Mafiosa (Blood for Blood #3) Read online

  Ignore the pain. Use it as fuel.

  He stowed the guns on top of the lockers, grabbed my shoes, and left Zola Marino in a bloody, unconscious heap behind us.

  We hurried through the corridors, weaving our way back towards the gym. I was lagging behind, but he pulled me with him.

  ‘The blood,’ I said, watching the red track across the side of my dress. The cuts Donata had left on my neck were adding to the crimson rivers on my skin. ‘They’ll see. They’ll know.’

  Luca was already shrugging off his suit jacket. He draped it around me, and then pulled me against him.

  ‘I’m going to staunch the wound.’ As he said it, the hand that had been draped around me squeezed against the bullet wound in my shoulder, pressing so hard I slumped against him.

  ‘Urrgh,’ I warbled.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, straining. ‘Just try and grit through it, Soph.’

  I examined myself for any more tell-tale signs of blood, trying not to focus on the mild torture coursing through my body. Luca’s suit jacket was so big it dwarfed me. It dwarfed all evidence of our scuffle.

  We made our way across the now-empty dance floor. He dropped my shoes among the other stilettos that had been discarded during the chaos. There was no way I could teeter convincingly in them now.

  I groaned.

  ‘I’ll get you a new pair,’ he said.

  ‘Not that,’ I hissed. ‘The pain. Your grip. It’s so tight.’

  ‘It’ll stop the bleeding,’ he said. ‘We’re about to walk into a huge amount of cops. Just follow my lead, OK?’

  ‘Jack – Donata,’ I tried to explain. ‘They’re here.’

  ‘They’ll be long gone,’ he said, but there was no confidence in his voice, no confidence in the way he was scanning the gym.

  I wound my good arm around his back, pressed my head against his shoulder and tried not to flinch from the pressure coming from his other hand. We stumbled through the front doors, joining the last dregs of students crying and shouting, and then I channelled every element of hysteria inside me and started screaming too.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  RED AND BLUE

  Everything was red and blue. A line of heavily armed policeman surrounded the exit. We stumbled forward, and I slipped into the role of terrified-innocent-teenager more easily than I had hoped possible. I was crying so loudly my voice was resonating with the sirens’ pitch. Luca held my head against him and whispered fake nothings into my hair. His fingers pressing tighter and tighter against the wound, the nausea curling in my stomach.

  Over my head, I heard him speaking to the policemen. ‘She’s in shock. She was in the bathroom when it started. I had to drag her out of the stall.’

  I pressed my face into his jacket, and wailed some more.

  The cops were asking Luca questions about the shooter. He was batting them away expertly. ‘I don’t know. I was with my girlfriend the whole time. She had a panic attack. Can I take her home?’

  I sniffed again. My face had grown deathly pale.

  Seeming satisfied and somewhat distracted by our display, the cops ushered us behind them, out of the way, and we joined a huddle of students being herded back from the entrance.

  I turned my face to Luca, blinking him into focus.

  He was already looking at me, a frown rippling across that smooth composure. ‘How is it now?’ he asked. ‘I’ll ease up the pressure.’

  ‘I need to lie down.’

  He pulled me tighter against him, so I was half leaning, half standing. ‘I’m taking you to the hospital. Vita will have a look at you there.’

  ‘No,’ I groaned, my head lolling against him. ‘Please, no hospitals.’

  ‘I’m not taking any chances, Soph.’

  ‘No outsiders.’

  ‘Vita is Paulie’s wife. She’s a doctor.’

  ‘No hospitals,’ I laboured. ‘Can’t you bring Vita to us? If the Marinos came to a school, I doubt they’ll have any moral hesitancies about barging into a hospital. You didn’t see Donata. She’s baying for blood. She’s a loose cannon now.’ I nearly flopped over from the effort of those few sentences.

  Luca seemed to be considering it, because instead of arguing back, he went silent. He knew I was right. It was too dangerous, and my condition wasn’t serious enough to warrant the risk.

  ‘I’ll figure something out,’ he said at last, the words filtered through a sigh.

  We hobbled further away from the crowds, but not far enough to stop Millie spotting us and making a beeline for us. Cris struggled to stay arm in arm with her; only Millie could sprint like that in heels.

