‘MASS SHOOTING ABOARD MAYOR’S YACHT PARTY’ scrolled across the screen.
Evelina covered her mouth with her hands, her scream trapped inside her. I was gripping the seat so hard, my fingernails were ripping into the leather. I stayed like that, glued, as the headlines changed, and slowly, slowly, the death toll mounted. All of them nameless.
I was still staring at the screen when Evelina got to her feet aeons later.
‘Sophie,’ she said, a hand laid on my shoulder. I barely felt it. ‘I think we should call it a night.’
‘Seven,’ I said, my mouth so dry the words croaked out of it. ‘And bodies in the water, too, they think.’
‘Sophie,’ she said.
‘And injured. Lots of injured.’
‘Sophie,’ she said again. ‘Look at me.’
I tore my eyes away from the screen, stared up at her. She was wearing a long pink robe – she had pulled all the threads from the ends, and now they were frayed around her fingers. ‘This is part of your new life, Sophie. Learning to walk away. You can’t look back. We can’t look back. No matter how much we want to.’
Her mouth was moving but all I could hear was the word ‘seven’. Seven. Seven dead already. Seven was a big number. Too big. One was too big.
‘I have to know.’ I lurched forward, willing the screen to change. There were no names released, just faraway images of body bags and police in riot gear rushing to and fro. Ambulances on standby. Sirens blaring. ‘I have to know how many of them are … I need to know who …’
Evelina stood in front of the TV, head tilted to one side as she looked down on me. ‘No, you don’t. Not now. Not tonight.’
Something was heaving inside me, clawing against my insides. ‘He could be dead,’ I told her, my pitch rising. ‘Or in the water, and if he’s one of the bodies in the water then he won’t survive because it’s almost below freezing over there right now and—’
‘Sophie.’ Evelina hunkered down until we were at eye level. Over her shoulder, a helicopter panned over the scene of the shooting – the distant sounds of screams filling up the background. Seven. That was all of them. All the ones I cared about. Luca, Nic, Dom, Gino, Paulie, Elena, CJ.
‘There won’t be much more news tonight, Sophie. A good night’s sleep will do you a world of good. Tomorrow is a brand new day.’ I knew she wasn’t trying to sound like a song from a Disney musical.
Evelina’s hand on mine – warm, firm. ‘Do you understand that this is part of your journey? Part of your recovery? We need to turn off the television, and you need to turn off your mind, and get some sleep. You need to start looking forward, to the future. You need to start concentrating on yourself again.’
‘I – I need to know.’
‘It won’t change anything now.’
And that was the awful truth. It didn’t matter. Because I was here and he was there. We had made our choices. We had said our goodbyes.
‘Tomorrow,’ she said, quietly. ‘There’ll be nothing tonight.
You can’t be in this with them. You can’t do anything. You’re out.’
I was a statue, barely breathing. ‘I’m out.’
‘You’re out.’
She shut the TV off – all the disturbing images and squealing sirens disappearing in one sudden blink. ‘You’re out,’ she said, standing up again. ‘You’re out now.’
‘I’m out,’ I repeated, hoping to harness some kind of relief. There was nothing, just horror and grief, and fear.
‘Go to bed, Sophie. Tomorrow is a new day.’ She swallowed the unsteadiness in her voice. ‘Keep walking away.’
She left me in the dark, staring at a blank screen, all the images bound up inside my head. Seven – and maybe more to come. Dead, dying, freezing in Lake Michigan. All of them. My family.
And what of the Marinos? Had they won in the end with the mayor behind them? Would they come for me next – the final notch on the Falcone belt? Suddenly Colorado didn’t feel like nearly far enough.
The blood war was coming to an end. My family, my identity was gone. And so was the boy I loved.
And me?
I was out.
There was no solace in that.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
PURSUIT
Isank into the cavernous silence, waiting for my legs to move. I fiddled with the bracelet on my wrist. Hope. I didn’t feel any hope. We hadn’t even done the countdown.
Was it even midnight in Colorado? All I could think about was that death toll, creeping up my throat, choking me.
Evelina pottered somewhere overhead, getting ready for bed. Emilia had been asleep for hours.
Outside, a headlamp bathed the street in a sudden flash of bright light. I curled my fingers in my lap, my breath catching in my throat. The light vanished as the car rounded the bend, headlamps shutting off as quickly as they had appeared. The engine rumbled towards the house.
I crossed towards the window, peeked through the curtains at the Mercedes sitting outside Evelina Falcone’s house and felt my knees go weak.
Was this my father’s final coup? Was it a trick all along? Or had fate come to punish me for Felice’s death?
The engine cut out and silence descended once more. My pulse raged in my eardrums. My family was dying hundreds of miles away and a Marino was sitting less than twenty yards from me, ready to complete the final task.
I knew instantly what I had to do. I crept into the hallway and pressed my forehead against the front door. I had done a lot of stuff I wasn’t proud of, committed acts that would haunt me for ever, but in this I could be brave. I could do the right thing.
I slipped outside and shut the front door behind me, hearing the lock shift into place. I marched towards the end of the driveway, until I was close enough to the car and the shadows inside it. Close enough so they could see their final target standing in front of them.
The driver’s door swung open, and I did the only thing I could do. I turned on my heel and ran as fast and as far away from Evelina’s secret as I could, forcing the air into my lungs, waiting for a bullet in the back of my head.
Just not here. Not outside Evelina’s house. Not in their world.
Somewhere on a yacht in Chicago, the Falcones were dying, and somewhere in the middle of a snowy mountain town in Colorado, so was I.
Maybe this was how it was always meant to go down.
I sprinted hard, spurred on by the sound of footsteps behind me.
There was no room for fear, just intent.
I wasn’t running for my life. I was running for Emilia’s life. For Evelina’s life.
And I wasn’t afraid, not any more.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
INTO THE LIGHT
‘Sophie?’ That voice, so familiar and ragged with exhaustion, cut through the night. ‘Sophie, stop!’
Impossible! My mind was playing tricks on me.
I kept running, my heart climbing into my throat.
‘Sophie!’ he huffed, his footsteps almost in time with mine now. He was so close I could hear his breathing on the wind. ‘Please! Sophie!’