‘Let me go!’ I shrieked. ‘Let me help her!’
He held me inside the kitchen doorway, our backs to the diner, our faces to the metal door as it swung open. Through the thickness of the gas, Luca and Nic appeared in the doorway and every shred of hope inside me shrivelled up and died.
The alleyway stretched into the darkness behind them, where the dumpster had been tipped on its side. Trash was strewn everywhere. Wind and rain swept into the room, and the raging storm grew piercing and loud around us.
The Falcone brothers raised their guns.
In a flash, Jack manoeuvred me in front of him until I could feel his chin against my head, his noisy exhales rippling through my hair. ‘Go on,’ said Jack. ‘Shoot at us, why don’t you?’
Luca lowered his gun.
Nic hesitated.
The moment seemed to stretch interminably. In that instant, when even the thunder seemed to quell, my whole life rested at the mercy of Nic Falcone’s trigger finger. I looked inside the barrel of his gun, studying those two black circles, one delicately poised above the other, and felt the nearness of my own death.
‘Nicoli,’ warned Luca.
Nic’s arm was twitching. ‘I can still get him.’
‘Nicoli.’
My eyes were spiking with tears. ‘The gas,’ I rasped. ‘The gas is on.’
Nic’s gaze grew wide with understanding. Finally, he noticed the smell, the thickness in the air, and he flinched. He lowered his gun.
The door slammed shut behind them, teetering on broken hinges.
‘You’re scum, using them like this,’ said Luca to Jack. He was inching forward, moving without trying to make it look obvious. ‘You’ll have to walk out of here sooner or later, and when you do we’ll get you.’
‘You wouldn’t risk her life.’
He raised his eyebrows, his feet sliding soundlessly towards us. ‘And you would?’
Jack’s grip tightened, his arm clamped against my throat until I was choking. The lights in my brain were flickering, the edges of my vision blotting with black smudges.
Dimly I saw my mother’s hand clutching the island as she tried to lift herself from the floor. Her hair was streaked with blood but her mouth was moving, slowly, testing out syllables.
‘Do you want to find out what I’m capable of, filth?’ said Jack.
Luca curled his lip. ‘I’ll gut you, Marino.’
Jack shifted with alarming speed, pushing me backwards through the door. I tumbled into the main diner as he slammed the kitchen door behind us.
‘Mom!’ I screamed as Donata appeared from the darkness behind me and flicked her Zippo lighter through the server window.
The blast erupted in a flash of bright orange. It ripped across the kitchen, exploding in a resounding boom that shattered all the windows. The walls shook and I was thrown backwards, across the till counter and on to the diner floor.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
INFERNO
The kitchen was bursting with flames. Dark, grey smoke billowed out through the serving window. The wood was crackling, breaking off into huge splinters that plummeted towards the floor.
Behind me, Jack and Donata had made it to the front entrance with the duffel bag. My uncle’s hair was singed, his face blackened from the blast. He was doubled over, clutching the doorframe. ‘Come on!’ he panted at me. ‘We have to get out of here!’
‘My mom’s in there!’
I stumbled towards the kitchen, screaming.
Howling.
Shrieking her name.
‘She’s gone, girl,’ Donata shouted.
Jack’s voice arced above hers. ‘Come on!’
I ignored them, and this time my uncle didn’t come back for me. They charged into the night, their bounty won.
Through the serving window I could see a thick wall of flames splitting the kitchen in two. It was licking the right-hand side by the stove and spreading along the wooden countertops, devouring the tablecloths and cork board. I pushed closer, my eyes watering against the scalding heat.
Nic and Luca were slumped against each other on the other side of the room. They had been flung backwards in the explosion. Luca’s head lolled against his shoulder. His eyes were glazed. Nic was doubled over beside him. He wasn’t moving either.
My mother wasn’t with them. She had been close by the door when the explosion hit, and I strained to see if she had made it into the darkness, but the alley was impossibly far away and my vision was blurry from the thickness of the fire. I called out to her but the flames rallied against my words, swallowing them.
Grabbing a cloth from under the counter and holding it over my face, I wrenched the kitchen door open and the fire surged towards me, knocking me backwards. I covered my face as I skidded across the ground, hitting my head on the back of the counter. The doorway was a block of thick, black smoke, rolling over my head and out into the diner.