Inferno (Blood for Blood #2) Read online

  Oh, if only she knew. I swallowed my guilt – it was getting easier to stomach these days. I consoled myself with the knowledge that meeting Jack head-on would keep him from showing up unannounced at my house at some point in the future, which would be so much worse for both of us.

  ‘Are you sure you’ll be OK here by yourself?’ I asked instead.

  Her laugh was a short tinkle. ‘Of course, sweetheart. I have plenty to keep me occupied. I’m putting up that new trellis at the back of the garden. I’m planting wallflowers!’

  My mind flicked to her unfinished dressmaking projects, now long overdue. ‘A trellis, eh? Cool …’

  She swatted my arm. ‘I don’t just sit around and stare listlessly into the distance when you’re not here, you know.’

  ‘What? So you don’t spend all your free time thinking about how much you miss me?’

  ‘I replace my affection for you with my beautiful new plants,’ she said, her voice teasing. ‘They’re much less sarcastic.’

  ‘Just wait till they’re teenagers.’

  ‘Have fun,’ she said, pulling me in for a hug. ‘Talk about boys. Plan some adventures!’

  When she pulled back, she was beaming so hard her lips were twitching. I grabbed my purse and tried to act like I really was going to an innocent sleepover at my best friend’s house and not a Mafia den in the middle of the city.

  I had second thoughts about Eden – big ones – but in the end Millie ended up convincing me.

  ‘Whatever your uncle’s doing, Soph, you could squash it before it’s too late.’

  ‘Something tells me it’s already too late.’

  ‘You’ll have to face him one way or another. Isn’t that what Lego-head said?’

  ‘Her name is Sara.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ said Millie, waving her hand around. ‘You don’t have to act all kinshippy with her. She was stalking you, don’t forget.’

  She googled the nightclub. There were pages of paparazzi scandals involving local celebrities and alleged underworld figures. Donata was featured in almost every article, sometimes by her maiden name, Genovese, and sometimes by Marino. She was a tabloid darling, each piece hinting at an undercurrent of fear. No one dared speak ill of the ‘Genovese Queen’, as one newspaper called her. She was the great and fearsome femme fatale of Chicago.

  Her affluence shone through the expensive stoles and designer dresses. Her dark hair was a mane of the world’s finest extensions and her dramatic make-up airbrushed her expertly. But underneath the pomp and glamour she was a skeletal figure with a scrawny neck and severe features. She had that unmistakable Genovese ice – the same chill that Elena Genovese-Falcone had brought with her to my hospital room. The sisters were imprints of one another; each one surrounded by rival Mafia families, waiting to pick off the other. And Donata had a glittering night palace of her own making in which to plot.

  Millie pressed the pad of her index finger on the screen, at an interior shot of Eden where everything was draped in white beneath a ceiling of chandeliers. ‘We have to go,’ she resolved. ‘We just have to.’

  ‘And what if I don’t like what he has to say?’ I countered. I had no doubt I wouldn’t like it.

  ‘Then we can just leave. And then it’s done, Sophie. You’ll have heard him out.’

  I was chewing a pattern into my lip, staring at the screen, my mind playing out all the possible ways this could go. How angry would I be when I saw him? How angry would he be? And Donata. What was her role in all this? If Elena was anything to judge by, I had seen quite enough Genovese ladies for one lifetime.

  ‘Sophie, look.’ Millie was tapping her fingernail on another picture, this time of a different floor, where everything was bamboo, and fire-lamps blazed around the contours of a pooling dance floor. ‘It’s the most exclusive club in the city. We have to go.’

  The logistics of actually getting inside were still hazy. Millie had a pretty good fake ID. I didn’t. If that crimson business card was my ticket into Eden, I was in trouble, because it was in Nic’s pocket.

  Stupid Nic.

  We barricaded ourselves in Millie’s bedroom and rifled through every single item of clothing in her wardrobe. ‘If we want to get past the bouncers, we have to be sexy but not slutty. It’s a very fine line,’ said Millie, picking up and discarding a floral peplum dress. I examined a cream chiffon blouse. Millie snatched it from me and flung it on to the ground. ‘I said sexy, not politician!’

