Inferno(57)

There was a crack running down the back of my plastic chair. It dug into me and I shifted, trying to get comfortable. There was no point. I folded my hands on my lap, searching for the right words. How should I begin? How much should I say?

The discomfort on his face mirrored mine and I almost smiled at how similar we were. He dipped his head and gave me a look. The room around us faded, until it was just the two of us, secured in our own little bubble. He dropped his facade and his face crumpled.

His words tumbled out. ‘I know what happened, Soph. Your mom told me.’

‘Yeah, well,’ I said, lacing my fingers together in front of me. ‘Jack’s an asshole.’

Grief etched itself into the planes of his face, pulling them down until he looked old and weary. ‘I’m so sorry. That’s all I can say. I am sorry all of this has happened to you. I’m sorry your life was in danger and I wasn’t there to help you. I’ll never forgive myself.’

Something settled deep inside me, burning, and I had the sudden urge to clutch at my stomach and rip the feeling out.

‘You don’t have to say sorry,’ I said, sounding angrier than I had meant to. But I was angry with him, about what had happened, about the mess he had made for all of us. ‘It didn’t have anything to do with you.’

He dropped his head into his hands. ‘You’ve been through too much. And I wasn’t there. I’m never there.’

I looked at the crown of his head, where tiny white hairs were beginning to sprout beneath the grey and brown. ‘Dad, I’m fine.’ No thanks to you. I didn’t say it though, I couldn’t be cruel.

He lifted his head. ‘You’re not fine. And neither is your mother. She’s terrified, and I don’t blame her. I’m trying to give her advice but she won’t listen to me. She’s angry at me, Soph. And she has every right to be, but she’s not coping and I’m worried about her.’

‘You and me both.’

I asked the question that needed to be asked, the one flashing at the front of my brain. ‘Have you heard from the man of the hour?’

‘Not yet.’ My father’s breath whistled through his nose. When he spoke again, his words quivered with anger. ‘The things he’s done, the position he’s put you and your mother in. He was supposed to keep you safe in my absence, not risk your lives.’

‘Did you know?’ My fingernails were digging into my hands, making crescent shapes in my skin. ‘Did you know what he was up to all that time?’

‘No.’ I had barely finished my question before he snapped out his answer. ‘Of course I didn’t know.’

‘Did Mom fill you in on everything?’

‘As much as she could,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want to talk about that, I want to talk about my girls.’

‘Well, I want to talk about the drugs and the Golden Triangle Gang and everything else that’s put us in hot water. I want to talk about everything you missed.’ So I did talk about it. I told my father everything that had happened up until the warehouse shoot-out – I told him about Jack’s shadiness, about the drugs and the gang he had been a part of, how he walked my mother into the warehouse, how he stood over me and tried to kill the Falcone underboss. I talked until my voice nearly ran out. I talked until I was sure I had toppled Jack over in my father’s mind, until I was sure he saw the cold, hard truth about his little brother.

Then I let up, breathing long and deep, as a small weight shifted inside me and I felt less bound up than before.

My father, who had been listening intently, unblinking as he watched me, straightened in his seat. ‘Soph, I promise I’ll make him pay for endangering you and your mom,’ he said. ‘I’m so disappointed in him – in his choices, in the path he’s chosen. I should have cut him off long ago.’ Compared to all the words I had just hurled at the space between us, his answer felt like nothing, but I could see how his face had changed, how everything in his brain was slotting into different places. He was completely wrung out. He scrubbed his hands against his forehead. ‘But I can’t get to him. I don’t know where he is or what he’s doing.’

That was the moment. Indecision flickered inside me. To tell or not to tell. To stir or not to stir. But I needed guidance. A plan for when Jack came back – I needed my father to intervene so I wouldn’t have to. So I decided to give him this chance to step up and protect us, the way he’d said he would. ‘I know where he is,’ I said, without batting an eyelid. I sat back in my chair, instinctively pulling myself away from him in case the force of his reaction was too great. ‘Jack’s with the Marino crime family.’