  ‘Sophie!’ She tried to grab me by my arm.

  ‘Don’t!’ Luca pulled me backwards. ‘Don’t touch her.’

  Millie dropped her hand as if I had burnt her. She narrowed her eyes at Luca, then at me. They widened, just a fraction, taking in my appearance. ‘What. The. Actual. Bloody. Hell. Is. Going. On?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said quickly. My eyes were telling a different story. Don’t talk about this in front of Cris. ‘It all happened so fast. I think the shooter’s still in there.’

  Millie was having a hard time piecing everything together. I was deathly pale and hanging by a thread. Every passing second, I was leaning more on Luca and less on my own two feet. I had to get the wound seen to. I had to lie down. I turned to look up at him, and as quietly as I could, I told him, ‘I think I’m going to pass out.’

  ‘We have to go,’ he told Millie shortly. ‘Immediately.’

  Millie clocked what was happening – well, maybe not the whole thing, but she could see the strength draining out of me and the urgency creeping into Luca’s voice.

  ‘To Evelina?’ she asked him.

  ‘What’s Evelina?’ said Cris.

  ‘Yes,’ Luca said to Millie.

  ‘Are you OK, Sophie?’ Cris said, watching me now too. ‘You don’t look so good.’

  ‘I got a fright,’ I said, trying to force my head up straight. ‘I had a panic attack in the bathroom.’

  Cris wasn’t buying it exactly, but he was a million miles off the truth and I could tell he was more concerned about Millie than me. Luca started to wheel us off in the direction of his car. ‘We’ll catch up with you later, Millie,’ he said, a note of warning in his voice. ‘You and Cris should head home.’

  Millie was watching us closely, whatever she wanted to say clamped down on her tongue. It wasn’t the right time. ‘I’ll come with you guys. Cris, babe—’ She turned around to her boyfriend, fluttered her lashes and made her voice go all gooey. ‘I’m going to go back with Sophie and make sure she’s OK. I’ll call you in a little while.’

  ‘Millie, I don’t think—’ Luca began.

  ‘Let her come,’ I hissed. ‘She knows.’

  ‘She’s a liability,’ Luca muttered.

  I pinched him in the arm. ‘She’s my best friend, and trust me, she’s not going to let this go.’

  Cris slid his arm around Millie. ‘I’ll just go with you,’ he said, still half perplexed.

  ‘I’ll call you soon,’ Millie said more firmly. She wriggled out from under his arm. ‘Soph’s having a hard time and I need to be there for her.’

  I elongated my face and did the most unattractive grimace I could muster up. ‘I’m so scared, Cris,’ I said. ‘I feel like I might break down any second.’

  ‘What about him?’ Cris pointed at Luca, but was still looking at Millie. ‘He’s with her.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ said Millie brusquely. ‘In times like this, a girl needs her best friend. I’ll call you later. I promise.’ She gave him a quick kiss on the lips and then turned on her heel. She took my other arm, and Luca steered us, arm in arm, to his SUV.

  Millie dropped her voice. ‘Has she been shot?’

  ‘Yes,’ Luca said. ‘Just a little.’

  ‘Just a little?!’ Millie released an impressive string of curses. ‘You have a lot of explaining to do, Falcone.’

  ‘I
told her not to follow me.’

  ‘Shut up!’ I snapped. ‘Of course I was going to follow you.’

  Luca shook his head. ‘You are so frustrating.’

  ‘Are we going to the hospital?’ Millie interrupted.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It didn’t go into my shoulder.’

  ‘I’m getting her help,’ Luca said.

  ‘You’d better be,’ Millie snapped.

  We climbed into the SUV. Luca hopped in the front and started the engine.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Millie asked me.

  ‘A little bit like death,’ I said weakly.

  ‘Don’t even joke about that, Soph. And please tell me I did not see Donata and your uncle speeding away from the school a few minutes ago?’

  ‘About that …’

  ‘Oh, Jesus.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I murmured. The pain was starting to subside, but the heat was still raging through my arm.

  Millie frowned at me. ‘When we get to Evelina, you’re telling me everything.’

