Inferno (Blood for Blood #2)

by Catherine Doyle

  He fell on to his haunches. ‘Who did you think it was?’

  ‘Why didn’t you let me get to her?’

  ‘You wouldn’t have been able to.’

  My voice changed. ‘Why did you take me away from her?’

  His voice changed too. Anger, fear, insistence strained his words. ‘Because you were burning alive. You did the thing I told you not to do. You jumped off the cliff.’

  ‘I was trying to save her!’

  ‘You were killing yourself!’

  The walls were coming down and my mind was exploding with that night. ‘She was calling out to me.’

  Luca’s movements changed. They became slower, more deliberate. ‘She wasn’t calling you.’

  ‘I heard her.’

  ‘The fire does strange things to your senses.’

  ‘You’re wrong.’ I kept thinking about those white sneakers.

  Luca placed his hands on either side of my legs, his fingers curling in the sheets. ‘Sophie,’ he said softly, ‘your mother lost her life in the explosion. She was too close to the stove when it happened.’

  I rose up, away from him. I was disconnecting, the room spinning as memories crashed into me. ‘I could have saved her but you took me away from her!’

  He was shaking his head.

  The fire burnt inside my mind. My arms were stinging. I could taste singed hair across my lips. Before the fire there was the explosion, before the explosion there was the gas and before the gas there was Jack. Before that … there was everything else. A raging war. I grasped at the thread of understanding. ‘They lured you to them. They knew you’d come to protect your brothers.’

  ‘Yes.’

  How could he remain so calm? Wasn’t he thinking about all the things that I was? Wasn’t he feeling the heat of the memories like flames?

  ‘You’re supposed to be smarter than that.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘My mother is dead.’ That was the first time I ever said it out loud. It felt like I was flaying myself. The backs of my eyes were stinging.

  ‘I know,’ he said gently.

  ‘They wanted to destroy you. They wanted to teach me a lesson. And they killed her to do it. She wasn’t supposed to be there.’ Everything was colliding and I felt the white-hot edge of rage burn inside me. The words sprang from me, strung together in hurried sentences. ‘If you and Nic hadn’t come in they wouldn’t have done it. I told you Donata was coming. I told you she was planning something but you couldn’t walk away – you couldn’t back down! You had to risk everything for some stupid game of honour that means nothing in the end! If you hadn’t been there at the diner, watching, waiting for them, trying to hurt them instead of trying to protect yourselves, then this wouldn’t have happened. If you Falcones hadn’t murdered Sara Marino – if you didn’t insist on killing everything and everyone – then my mom wouldn’t be dead now. You shouldn’t have followed them. You shouldn’t have forced your way into the diner. Why couldn’t you have just left it all alone?’

  Luca was getting to his feet.

  I stood up, too. ‘You don’t get to leave before you hear this,’ I shouted.

  He just stood there, his chest squared towards me. His gaze was unfaltering. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Say whatever you need to say.’

  ‘Don’t patronize me!’ My face was wet and I realized with surprise that I was crying. Tears were dripping down my neck, soaking into the collar of my T-shirt. ‘Ever since your family came into my life, everything has gone wrong!’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘And now I have nothing.’ I was sobbing so hard the words were catching in my throat. I coughed and it turned to wheezing, and I doubled over, spluttering, on to the bed.

  Luca moved his hand towards me but I slapped it away. ‘You’ve destroyed my whole life.’

  ‘That was never our intention, Sophie.’

  I backed up, hitting my knees on the bedside table. I dragged my hands across my face, wiping away the moisture. ‘You’ve obliterated me.’

  He edged towards me. ‘I know what it’s like, Sophie.’

  ‘No.’ I prodded his chest. ‘You don’t know. You gamble with people’s lives all the time. You’ve probably taken as many as you’ve grieved. You are used to the possibility of death, you live inside the nearness of it. My mother and I lived in this house, in this peaceful place where we worried about pork chop dinners and making rent and getting the car fixed and making sure the dishwasher didn’t break down again! She didn’t deserve to die the way she did.’