  After almost an hour of indecision, Millie chose a royal-blue strapless dress, a thick silver necklace and hoop earrings. I picked a black body-con dress with spaghetti straps and a lace hem. I borrowed a simple gold necklace and stud earrings, pairing the outfit with Millie’s patent black ankle boots. Millie insisted on doing my hair and make-up. ‘Voila!’ she triumphed, spinning me towards the mirror.

  I gaped at my reflection. I had been Barbie-fied. The dress was miniscule, and so tight it clung to every inch of me. My hair brought new meaning to the word ‘volume’ and the hairspray had turned it into a glittering blonde rock. My eyes were rimmed with so much black it was hard to find the blue inside them, and my lips had been lined and glossed until they shone at twice their normal size against my bronzed and blushed face.

  ‘Well?’ Millie wiggled her high-definition eyebrows at me through the mirror.

  ‘I look like a hooker.’

  She came to stand beside me.

  ‘You also look like a hooker,’ I told her.

  ‘A twenty-one-year-old hooker?’ she asked with big, hopeful eyes.

  Eden was a sleek three-storey building on the corner of West Grand Avenue. It climbed into the sky in a display of black monochrome and tinted glass. On the corner, two bouncers and a severe-faced woman holding a clipboard were guarding a velvet-roped entranceway. Above them, ‘EDEN’ was imprinted in illuminated red letters that lit up the street below. The spiralling tree emblem from the crimson card stretched across the entire second storey.

  My mind flittered across Luca and his disdainful thoughts of my intelligence. Oh, if he could only see me now. ‘I never considered myself an idiot until this very moment,’ I said, staring wide-eyed at Eden as we drifted towards it.

  ‘Really?’ said Millie, blinking heavily. ‘But you’ve done so many idiotic things already.’

  I winced.

  ‘If anything, this is the least idiotic, because we’re going into a public place and, most importantly, I am here!’ She waved her hands in front of her. ‘It’s cool, you know. Some people just wait for danger to find them, but not you, you go after it. You say “Hey, Danger, bet you weren’t expecting me. Suck it.” You don’t wait for the dolphin.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘The dolphin,’ she emphasized. ‘You don’t wait for the dolphin to hit you in the face.’

  ‘Oh.’ I touched my head against hers as we reached Eden, smiling, despite everything, because I had found someone just as weird as me to be friends with. Smiling because I was doing my best not to freak out.

  There were two lines of people trickling from the entrance; the first was a short one that moved quickly. The second line stretched all the way around the building and down the street and was moving at a snail’s pace.

  Millie flipped her hair over her shoulders and sashayed into the smaller, elite line. I went with her, pursing my lips to try and look pouty and important. The woman with the clipboard dragged her gaze along our outfits. A smug smile flitted across her thin red lips. ‘Names?’

  Millie had already pulled her ID card from her purse.

  The woman didn’t glance at the ID or her clipboard. ‘Sorry, girls. You’re not on here. You’ll have to join the back of the line.’

  Millie bristled. ‘You didn’t even check.’

  Her smirk returned. ‘Hon, I don’t need to check.’

  Millie released a sharp laugh. ‘Excuse you? Perhaps you need a refresher course on who we are?’

  The woman’s expression faltered. She flicked her gaz
e to me. ‘Your name?’ she asked me.

  ‘Sophie Gracewell,’ I said. ‘I have … an appointment with my uncle.’

  An appointment?

  Smooth. Real smooth.

  She looked down at her list again. ‘Sophie,’ she muttered, flicking a page up so she could look at the one underneath it.

  Millie poked her head forward so that it was almost right on top of the clipboard. ‘He’s a close friend of Donata Marino.’

  She deflated in front of us. ‘Miss Gracewell,’ she said, unclipping the rope and standing back to let me through. ‘My apologies. We’re expecting you.’ She eyed Millie with badly concealed contempt.

  ‘I think you mean you’re expecting us,’ Millie said. Her smile was deliciously false. ‘We wouldn’t want a second mishap, would we?’