  ‘Mil, I—’

  ‘No,’ she snapped, cutting me off. ‘I don’t know what went down tonight but I know you are in a whole lot more danger than you’ve been letting on, so if you want me to be your friend, then you’re going to have to let me in. No ifs, no buts.’

  Luca was watching us in the rear-view mirror. ‘Sophie’s taken a vow,’ Luca reminded her. ‘She can’t tell you anything.’

  ‘Excuse you?’ Millie scooted forward, her head jutting between the front seats. ‘Luca Falcone, you can shove that vow right up your—’

  ‘Millie!’ I interrupted, yanking her back. ‘It’s all right. I’ll tell you.’

  Millie folded her arms, her narrowed gaze on the back of Luca’s head. ‘You come to my dance and endanger my best friend by going off shooting your gun at random people and then you expect me to wave you off without so much as a single question as to what the hell went on. Meanwhile, my best friend is suffering from a gunshot wound – and let me tell you something, pretty boy, if I find out it was you who shot her, I will yank every perfect hair out of your head one by one and then slam my fist into your face. I swear to God, you’d better hope the explanation for this shitstorm is watertight, because it will be your funeral if—’

  ‘I didn’t shoot her,’ Luca cut in. ‘Don’t insult me.’

  ‘Do you want a medal?’ she retorted. ‘Because the way I see it, you were the last person with her, and now she’s all shot up.’

  ‘I told you to stay put.’

  ‘I’m in charge of my own actions,’ I interjected. ‘So how about you stop blaming each other?’

  ‘OK,’ said Luca. ‘Shall I blame you, then?’

  ‘For not staying behind while you went charging to your death?’ I supplied.

  ‘Stop hate-flirting, you two,’ Millie interrupted. ‘Who was it? Who the hell shot her? Was it Donata? Was it Jack? Who do I have to maim now?’

  I almost laughed. No fight skills or guns or training, and Millie was perpetually undaunted in the midst of all these assassins.

  ‘Zola Marino,’ Luca replied. ‘Donata’s daughter. I shouldn’t have gone after her. She’s a loose cannon. I was afraid of what she’d do to get your attention, Sophie, to pull you away from the crowds. I was afraid who else she might hurt in her attempt to flush you out. I was trying to neutralize her.’ He stopped to bite off a curse. ‘I should have looked for Donata first. For your uncle. I made the wrong call.’

  ‘Wait, you went after Sara’s sister?’ Millie asked. ‘What the hell was she doing at our dance? Does she go to Cedar Hill High?’ She paused, then sucked in a gasp. ‘Wait, is she dead now? Did you kill her?’

  Luca and I exchanged a look in the mirror. God. Where to begin? Millie didn’t even know about our involvement with Libero. She didn’t know about the blood war. She didn’t know about what I was planning. She didn’t know about anything.

  Luca was having the same thought. He scrubbed his hand across his forehead, a heavy sigh filling up the lingering silence.

  Millie sat back, her face turned towards the roof of the car. ‘OK,’ she said calmly. ‘The way I see it, you both have two choices. You can sit here covered in your lies and your silence and keep exchanging furtive glances right in front of me and thinking that I don’t notice, or one of you can open your mouth and start talking.’

  ‘I’m inclined to go for number one,’ Luca said.

  Millie blew a laugh at him. ‘That was a fake option, Luca. If I have to track down every Marino in Chicago to find out what the hell went down tonight, then I will. You think Sophie is stubborn? Well, let me introduce you to Sophie 2.0.’

  A laugh trickled out of me. ‘It’s a very long story, Mil.’

  ‘Well, then,’ she said confidently, ‘lucky for you we have a long drive.’

  PART III

  ‘Whatever is done for love always

  occurs beyond good and evil.’

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  GENOVESE

  Back at Evelina, it wasn’t Vita who tended to me, but Elena. She breezed into my bedroom dressed in a floor-length dressing gown, her dark hair hanging loose around her shoulders. She looked younger without her usual make-up.

  ‘You’re back,’ she said, way more casually than I was expecting. She had a small case with her; she laid it on the bed between us and gestured at Luca’s suit jacket, indicating with a flick of the wrist that I should take it off. ‘Can I see the wound, please?’ There was a note of tenderness in her voice, in place of her usual mistrust.