  ‘I’m not trying to—’

  ‘You have brothers and cousins and uncles and a mother who loves you!’ I cut in. ‘Even with all the bad things you do, you have a whole family to turn to, and I don’t have anyone.’

  ‘Sophie—’

  ‘I thought you’d protect us from them,’ I choked out.

  ‘We will protect you, Sophie. Come home with me,’ he urged, ‘where he can’t get to you any more.’

  ‘Don’t you see?’ I said, hearing my voice rise to a manic level. ‘He’s already gotten to me.’ I pushed Luca and he stumbled backwards, clutching at his side. His wound. Pain flared behind his eyes.

  ‘Just get it out,’ he said, gritting his teeth. ‘Get it all out.’

  ‘Get it out?’ I said. ‘Get out my “feelings”, is that what you mean? How about this—’ I pushed against him. He faltered, his hands clutched harder around his torso. ‘I.’ I shoved him again and he turned sharply and backed against the wardrobe. ‘Hate.’ I pushed him. ‘You.’

  He ground his teeth. ‘OK.’

  ‘Not OK,’ I shouted at him. ‘NONE OF THIS IS OK.’ I curled both my hands inside his T-shirt, scrunching the fabric in my fist. ‘Why did I save you? Only to have it lead to this!’

  I shoved him and he hit his head against the wardrobe. His eyes grew, two big expanses of startling blue, shadowed by his frown. I felt a flicker of something unpleasant – regret, remorse? I hadn’t meant what I’d said – not really – but the words weren’t coming from a logical place.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, breathless.

  I stared at my hands still curled in his shirt. I fell back from him, examining my fingers. They were twitching in and out of fists. I looked at Luca. His body was dipping towards his injured half. His lids were at half-mast. How many ways had I hurt him? How far could I go? He was letting me – even though he could stop me easily, he hadn’t. I had come at him with every drop of venom I had in me and I felt none of the relief I had expected. I felt like a damaged version of myself. My mother was gone, and in her absence I was bitter and cruel.

  A familiar feeling of panic took hold of me. I didn’t know what to do, how to make him go away, how to tell him this wasn’t really about him at all. It was about her. The tears were breaking through a second time, coming harder and faster down my cheeks. Strangled cries sprang from me and I realized I was hyperventilating. I am breaking down, I realized with horror. I am losing myself.

  Luca pushed against me and I thought he was finally going to retaliate, to do to me what I had just done to him. But he didn’t. He rounded on me, pulling me into his chest and crushing his arms around me. I collapsed into him, feeling the weakness in my legs. I was so startled I let him hold me, feeling the hardness of his body beneath my cheek, the frantic thrumming of our heartbeats pressed against each other.

  He was talking to me, his voice low and urgent against my hair, but I couldn’t hear him. Something inside me was breaking; he had pricked the balloon in my chest and the pressure was draining. My cries were muffled against him, my tears staining pools across his T-shirt. I was inhaling his scent, my fingers pressed across his collarbone, and his hands were on my back holding me together as sobs quaked through my body.

  And it wasn’t enough. I needed to be closer to him; I needed to forget myself. I lifted my head and he brought his hands to my face, his thumbs gently wiping the tears from under my eyes.

  ‘It’s going to be OK,’ he
murmured, the pads of his fingers warm against my skin. He touched his forehead to mine. ‘I won’t let him hurt you again.’

  My breath hitched in my throat. I gripped the collar of his T-shirt and lifted my chin. His lips brushed against mine.

  ‘Sophie,’ he breathed. ‘We can’t—’

  ‘Please,’ I said, moving my hands around his neck. ‘I need this.’ Whatever he was about to say got lost between us, because suddenly I was crushing my lips against his and he was twining his fingers in my hair, kissing me so hard it knocked the breath from me. This. This was what I needed. I pressed my body against him and dragged my fingers through his hair, pulling him closer, breathing him in. He groaned as he pushed his tongue into my mouth, deepening the kiss and gripping my waist as he spun me around. His hands found mine, our fingers splaying together as he lifted them above my head and pinned them against the wardrobe. He leant against me as he sealed every last inch of space between us with his body and took all the bad memories away.