  With a sigh, Clipboard Bitch stepped back to make room for Millie too. ‘Ladies,’ she said, ‘welcome to Eden.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE AMBUSH

  We combed the first two floors, scanning the dance floors and slipping between booths and drapes. We tried not to knock against glasses of Moët champagne as we shimmied between tables full of models and socialites and men in glossy suits. We downed a couple of vodka and sodas for courage before making our way up one last flight of stairs.

  The third floor was smaller than the others. It was furnished entirely in dark wood and thick bamboo furniture, with gold flames casting streaks along the walls. A line of trees in floor-sunken pots climbed towards the ceiling, their spindly branches stretching overhead in waxed leaf canopies. It was like walking into a glamorous safari, only we were the animals.

  Towards the far end of the room there was a small stage where a girl with cropped black hair and eye-assaulting sequinned shorts was crooning into a microphone. It was hard not to stare. She was such a train wreck, flopping across the stage and clutching the microphone like it was her life raft. The third floor was a lot quieter than the other two, probably owing to her.

  Just behind the unhinged performer was a secluded seating area. It had been cut off from us by drapes and there was a burly bouncer standing in front of the entrance, scanning the small crowd. In the whole club this was definitely the hardest place to get to, and that’s how I knew Jack would be in there.

  We crossed the empty dance floor and were halted by the bouncer. ‘Private area, ladies.’

  I peered around him. There, surrounded by a bunch of people drinking and chatting animatedly with one another, sat Uncle Jack. My eyes were immediately drawn to Eric Cain beside him, easily discernible by his flaming-red hair. He was the one who had shot Luca. There were lines of white powder spread across the table and he was leaning forward, a rolled-up bill in his hand as he snorted it greedily, his crimson hair flopping in front of him. He snapped his head up and twitched his nose like a rabbit.

  Jack threw his head backwards, his eyes tearing with amusement. The last time I saw my uncle he was bleeding out on a murky floor, and now here he was with a cigar in one hand and a drink in the other, laughing like he didn’t have a care in the world.

  I pointed him out to the bouncer. ‘That’s my uncle. I’m here to see him.’

  As if remembering some instruction, he stepped aside and ushered us through. Sara was the first to notice me. She was standing apart from most of the group, hovering, an uneasiness permeating her made-up features. She looked exactly how I felt. There was a tall reed of a man shadowing her. He was much older, with salt-and-pepper hair that curled tightly to his head. He had cat’s eyes that tilted upwards at the corner and flashed amber in the dim lighting. His razor-sharp grin was overly curved and entirely mirthless. He was watching me. I looked away. Focus. Sara sidled over and placed a gentle hand on my uncle’s shoulder. He pulled his gaze from his huddle and saw my eyes boring into him.

  Jack got to his feet, and before I could stop him he was crushing me into his chest. His drink sloshed against my shoulder and his cigar flickered perilously close to my hair. ‘I’m so glad you came, Sophie. I’ve been so worried about you.’ I pushed him away. Jack gestured to another couch nearby and sat down again. He stubbed out his cigar, patting the space beside him in invitation. ‘Please sit. There’s so much to talk about.’

  Understatement.

  He looked better than I’d expected, considering the last time I saw him he was basically dying. He was slimline and well dressed in a dark-grey suit. His grey-brown hair had been cut short and he had shaved, making his face appear younger. He was paler than usual, his cheeks absent of their rosy flush, but his eyes were bright.

  The woman on Jack’s couch was poised along the edge, her bony fingers laced together on her lap. She was bird-like, with big black eyes rimmed in purple eyeshadow. Donata Marino. Donata Marino was staring at me.

  I edged over to the seat. Millie stayed by the entrance, unsure where to put herself. I’ll find you soon, I mouthed at her. I knew she would have wanted to stay, out of solidarity, but I had to talk to Jack without her. He would be reluctant to share his plans in her company and I intended to get all the answers I could.

  Millie slipped behind the bouncer and into the paradisiacal surroundings behind us, while I lowered myself on to the couch, keeping closer to Jack than to Donata, who was perched on my left, the stronger of two evils. I felt the coldness of her stare on the side of my cheek.

  Jack put his arm around me, encasing me in a cocktail of alcohol and sweat. ‘Thank you for coming.’ He was so sincere, so serious … so like himself, the kind uncle I remembered from my childhood. And yet when I looked at his surroundings, everything blurred again. The two sides of him did not add up, and the version that had walked into that warehouse was the one I had come here to confront.

