Then I saw it. In fact, I would have seen it way sooner if I hadn’t been dissecting every square inch of perfection on Luca’s face. By the time I realized where we were, we were almost inside the Cadillac Palace Theatre. And I was standing directly in front of a giant billboard.
Every word in the English language galloped into oblivion. I was reading the words The Phantom of the Opera and I was trying very hard not to burst into tears. I thought I had sorted that annoying little problem out in recent months, but my heart was hammering in my chest, and my breathing had turned to little spiky inhales and I could feel Luca watching me, waiting for my reaction. I clamped my mouth shut and waited for my emotions to stop bouncing around inside me.
Calm down. Focus. It’s just a musical. It’s not a big deal.
Yes, thank you, rational Sophie.
No. It’s not just a musical. It’s the musical. He’s taking you here because your mother never got a chance to bring you.
‘Sophie?’ Luca was leaning against the wall, his head cocked to one side, watching me. Concern rippled across his forehead. ‘You haven’t said anything.’
Oh God. I could feel my lip quivering.
His hand came to the small of my back – a gentle touch, a current of warmth in my skin as he drew me towards him. The world faded away, until it was just the two of us.
‘Are you happy?’ he asked me quietly. ‘If you’re not happy, we can go.’
‘I’m happy,’ I said. ‘I’m so happy I think I might cry.’
He swiped a renegade tear from my cheek. I averted my gaze, clenching my nails into my palms to stop another one from sneaking out.
‘Are you crying because you have to endure this with me?’ he asked, delicately. ‘That’s it, right?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘You’re just the worst.’
He pulled two tickets out of his pocket and pressed them into my hand. I wrapped my arm around his back, and he kissed the top of my head, his breath ruffling my hair. ‘Happy birthday, Cuore mio.’
If anyone would have told me twelve months ago that I would be in a theatre, watching a giant chandelier swinging towards the ceiling as epic music shook the walls around me and thudded right down inside my heart while sitting shoulder to shoulder with the former boss of the entire Falcone dynasty and actually enjoying myself, I would have called them a dirty liar.
How quickly the world can change.
Months after being shot in the shoulder – after staring death in the face and rolling out from underneath it, after burying my mother and my father, relinquishing every tie to an identity I never wanted and clawing my way out of an underworld that once threatened to consume me, Luca had ignited something I thought I’d lost for ever. The soaring music, the drama, the passion, the sense of being elsewhere and other, of feeling safe and happy and thoroughly content. I felt joy, sitting in that dark room, my arm laid on top of his, our fingers grazing, our heads bent together. When the last song hit its crescendo, my eyes filled with tears, and I let the music sweep me up, away from the badness of the last year, and all the darkness it had left behind. I felt it then – the keenest sense of possibility – surrounding me. This other life – with creativity and art and music and love.
We emerged feeling giddy and breathless. I had a thousand different thank yous waiting on my tongue but they all jumbled together, so instead I grabbed Luca’s hand, pulled him around the side of the theatre and kissed him until I lost my breath.
‘Well,’ he murmured, his finger tracing a line along my bottom lip. ‘I should take you to the theatre more often.’
‘Let’s go home.’ Back to a small, inconsequential town on the edge of Wisconsin that would do for now. Back to not yet.
He wove his arm around my back, his fingers trailing along my waist as we walked. ‘My thoughts exactly.’
We hopped out on to the sidewalk, our footsteps made quicker by desire, our words lost to the thoughts in our head. At the next crossing, we hovered inside a huddle of theatregoers scattering into the evening, and I don’t know quite how, but I sensed it before I saw it. I felt it in the hairs on the back of my neck, in the goosebumps rippling along my bare arms. This feeling that the world was dimming, just a little.
We watched as a familiar black SUV rolled to a stop on the street beside us, the traffic light reflecting bright crimson along the hood of the car.
‘Luca.’ The word lodged in my throat, my heart climbing up to meet it.
He bristled against me, his hand moving behind his back. We stayed frozen like that until the traffic light turned green.
Slowly, the SUV started to move, and I wondered whether it was all in my head – the feeling that we were being watched as it rolled away from us.
When the SUV had disappeared down another side street, Luca released his grip on the gun inside his waistband.
‘Just a coincidence,’ he breathed.
‘A coincidence,’ I echoed.
He took my hand, pulling me with him. We ran all the way back to the car, the dying sun hot on our backs, Nic’s face seared into my mind.
We were safe.
We were together.
We were running.
Always running.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Phew! We made it! Well … most of us.
Publishing this trilogy with Chicken House has been a dream come true. Thank you to everyone at base for being so magical and enthusiastic. To Barry, for being the wizard at the helm of the operation, for taking a chance on me and giving me the freedom to take this story to weird, wonderful (and dark) places. Rachel H, Jazz, Laura S and Laura M, thank you for getting behind Sophie (and Luca) from Day One and staying behind them all the way through. Rachel L and Kesia, I couldn’t have asked for a better editorial team. I would have you guys in my mafia family any day!
Thank you to Claire Wilson, who might just be the best thing that ever happened to me. I will be forever grateful for your kindness and wisdom. Thanks to my fellow Coven members, who are some of the most supportive, talented and hilarious people I’ve ever met. I feel very lucky to get to hang out with you and even luckier to get to call you my friends.
Thanks to my mom who raised me on a steady diet of musicals, plays and books – and thanks to my dad, who she made pay for them. I could go on and on about how deep my gratitude to both of you runs but I already did that at the end of Inferno and I don’t want either of you getting a big head! Colm and Conor, as always, thanks for all your enthusiasm, humour and kindness. You’re a couple of real sweet kids.
Thank you to my entire family, all the many branches that stretch far and wide. You have become the hype-masters for these books around the country and beyond. A thousand thank yous to all my amazing friends, who are the funniest, coolest people I know. Most of you are SO weird. And I love it.
Thank you to the bloggers, booksellers and librarians who have supported this series so ardently, and finally, to the readers, who have championed Sophie every step of the way. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I hope this story is a fitting end to her journey.
P.S. Thank you to those of you who helped me plot all of these fictional murders. You know who you are … And now I know what you’re capable of.?