Mafiosa

‘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!’

I wheeled around in time to see him skidding to a halt, almost slamming into me. He stopped himself just in time.

I was screaming his name inside my head, but when the word formed on my tongue, it was a pathetic thing, huffed out with the last of my breath. ‘Luca?’

Luca was standing right across from me, our footsteps side by side in the snow-tipped pavement behind him. His black hair was mussed across his forehead, his bright eyes shining in the darkness. We reached for each other at the same time. I tugged him towards me by the collar of his jacket, and he pulled me into him, wrapping his arms around my waist and burying his face in my neck.

I rose on to my tiptoes to get closer to him, pressing my cheek against his, as relief burst me open and I sobbed so hard my body shook. He was alive. He was here. He was here.

‘I want this life.’ Luca’s words hummed against my skin, his tears sliding against my cheeks. I could feel him shaking. ‘I want possibility.’

I clutched him harder, feeling the dull roar of his heartbeat against my own. ‘I thought you were dead,’ I said. ‘You’re supposed to be dead.’

He pulled back from me, his hands coming to my face, his thumbs wiping the tears from underneath my eyes. His laugh was shaky, his words wobbly. ‘Gee, thanks.’ He ignored his own tears. They glistened against his skin.

‘The yacht party,’ I said, trying to explain. ‘I thought—’

He shook his head, his words tumbling out in short breaths. ‘I walked away,’ he said. ‘I walked away, Sophie.’

I was crying so hard all I could do was nod until my neck hurt. ‘I’ve been driving all day to get to you. I’ve been driving for fifteen hours,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t take any chances. I couldn’t lead them to you. I rented a car, and broke every speed limit in the country. And then I got here, and I didn’t know what to do, whether you would be asleep, whether you were even still here, so I thought I would wait until the morning. And then you came out and you got scared and I thought I would have to chase you all the way to Denver because damn if you aren’t abnormally fast, Sophie!’ ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">