  He gasped for air against my lips, and I smiled as all the pain and darkness burnt away inside our kiss. He made me dizzy. He made me forget.

  It ended too quickly. Suddenly, he was pulling away from me and panting, his hand clutching his chest.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, eyes wide. ‘Cazzo. I shouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘I did it,’ I said, heaving an unsteady breath as I unstuck myself from the wardrobe. ‘It was me.’

  ‘I can’t do this.’ He backed up. ‘It’s not right.’

  I backed away too. What was I thinking? What was I doing? I looked a mess, was a mess. I hadn’t slept properly in days. ‘You don’t want to,’ I said, feeling the pain resurface sharply, grief and anger mingling in a cocktail of embarrassment and regret. ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘Of course I want to,’ he said, his voice spiking. ‘I want to more than anything. I always want to. That’s the problem.’

  I forced myself to look up at him.

  His expression was pained. ‘I won’t take advantage of your grief, Sophie. I’m not that guy.’

  I nodded, feeling the numbing effects of his kiss melt away. Memories charged back into my head and the clouds regathered, heavy and unyielding inside me. I was too wrung out to fight it.

  Luca was still talking. My body was shaking.

  I could see my mother’s face, her sprawled legs, her glazed expression. And I hated it. I hated him and his family and everything they had done to me and he was holding me again and I realized I was crying more tears even though I shouldn’t have had any left and his arms were too strong for me to move and I felt like I was suffocating and that made me want to hurt him and yell at him and tell him to get away from me. And I knew it wasn’t about Luca and I wanted to tell him that too but in the end I couldn’t tell him anything. I pushed away from him, stumbling backwards and falling in a heap on my bed.

  ‘Sophie.’ His voice was gruff. I could sense him pacing by the bed, though I wouldn’t look up at him.

  ‘Go away,’ I pleaded. ‘Just go away. Please. I need to be by myself. I need some time.’

  ‘OK,’ he relented finally. ‘If you need anything—’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said hastily.

  Luca pulled his switchblade from his back pocket and laid it on the bed beside me. ‘Just in case,’ he murmured.

  I fingered the engraving, the swooping letters that I knew so well. Gianluca. ‘A Falcone switchblade for a Marino girl,’ I whispered. ‘Is this really what your grandfather would have wanted?’

  He pulled something from his back pocket. ‘I’m not my grandfather.’ He held his hand out between us, and my gaze settled on Evelina’s ruby ring, resting in his palm. ‘And you are not your father.’

  I glanced at the empty bedside table. He must have picked the ring up when I was sulking. God. He knew. He knew.

  ‘Life has dealt you a rough hand already,’ he said quietly, closing his fingers around the ring. ‘You don’t have to pay for his mistakes as well, Sophie.’ He moved to the door, pausing on the other side of it. ‘When you’re ready, come to us. We’ll give you Sanctuary. I’ll vouch for you, to the family and to my brother.’ He touched his head against the frame, and smiling sadly, he added, ‘Don’t forget, I still owe you that grand gesture, Marino Girl.’

  My smile was watery. Why was it so damn difficult to look at him? I shut my eyes. ‘Please just go.’

  And he did.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  THE BLOOD MOON

  When they had all left, I let the memories engulf me. This time I didn’t push them away. The tears had come, and with them, some release. I showered and got dressed. Feeling stifled by the piercing silence, the constant feeling of loneliness inside me, I grabbed a hoodie and let myself out into the garden. I sat on the grass and pushed my thoughts outwards, beyond myself. The blood moon hung low above me, red ripples making grooves inside it. Patches of grey blotted the exterior, curving away into rivers of crimson. I lay back, burying my hands behind my head. My mother’s flowers dusted the air with sweetness, banishing the acrid memories of ash and dust.

  Thoughts of the fire, of Jack, of rent and guardians and futures balanced on the edge of a knife, melted away. Memories of flames and smoke filtered into the balmy night air and the essence of my mother settled around me, gently this time, like a blanket laid across the earth. I looked up, past my house and the sadness in its walls. I was so tired, every muscle spent from being wound so tight. I had to plan, I knew that, but my thoughts were bleeding into the darkness around me. There was only the moon and the soft whispering of a warm breeze. And in the quiet comfort of the great big world and the beauty looking down on me I drifted asleep.

