I looked into her watery blue eyes, at that faltering smile, and I caved. We’d never make it far enough away without that money, and we both knew it. We were here now, and the damage was done.
‘We have to be quick.’ I stuck my hand out. ‘Give me the key.’
The cabinets stretched along the back wall, above the prep area, ending just before the back door. You could fit a whole person inside. Millie and I often debated trying it, but most of them were usually locked and Ursula always got angry when we tried to climb on stuff. She almost fired Millie the time she caught us playing ‘The Floor is Lava’ in the kitchen.
I hoisted myself above the stove, balancing on the edges of the countertops as I swung open the furthest cupboard and peeled away the lino wallpaper to find the safe. It was a wide, hulking thing, with a thick brass keyhole.
‘Oh my God.’ My mother was below me. ‘It’s huge.’
‘Can you keep watch, please?’
I turned the key three times and a resounding click echoed through the kitchen.
Of course my father had known about the safe. I was officially unsurprised.
I heaved the door open, and cursed into the echoey din. Inside, a smaller metal safe stared back at me, a thick, circular dial dominating its face. I almost smashed my head against it. ‘You’ve got to be freaking kidding me!’
‘What is it?’ My mother’s voice sounded a long way away.
‘Another safe!’ A fitting ode to Jack’s prevailing paranoia, not to mention his constant status as one giant aggravator in my life. ‘This one has a combination!’ I called out. The stupid key was no good without the combination. I was ten seconds away from grabbing my mother and getting the hell out of there.
I unstuck my head from the cupboard. My mother was hovering between the kitchen and the diner, squinting through the rain-spattered windows into the darkness. If the Falcones were out there, they obviously didn’t see us as a threat. I didn’t know whether to be thankful or mildly offended.
‘Try your birthday,’ she called back.
I tried my birthday with shaking hands. I tried Jack’s birthday. I tried my father’s birthday. I tried my mother’s birthday. ‘No!’ I thumped my head against the cold metal. ‘No no no!’
Dammit. Panic was raging inside me. My fingers were shaking and there was no moisture left in my throat. It had to be something important. If Jack and my father both had a key, then it had to be something that linked them. Surely. Surely. Like the tattoo I was convinced they both had.
I pulled back and a dim light went off.
The date their parents were murdered.
I racked my memory. The newspaper article had been dated November 14th.
I keyed in 111387. There was a series of loud clicks. ‘Yes,’ I said as triumph flooded me. I pulled the handle and the safe heaved open. I backed up on my haunches as the door swung outwards. ‘Got it,’ I shouted. My voice echoed inside the metal din as I plunged my head into the depths of Jack’s and my father’s secrets.
Inside, the money was arranged in little towers. I guessed there were at least five hundred thousand dollars, but there were so many stacks, it could have been double that, or even triple. More money than I would ever see again. It was like something out of a movie.
‘Holy crap,’ I muttered. My hand hovered over a stack of bills. How much was in just that one? Ten thousand dollars? Twenty thousand? I dropped it on to the countertop. We’d just take one. They’d hardly notice, I said to myself. Besides, we were dead either way. At least this way, we wouldn’t die poor.
OK, maybe two stacks, then. I took out another one, pushing away the feeling of panic.
I brushed the rest of the money out of my way and stuck my head back in, trying to ignore the stale mustiness. Dirty money smelt bad. There were other things in the safe. I lingered, staring wide-eyed as I grappled with bits of paper. There were switchblades. Falcone switchblades with names I didn’t recognize. Ernesto. Alberto. Piero.
What the hell?
I lifted a piece of paper to the light. There was a list of names scrawled in my father’s handwriting. I recognized most of them. Felice, Evelina, Ernesto, Alberto, Piero, Angelo, Paulie, Calvino, Elena, Gianluca, Valentino, Giorgino, Dominico, Nicoli. There were different marks beside some of the names, the darkest one beside Evelina.
Behind the switchblades, at the very back of the safe, was a ring. It was a ruby ring – blood-red and still shining even in the darkness. I plucked it from the shadows of the safe and pulled it into the light so I could read the word engraved inside it, between a swirling E and F.
Sempre
Evelina’s ring.
I swallowed the bile rushing into my mouth and without thinking, I shoved the ring in my pocket. My legs gave out and I stumbled backwards, falling from the chair and whacking my hip bone on the stove. When I picked myself up, I was staring right at my uncle.