I led the way through the trees. Millie trailed after me.
Luca followed us. ‘I don’t know how many times I have to say it to you before you get it through your skull!’ he pressed. ‘He’s not good for you, Sophie!’
‘Whoa, whoa, whoa!’ Millie jumped in front of me. I halted, and behind me Luca skidded to a stop. ‘Is there some kind of … jealousy going on here?’
Luca rolled his eyes. ‘Per l’amor di Dio. Don’t be ridiculous.’
I started marching again. ‘Maybe it’s OK to care about someone and to have them care about you,’ I snapped. ‘Maybe the world won’t end. Not that you’d know, of course, because you don’t need anyone when you have your precious, arrogant self!’
‘Yeah, that must be it. I’m bitter and alone and I don’t know what love is. And you’re living in your little world of denial and it’s going to end up putting you in the ground because I guarantee no matter how long you hang around him, when the chips are down, he’ll choose his family over you.’
‘Holy Moses.’ Millie was huffing beside me. ‘What the hell happened between you two?’
Luca’s string of Italian curses filtered into hurried English. ‘My brother’s idiocy has, once again, rubbed off on your best friend.’ He wasn’t even panting, unlike me and Millie, who were marching so fast I was fighting the urge to clutch my ribs and double over. ‘Or maybe it’s the other way around.’
‘OK, that’s it!’ I skidded to a halt and closed the distance between us. I prodded him in the chest. ‘Luca Falcone, if you say another word about me—’
‘What?’ He swatted my finger away. ‘What are you going to do to me?’
All the anger bubbling inside me collided. I squashed it, speaking calculatedly and slowly as I stared at the shards of turquoise in his eyes. So I was stupid, naïve, moronic – he had told me a thousand times already – but at least my conscience was clear, and he had no right to judge me when his wasn’t. ‘I’m not a fool, Luca,’ I said, my lip curling. ‘Don’t treat me like one. If you had let me finish instead of flying off the handle, you would know that I sent your brother away when he came to see me. No matter what I feel about him or ever felt, he looks at the world and sees murder and bloodshed, and I deserve a life with love and peace. I’ve been through enough. I’ve seen enough.’ I could feel my voice cracking, so I pushed harder, so he wouldn’t hear it. ‘The truth is, he’s broken,’ I said. ‘You all are.’
Luca faltered backwards. It reminded me, for one horrifying instant, of the moment he had been shot in the warehouse. His shoulders slumped, his arms went slack and he just stared at me. I had wiped the sneer off his face, and still my throat was wobbling. Water was pooling in the backs of my eyes.
Millie tiptoed into the space between us. ‘Oookay,’ she said. ‘For reasons unclear to me, that got a bit heated. Let’s just take it down a notch, and discuss this like adults.’
I didn’t notice how hard I was panting until I tried to catch my breath.
‘Forget it,’ said Luca, turning from us. ‘I’m done. You’re on your own, Gracewell.’
‘Fine. Good.’
He disappeared through the break in the trees.
‘Sophie.’ Millie dropped her voice. ‘I think you have a problem.’
I swallowed another offending quiver and mashed my words together. ‘I know. I’m pretty sure the Marino Mafia family have been following me.’
‘I’m talking about a different kind of problem.’
A single tear slid fast and hard down my cheek. I wiped it away. ‘The switchblade is gone,’ I said. ‘So it’s done.’
She was still staring at the trees. ‘This is not what I meant by closure.’
PART II
‘The enemy is within the gates;
it is with our own luxury, our own folly,
our own criminality that we have to contend.’
Marcus Tullius Cicero
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE BLACK HAND
I spent the rest of the afternoon at Millie’s, purposely not talking about what had happened in the cemetery. The switchblade was gone and I was trying to ignore the emptiness it had left behind. We made cookies and watched Harry Potter movies back to back until guilt at leaving my mother in the general gloominess of our house began to eat away at me. Real life was waiting at home – the shadows on the wall, the screams in the night, the gaping hole where my father should be. I left as evening was falling, dragging myself out of Millie’s distraction bubble. I was experiencing a sudden urge to stretch my legs and work off at least some of the sugar I had packed into my body, so I could at least try and sleep tonight.