Inferno(3)

Detective Medina raised his hand to his chest, rubbing at it with casual slowness, but there was a real possibility he was having a heart attack. I pictured Felice stepping over his body, being careful not to scuff his shoes. Ugh.

When Felice spoke again his voice was low. ‘Perhaps your wives might like a jar of my home-made honey? I could have it delivered to them, it wouldn’t be a problem …’ He trailed off, letting the sentence, and everything that went unsaid in it, hang in the air.

The pencil snapped inside Detective Comisky’s fist.

Felice smirked.

I sank deeper into my sheets. I remembered the jar of honey Felice had sent to Jack, and exactly where it had led us all. By the looks on the detectives’ faces it was clear they knew exactly what that black-ribboned jar meant. In the underworld, he was ‘The Sting’, and his honey brought death.

‘That’s all right, Mr Falcone,’ said Detective Comisky, shifting to the side so he was no longer standing between Felice and the doorway. He gestured at the door. ‘We don’t want anything from you. We want to proceed with this private interview. If you would please leave now.’

Felice threw his hands in the air, clapping them together once. ‘Of course,’ he said with blithe indifference. ‘I have to be with my nephew anyway. I heard all your questions this morning tired him out, and I would hope you don’t plan on doing the same thing to this poor girl. I’m quite sure she needs her rest, and even more sure that this investigation is an utter waste of your precious time, which could be spent more productively elsewhere.’ He left the room without so much as a backward glance.

My mother released her grip on my shoulder and exhaled in a choked puff. My palms were slick with sweat even though Felice hadn’t looked at us once when he was in the room.

‘Well, then,’ said Detective Comisky. ‘We’ll resume.’

The interview was concluded a couple of minutes later. That was on Day Two. Two days since my life had flipped upside down and changed everything I thought I knew. There were so many things that haunted me, questions woven inside the nightmares. And there were people, too. People I never wanted to see again, people I never wanted to meet, and people who still owed me answers. And though I didn’t know it at the time, there was someone just like me, trapped on the other side of that world, trying to get out.





CHAPTER TWO

THE MAFIA QUEEN



At first my mother refused to leave my side. She just watched me, statue-like in her chair, blood-red eyes drooping with tiredness as she clutched my hand in hers and told me it would get better. Her voice shook as she said it, and I wondered at her reluctance to be apart from me – was she afraid of leaving me by myself, or was she terrified of being alone?

When she could barely open her eyes from exhaustion or speak without yawning the ends of her sentences, she agreed to go home and sleep. It was almost over. The next day I was getting out. After that I would never have to set foot in a hospital room again.

The sound of her retreating footfall was replaced by Nic’s surer steps. He was returning from his brother’s bedside, where he spent the other half of his time, his guilt splitting him in two.

‘Hey,’ he whispered. He leant over me, subtly assessing the bruises, like he always did. Maybe he didn’t want me to feel self-conscious about it, or maybe he didn’t want to remind me where they had come from.

‘Hi.’ I was lying down, feeling the weight of my tiredness on my lids. He looked as exhausted as I felt. ‘I’m trying not to fall asleep.’

‘Sleep if you need to, Soph. I’ll be here.’ I didn’t notice him move, but I felt the soft pressure of his fingers as he brushed my hair from my face.

I didn’t want to sleep – sleeping meant dreaming and dreaming meant nightmares, and then before I knew it, I’d be awake and screaming all over again. I shook my head, but I could feel the threads in my brain going slack. ‘You should go,’ I told him, my tongue thick in my mouth. ‘Visiting hours are over.’

I caught the quirk of his lips as he pressed them against my hand, smiling. He had zero respect for visiting hours. Among other things. ‘I’ll wait until you fall asleep.’

I let my eyes close as the feeling of safety surrounded me.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said softly. ‘Forgive me, Sophie.’

I wanted to. It was easy in times like this, when I was too tired to think, too distracted to remember. It was easy to listen to him whispering to me, his fingers stroking mine. If I thought too much about those hands – what they could do, what they had already done – then I wouldn’t have been able to hold them, to let them trail softly along the bruises on my face.