you’re happy?’ I pressed. ‘You’re happy that I’m leaving? That you don’t have to deal with me again?’
I knew I was being irrational but it hurt so badly, like a pinprick right in the centre of my heart, that he was choosing to send me away.
‘Sophie …’ Even his voice was tired. ‘Don’t twist this.’
‘I’m not twisting it.’
He stood up, his hands dangling by his side. ‘You are,’ he said. ‘You know this is the way it has to be.’
‘We were supposed to do this together, Luca. For my mom, for Valentino.’
‘And look where that got us,’ he said, a spark of life flooding into him. He took a step towards me. ‘Look what happened yesterday. How much you lost. How much it hurt. Did it help? Do you feel happier now?’
‘It will take time,’ I protested, feeling the lie char my tongue. ‘I want to be in this with you. I want to.’
‘No!’ he said. ‘You don’t want any of this. You’re lying to yourself, Sophie. You’re lying to yourself and you’re lying to me.’
My lip wobbled. I bit down hard on it. ‘Don’t tell me how I feel, Luca.’
He splayed his arms. ‘Sophie, you’re so mired in grief you can’t possibly know what you want, or what’s good for you. You scream in your sleep, did you know that? You have all the signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. Your behaviour is erratic. You lose focus easily. You don’t even smile properly any more. Whenever you find yourself laughing you catch yourself or cover your mouth until it stops. I look at you and see sadness in your eyes. I feel it – this sense of wrongness, and it’s because I brought you here and made you think this was the way forward.’
‘You saved me, Luca. I had nowhere else to go.’
‘I was selfish, Sophie. I wanted you near me, but it’s destroying you, and I can’t justify it any more. I want the light to come back to your eyes. I want you to laugh and not worry about who hears you, to smile because you feel real joy.’ He chewed the inside of his cheek, pausing, and not quite looking at me when he said, ‘I want you to love someone who is worthy of your love.’
‘You are worthy,’ I said.
‘No, I’m not.’ He shook his head. ‘This is not the life for you. I’m only sorry it took me so long to do something about it. My grief made me weak. My love for you made me selfish. And I’m sorry.’
I took a step towards him, but I could never bridge the gap now. It was stretching out like a chasm between us. ‘You wanted us to be together. I want that too.’
He clenched his jaw. ‘No.’
‘Yes,’ I said, pushing myself closer to him. ‘That’s what we both want.’
‘I don’t want that any more. I don’t want you here.’
‘I can do it,’ I said, hearing the desperation in my voice. ‘I can do this.’
‘I can’t!’ Luca said. ‘Don’t you understand that, Sophie? I can’t do this. Not with you.’
I faltered, the words tumbling back into my mouth.
He raked his hands through his hair, pulling the black strands away from his face. His eyes were startlingly blue, his lips twisting as he spoke. ‘I am not strong enough to lose you. Not to this life. Not after Valentino.’ His voice cracked. He kept going, ignoring the tears as they slid down his face. ‘I won’t risk a loss that great again knowing I have the power to prevent it.’ He came towards me and I went to him, until we were right in front of each other, the truth between us. ‘If I lose you Sophie, I’ll lose my heart. There’ll be nothing left. I won’t survive it.’
I surged into him, wrapping my arms around him. He pulled me against him, his lips in my hair as I pressed my cheek against his chest and listened to the erratic rhythm of his heartbeat, knowing it would be the last time I ever heard it.
‘I love you,’ he whispered into my hair. ‘I’ll always love you.’
I pulled back, just enough so I could look up at him. The tears were drying on his face already. ‘Come with me,’ I pleaded.
He caught a breath. ‘You know I can’t do that. I can’t leave the family.’
‘You can,’ I urged, pressing my palms against him. ‘Of course you can.’
‘No.’
‘Come to Colorado. Come to—’
He raised his palm in the air. ‘Don’t tell me where you’re going. Don’t tell anyone.’
‘But—’