  When I woke the sun was high in the sky. The backs of my arms were imprinted with grass blades and my hair had dried in crimped waves behind my head. My phone was buzzing. ‘Unknown’ flashed on the screen as I swiped my finger across it.

  My voice was groggy with the dregs of sleep. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Sophie?’

  I almost crushed the phone inside my fist. ‘Jack?’

  ‘I need to talk to you.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ I sat poker-straight on the grass, blinking my surroundings into focus as my head threatened to explode. ‘The police are looking for you,’ I said, my voice turning thick and watery. ‘Mom is dead, did you know that, you selfish son of a bitch?’

  Jack’s tone was businesslike. ‘It was an accident,’ he said briskly. ‘You know I didn’t want that to happen. The situation got away from us.’

  I clutched my stomach, fighting the urge to vomit. ‘You let it happen. You’re a murderer.’

  His reply was woven inside one long sigh. ‘You’re grieving, I understand, but there’ll be time for that later. I need you to meet me somewhere.’

  He was wired to the moon and floating out of reality if he was dumb enough to think I would ever want anything to do with him again. ‘Are you crazy? Have you actually lost your mind?’

  ‘Donata wants me to bring you in now. Important things are at play. We’re Marinos, Sophie, don’t forget. And Marinos stick together.’

  He had lost his mind.

  ‘How could you leave it so long to call me? How could you run like that? How could you do that to her?’ Why was I bothering? There was nothing he could say, no words to take back what he did.

  ‘I’ve been trying to get through to you all week.’ Jack was drawling and I realized he was probably high or drunk, or both. ‘There’s been too much heat in Cedar Hill, but it’s dying down. Listen,’ he said. ‘I’m your guardian. I’ve spoken to Donata; I’ve talked her around. You were scared that night, you didn’t know what you were doing, you’re just a kid still. We have a job for you. We’ll take care of you – you’ll have money and protection. And we need you, too. A young girl who no one would suspect, just like Sara was. You’re going to be our secret weap—’

  ‘Don’t you dare come near me,’ I cut in. ‘You’re poison, Jack.’ I
choked on the rest of my sentence. How desperately I wanted to put my hands around his throat and watch him suffer. I thought of Nic’s promise to me, and something flared inside me. I wanted to make Jack pay.

  ‘We’ll talk about this,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to be by yourself any more.’

  ‘That’s how you made it!’ I hissed. My nails were digging grooves in my palm. I was shaking, every part of me livid with hatred so deep I thought I might be sick.

  His voice rose. ‘I’m sorry about your mom. I was sure the fire would finish the Falcones but I miscalculated. I made a mistake, Sophie. There’s still time to make it right. Trust me, I’m trying to protect you. I want to make sure you’re safe. The future can’t be avoided. If you’re not with us, you’re against us, and Donata won’t stand for anything less than your full compliance. Not after your hesitance in the diner. Don’t make it harder than it has to be.’

  I hung up and slammed my phone against the ground. Rage and fear ripped through me. He wasn’t going to stop. He was drugged up, profit-hungry and corrupt, and I was in his sights. Nic was right. Either I would join him or the Marinos would skin me alive.

  How far away was New York? How long did I have? I remembered the cold stare of Donata Marino. What would she do to me if I refused to help her?

  I locked the back door behind me and thundered upstairs. I would no longer be a sitting duck. I would not suffer the fate of my mother.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  THE ESCAPE

  I was in the upstairs bathroom squishing my moisturizer into an already full rucksack when I heard a car door slam outside. I burst into my mother’s room, ignoring the stale feeling of depression that clung to the lavender-scented drapes inside. I edged towards the window, peering over the doorstep, where the top of my uncle’s head was visible. He had already left New York when he called me. I never had a head start.

  I was too late.

  Crap. I slid back into my room and stuffed Luca’s switchblade in my pocket. The doorbell rang, followed almost immediately by several loud thumps. My phone was buzzing in my pocket.