Inferno (Page 42)

I shook Nic off and pushed by Luca. He tried to block me but I shoved him away. He stumbled, caught off guard, and without formulating any semblance of a plan, I started sprinting towards the noise.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

REVENGE

I weaved towards the back of the house. It was like a sinister treasure hunt: follow the desperate wails. But Nic and Luca were both faster than me and I didn’t know the layout of the mansion. Luca caught me halfway through the kitchen. He circled me, blocking my way through.

Behind him, the kitchen continued through an archway, widening into a glass conservatory that jutted on to the garden patio. Felice’s beehives dotted the lawns beyond. I could see movement – people – and when the next scream rang out it felt unbearably close.

‘Move,’ I said.

Luca started to push me backwards. ‘This isn’t your concern, Sophie.’

Sara screamed again.

I gritted my teeth. ‘I said move.’

‘What exactly are you planning to do?’ asked Luca, playing for time, moving to the side slightly so that my view was blocked. ‘You know you can’t get involved in family business.’

‘I’ll call the police, Luca. Don’t think I won’t.’

He grimaced. ‘You know where that would get you.’

I did know. In the ground. ‘How could you let this happen again?’

Nic took a step towards me, blocking out Luca. He was obviously going to try and reason with me. He made his voice go soft, a whisper of intimacy, a moment shared between us. ‘Sophie, you both need to get back to safety and forget about all this. We should have brought you somewhere else, I know that now, but it’s too late to change it.’

His eyes were dark like molten chocolate. Lips, slightly parted, breathed warm air into the space between us. Nic had gotten the Eden card from me by acting like this. Two could play that game.

I looked at my feet, biting my lip in false reflection. ‘I don’t know …’ I murmured.

His shoulders dipped and he relaxed his stance. I pivoted around him, shooting for the double doors. I skidded into the conservatory. Outside, a sensor light was bathing the garden in harsh white light. I was just close enough to catch a glimpse of Sara Marino’s purple hair when she screamed again.

In a millisecond, everything fell into place. There was a whole fleet of Falcones. I recognized Dom, Gino and Elena, but there were others – women with long, dark hair, polished men in suits, young teenagers, and even an old man bent over a walking stick.

Valentino was seated in the middle, his head tilted at the scene, his fingers steepled in front of him. On the grass, Sara was on her knees. Her hands were bound behind her back. Her head was lolling forwards, a stream of blood falling from her lips.

CJ was standing on one side of her; Felice was on the other. They were like chaperones, but there was nothing protective about their behaviour. Felice had a gun in his hand and he was brandishing it above her head. He was gesticulating at his rapt audience, his lips curving into his cartoon smile. This was his theatre, and she was his show.

I reached the glass door and my fingers curled around the handle. I pulled it and it swung open with a soft whoosh. Luca flung his arm around my waist and clamped his other hand against my mouth as he pulled me against him. We froze like that, half-in, half-out of the Falcone mansion.

He brought his lips close to my ear. ‘Don’t say a word.’

His breath shivered all the way down my spine.

Felice was speaking. ‘For Calvino, our fallen brother, and for everything he stood for … justice, honour, morality … we will have vengeance. We will make Donata Marino suffer as we have suffered.’ He brought the butt of the gun down and smacked it across Sara’s face. It knocked her sideways and she stayed that way, whimpering into the grass.

Luca’s hand stifled my reaction. He was trying to drag me backwards, but I was writhing against him. ‘Let me handle this,’ he urged. ‘You’ll only make it worse.’

Felice handed the gun to CJ, but when he spoke, it was to the line of Falcones watching him. ‘My boy, it is time for you to avenge your father. You must step up now and become the man he raised you to be.’ He peeled his lips back, his teeth glistening like fangs in the moonlight. ‘And what better way to begin than like this? After all, l’uccisione è personale.’

Dom was actually clapping. Somewhere down the line, a girl hollered her approval. The others stood in silence, waiting for Calvino Junior to do something.

I was being hoisted away from the scene. I tried to catch Millie’s eye. She was free to act; free to do something. But she was statue-like and bug-eyed as she watched the garden scene unfold. Her skin had taken on a distinct green hue, and it looked like there was a very real chance she would keel over.

Come on, Mil. Snap out of it.

In the garden, CJ was holding the gun limply in his hand. He looked around him, as if searching for something in the family. No one came forward. No one told him to go upstairs and grieve with his little brothers. They just stood there, waiting. This was his test, and he had to pass it.

Sara’s cries spluttered into the earth, her fingers fisted in the grass. She was too weak to stand, too frightened to turn her face towards the Falcones.

I was still grappling with Luca. I tried to bite his hand but I couldn’t get the right angle. Licking it wouldn’t do any good. We weren’t in middle school.

‘Come on!’ said Felice, gripping CJ by the shoulders. He pressed the heel of his shoe against Sara’s side and pushed. She faltered, swaying to the side. ‘I was just a few years older than you when I made my first kill,’ said Felice to CJ, but it was loud enough so everyone could hear him, so everyone could bask in his glory. ‘Two kills,’ he corrected himself. ‘I wiped out the Marino boss and his whimpering wife with just two bullets. And now here we are, in another generation with the truce broken once more and another Marino cowering at our feet. You can do as I did, and cripple that insidious family, take the boss’s jewel from her arsenal.’ He raised his gaze to the crowd, a lazy smile flitting across his face. ‘Poetic, is it not?’