  I shrugged the jacket off, watching as her eyes went wide. She sucked in a gasp. ‘It’s a little worse than I was expecting.’ She took my hand in hers, pulled gently, so she could get a better look at my shoulder. There were pools of dried blood around the wound, the skin gaping open where the bullet had grazed the skin. I had to look away before I got sick.

  ‘OK,’ she said, calmly, opening the case. ‘I’m going to have to stitch it closed.’

  ‘What?’ I gaped at her. ‘Shouldn’t we get a doctor or something to do that?’

  I don’t know why I was expecting her to pull out some run-of-the-mill fabric thread and a rusty old needle, but I was. She removed surgical thread and a sterilized needle instead, a frown pursing her lips as she looked at me. ‘I am a mother of five active assassins, the wife of one deceased Mafia boss and the daughter of another. I am also a trained nurse. You don’t have to look so horrified, Sophie.’

  Sophie. My name. The preferred version too. Something fluttered inside me. It felt a little bit like relief.

  I closed my jaw back up. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I just thought—’

  ‘That I was going to hurt you?’ she said. ‘Of course not.’ She applied some ointment to the area around the wound. I tried not to flinch, and failed. ‘I don’t usually numb first, but since this is your first gunshot wound …’

  ‘Jesus,’ I muttered.

  Elena surprised me by laughing. ‘The first prick will be the hardest, and then it will be quick. I promise.’ She tapped a finger against my skin to see if the numbing cream had set in yet. ‘Feel that?’

  I nodded, and she pulled back, waiting.

  ‘I didn’t know you used to be a nurse,’ I said.

  ‘Yes. I trained a long time ago – before I had all these boys running around after me, dragging at my skirts, demanding five meals a day. Once they came along, I found being a mother to them was a full-time job.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘I enjoy it, you know,’ she said, flicking a glance at me, waiting for a reaction. ‘Tending to people. That might surprise you.’

  Maybe it would have once, but not any more. Not after I’d seen her around her sons, the love she showed them, even when she was snapping at Dom about leaving dirty plates in the sink or giving out to Gino about his messy hair. You could feel it.

  ‘It doesn’t surprise me, actually.’ That brought a fleeting smile to Elena’s f
ace. ‘What made you want to be a nurse?’ I don’t know why I asked, but my shoulder was starting to go numb and I knew the needle would be coming next and I wanted to take my mind off it. Besides, I wanted to know more about her.

  ‘My mother was a nurse.’ She pointed towards the wall, and I looked away, trying to ignore the needle as she threaded it in my periphery. ‘She died when I was very young, but the care she showed my sister and me in our early childhood never left me. She was from Texas. As far from a mafiosa as you can imagine. She taught us to ride horses and make pecan pie when we were barely able to walk. She made the most magnificent turkey dinners at Christmastime, and the sweetest eggnog. And then one day, it all went away. She died in a botched hit on my father, and all of her goodness died with her.’ Her smile was sad, her voice hollow when she said, ‘When you grow up around torture and violence, it does something to you, Sophie. I wanted to end suffering, not cause it. I wanted to be a solution, in whatever way I could. My mother was kind. I suppose I wanted to be like her.’

  I barely felt the first prick. The cream had kicked in and Elena’s movements were quick and steady now. Still, I shut my eyes. ‘Did your dad approve?’

  She let out a snort. ‘My father rarely approved of anything I did. Where my mother was kind, he was cruel. He ruled the Genovese crime family with an iron fist, and that extended to Donata and me as well. I used to think he was the most impressive man I ever met. As I grew up, that changed. I came to fear how easily he could separate his emotions from his duty. Sometimes I wondered if he had emotions at all.’

  The silence rose up between us, and I was conscious of how much she was offering me, how vulnerable she might have felt in that moment, so I said, ‘I can understand that. Thinking you know someone, and learning that they’re nothing like what you thought. It sucks. Especially when it’s your dad.’

  Elena nodded. ‘We look at our parents through rose-coloured glasses. Part of growing up is taking them off. We come to understand them on a human level. It’s not always a pleasant experience.’