  ‘I almost didn’t,’ I said, ducking out of his grasp. ‘And this isn’t meant to be some happy reunion.’

  Jack had the audacity to laugh. ‘Aren’t you at least glad I’m alive?’

  ‘I never wanted you to die. I don’t think like that.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Otherwise you would have blown my cover in the warehouse. But you led that Falcone prick away from me and I owe you my life for that. You’re loyal, Sophie, and I’m sorry about the danger I put you in. If I’d have known what would happen I would have sent you somewhere safe. Trust me, I won’t be making that mistake ever again.’

  I pressed my lips together, waiting.

  ‘We have a lot to talk about,’ he continued. ‘I hope once you understand my position, you won’t hate me.’

  He made it sound so simple, like the lives of scores of people weren’t balancing on pinheads around us. Like he wasn’t being sheltered by one of the most ruthless families in Chicago. I didn’t even know what to ask first. There was so much to say, and yet now that I was here, sitting beside him, staring at him, I felt tongue-tied. ‘Jack,’ I said, expelling a pent-up sigh. ‘How did it come to this?’

  I looked at him imploringly, like a child asking if Santa Claus was real but not really wanting to hear the truth.

  ‘I wanted a better life.’ His answer was deceptively simple, and not at all what I was expecting. ‘I wanted to rise above my station.’

  ‘This, Jack,’ I said, endeavouring to be more specific since his answer was so painfully vague. It shouldn’t be this simple – the things he’d done, the drug trafficking, the killing. ‘How did you come to be here?’

  ‘I’m safe here, Sophie—’

  ‘Do you know this will probably start a war? Is that what you want to happen?’

  Jack hesitated, and for the first time he seemed unsure. But I got the sense it wasn’t because of my question, but because of my knowledge of the truce, which I had betrayed by asking it. I hadn’t been thinking of hiding anything from him; I was too hell-bent on getting him to stop hiding stuff from me.

  He glanced sidelong at Donata. Something passed between them, a flicker of amusement, a quiet understanding. Her smile was spidery. ‘Your niece knows more than I expected.’

  I
scrunched my hands in my lap as my cheeks flushed with heat. ‘Isn’t it common knowledge?’

  Donata was still looking at Jack. She nodded, just once, her eyes slitting as she said, ‘Fidelitate Coniuncti.’

  ‘Not yet,’ he said, looking around him now.

  There was definitely something between them, and it dawned on me with quiet revulsion what it was. I got up, suddenly feeling hot and sticky.

  Jack sprang to his feet. ‘Let me explain what happened, Soph.’

  I turned on him, trying to ignore the icy wave of Donata’s attention. ‘How can you explain it?’ My sudden shrillness roused some of the others from their conversations. ‘You’re messing around with drugs and the Mafia, and you’re cosying up to her to save your own ass even though you know how dangerous it is, how many people could die if the truce is broken. What could you possibly say that would make any of this OK?’

  Jack’s sigh deflated his chest and made him seem smaller. ‘It all comes down to money, Sophie. When I was a young man I had to ask myself, how can I use my talents to make sure I don’t end up on the bottom rung of society, trying to climb out of poverty my whole life? Your father and I never got the chance to make a go of our lives in the right way. All either of us ever had was our own smarts and the ambition to do—’

  I bristled. ‘Do not involve my father in this. He has nothing to do with your depraved drug trade!’

  Jack clenched a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. ‘Calm down. You’re making a scene.’

  ‘This whole thing is already a scene!’ I hissed, pointing openly at the cocaine two feet away from us, at Eric’s chomping jaw and guffawing laugh, at the girls pouring champagne on each other and shrieking in the corner. ‘You shouldn’t be here! You should be far away.’

  Jack set his jaw. ‘I’m not leaving you.’

  ‘I insist that you leave me.’ I edged closer, cutting Donata out of the conversation, and dropped my voice. ‘And you should leave these people too, before it’s too late.’

  Jack shook his head, his expression suddenly drained of joviality. ‘Sophie, we’re in this together.’