His shoulders slumped, and his face fell. I could sense it rising between us – finality. He was done. Done with the conversation, with the dilemma. I was going. He was staying.
I took a step backwards. ‘There’s nothing else I can say, is there?’
He shook his head. ‘It is what it is.’
I looked up at him, a smile dying on my lips. ‘I would go into the darkness with you, but you won’t come into the light with me.’
His smile was sad. ‘That’s very poetic.’
I took his hand, and pulled him towards me. ‘I’ve been spending quite a bit of time with this super nerd lately.’
He wrapped his arms around my waist and gently pulled me in. ‘I love you,’ he said.
‘Just not enough.’
‘Too much, actually.’ He kissed me. It was fierce and passionate and full of every fibre of love we had in our bodies. And when we came apart, our eyes were wet and our hearts were broken.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
COLORADO
Millie and I drove in silence, the tears streaming down my face, her hand in mine.
‘It will be OK, Soph. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but it will. You will survive this.’
How many ways can a heart break? A shard for my mother, a shard for my father, and a shard for Luca. And all the empty space in between for me.
It would be over come New Year’s Day. Either the Marinos or the Falcones would be wiped out, and every last piece of my identity might be gone, too.
Millie’s parents’ cottage was several hours outside Chicago, nestled inside a pine forest on the edge of a small lake. Luca had warned Millie to lie low here for a few days, and not to move through O’Hare airport or anywhere near Cedar Hill at least until New Year’s Eve. So I waited, quietly, as the days dragged past. I pretended to care about things I never thought about. I watched movie after movie, nestled between Alex and Millie. I made polite conversation with Cris when he came to visit. I lost at Scrabble way too many times to count. I won at Monopoly and didn’t care. Not nearly as much as I thought about Luca, about my father. About my uncle.
I cried myself to sleep at night, my switchblade closed inside my fist – the last reminder that I had belonged somewhere. I wasn’t ready to let that go yet.
The waiting was excruciating. The not knowing was even worse, but we didn’t get the newspapers at the cottage, so I could live, at least for a few days, in ignorant bliss. There was no internet, and I barely had two bars of coverage on my phone. The police called – eager to speak to me about my father’s death. I had already seen it; I didn’t need the specifics. I didn’t need the faux sympathy. I wasn’t ready to open that can of worms yet, so I let the calls go to voicemail. They didn’t come for me. They didn’t know where I was, and whatever Millie told her parents was enough. Because they didn’t push it either.
I booked a one-way flight to Colorado with the money Luca gave to Millie.
On the morning of December 31st, we left the cottage. Millie’s parents were heading to a New Year’s party in the city.
Millie drove me to the airport, and walked me right up to the check-in desk, her fingers curled tightly in mine. The address was burning a hole in my pocket.
‘I can come, you know. I can come with you for a while. I know you won’t be gone too long but you don’t have to go alone.’
If hugs could kill, I would have smothered her. ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said, trying to smile. The truth was, I didn’t know where I was going and whether it might be some last-minute Marino trap. It might have been my only viable option, but I wasn’t about to risk Millie’s life for it. ‘I’ll call you the second I arrive there.’
She pulled me into a hug and I squeezed her so tight we lost our breaths.
‘I love you, Soph.’ She pulled back from me, her eyes wide and searching. ‘I’ll see you really soon.’
‘I know,’ I said, forcing my smile. ‘And I love you too.’
She tapped my nose, and dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘We’re the real love story here. You know that, don’t you?’
I wiped a tear from her cheek. ‘I know that, Mil. I’ve always known that.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Call me when you land.’
I left her waving after me as I boarded the plane, and pointed my life in the direction of someone I had never met before, in a town I’d never been to, everything now pinned to the last words of my father and the hope that he loved me still, despite everything. My fingers encircled the bracelet on my wrist, my mind chanting the words over and over again: Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, ‘It will be happier.’
I thought of Luca, and felt my heart crease. How could I be happy, knowing he was trapped?
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
THE GIRL
Isat back in the cab and watched the Rocky Mountains in the distance as we wound further up the hill. I had texted Millie to say I’d arrived safely. There was no one else to tell. I fogged the glass and traced a heart in it, feeling the chill through the windows.
Boulder was beautiful. It was like another world – away from the madness, the bloodshed, the feeling that I was being watched. The police might still look for me, but it would take them longer to find me. Maybe they never would. As for the Marinos, or what was left of them now, I didn’t know. Perhaps they were waiting for me already. I tried not to think about it. I had already cast my die.