Inferno (Blood for Blood #2) (33 page)

She shot to her feet. ‘No.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

She shook her head. ‘But how?’

I crushed the key in my fist and threw the rest of the photos off the bed. Anger surged in me now that I had seen it all, now that I knew for sure. ‘Because I went to them,’ I said,
hot tears welling in my eyes. ‘Because I thought they were our only hope! Because I thought we had to be protected from the Marinos! I went to them thinking they would help us, and I left with Felice Falcone screaming “Marino” at me.’ The sobs came thick and fast, choking me.

‘No,’ my mother half-shrieked. ‘They can’t know.’

‘Everybody knows!’ I yelled. ‘Everybody knows and we’re stuck here like rats, waiting to be killed or used in this stupid blood war! You should have told me!’

‘I wanted to protect you!’ She was shouting too. Panic had seized us both. We saw our fate mirrored back at us – hopeless, inevitable. We had burnt all our bridges. The secrets had cut us down. ‘I’ve been tearing my hair out thinking about it. How could I risk telling you? After the warehouse … after how close they got to us, and you were so brave and so good. The Falcones weren’t looking at you any more – they
owed
you. I thought we could walk away. I thought our secret was still safe. How could I tell my baby girl the family she comes from is sick and twisted, after everything we’ve come through? How could I break your heart like that?’ She was crying harder than me.

‘I never had a choice,’ I said, a violent sob rattling my shoulders. ‘All this time I was living a lie. I never had a way out, and you all knew it!’

‘We wanted to
give
you a way out,’ she insisted. ‘I wanted to more than anything, sweetheart.’

Something shifted inside me as Nic’s forgotten words rose to the surface, wrapping around me. The world got very dark all of a sudden. ‘I’m bound by blood, Mom.’ My voice fell deathly quiet. ‘There
is
no way out.’

‘Oh, Sophie.’ She dragged her hands across her face. ‘Do you know that you’re the most important thing to me in the whole world? I love you.’

‘I know,’ I said, defeated. ‘I know that. I love you too.’

I sank to the floor and she sank with me. The key fell to the carpet between us. ‘I was trying to protect you,’ she said, clasping my hands in hers.

‘And I was trying to protect you,’ I told her. ‘And now we’re screwed.’

She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hands. ‘No.’ She got up and pulled me with her. ‘We’re going. We have to go. We have to go tonight.’

‘They’ll find us, Mom. There’s no way out of this life. Don’t you get it? Jack’s got all that money in the diner. He’s got all the resources in the world.’ I picked up the key and brandished it between us. ‘He’s got his damn safe in
our diner
. Donata’s watching us. I don’t know what the Falcones are going to do any more than you do, but I know we don’t have enough to get away from them. We won’t be able to hide. I was supposed to choose, and I chose wrong.’

Nic’s words rang in my head.
She’s a fucking Marino
.

The look on Luca’s face.

My mother took the key from my hand. ‘Well, then, let’s get the resources,’ she said, her voice spiking. ‘If they’re going to treat us like Marinos then let’s act like them.’

I eyed the key. ‘No way.’

‘Yes way,’ she said. ‘It’s the only way.’

‘We can’t take their money!’ I hissed. ‘Are you crazy?’

‘Yes! I’m crazy with worry and this is the only way out. Let’s take it and get the head start we need.’

I shook my head. ‘Dad would never—’

‘Your father isn’t here!’

We huddled around that key, scrolling through all the ways tonight could blow up in our faces. The underworld was moving around us. We had to go. Eat or be eaten.

‘It’s too dangerous,’ I whispered. ‘The Falcones are watching the diner. They’ll kill us.’

‘No, they won’t. They won’t suspect us. They’re looking for Jack, remember?’

‘You didn’t see them.’ I thought of the horror in Nic’s eyes. The moment he had looked at me like I had betrayed him. ‘You don’t know what they’re capable of.’

She stuffed it in her pocket. ‘I know the stakes, Sophie. We’ve got a little time. Donata thinks you’re on side, remember? She said she’d come here first to brief you. And she hasn’t yet. “Soon” is not tonight.’

‘I’ll go, then. You keep watch and I’ll go in.’

She shook her head. ‘You’re not a thief, Sophie.’

‘Neither are you!’

‘This is my job. I’m supposed to protect you. I’m supposed to keep you safe.’

I had a sudden flash of Sara Marino trying to claw the blood out of her arms at Eden.

There’s this blood in us
.

‘No. I’m the Marino, remember?’

She shut her eyes tight. ‘You’re not going in there, Sophie.’

‘Fine,’ I huffed. ‘Then neither are you.’

‘Sweetheart …’

‘It’s way too dangerous. Let’s just get in the car and go. Leave the money where it is. We’ll find another way.’

There was a heavy silence. She chewed her lip, thinking. And then, at last, her shoulders dipped and she said, ‘Pack a bag. We’ll discuss it when we’re in the car.’

I left the pieces of my father’s past, the broken secret he had kept from me, and went into my bedroom and threw my whole life into a suitcase.

I was fishing a pair of shorts out from underneath my bed when the front door slammed. My heart slammed too.

My mother had reversed out of the driveway by the time I got downstairs. She sped away from me, leaving me screaming at the back of her car as the first drops of rain began to fall, heralding the storm.

She was going to rob the safe.

They were going to kill her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

THE SAFE

I
didn’t care about the rain on my cheeks or the wind whipping through my hair as I charged through the darkness. I didn’t think about the lightning ignite the sky or hear the thunder clap like drumfire. Houses passed in blurs, the trees streaking green beneath the street lights.

I ignored the crippling need to stop, to bend at the waist and vomit. My exertion ebbed, vibrating like needle-points in my legs as I pushed myself towards the diner, towards my mother. I was running faster than I ever had before, every step pulsing through my ribs, calling old wounds to the surface.

I skidded into the parking lot. My mother’s car was parked in the furthest corner of the lot, nestled where the street lights weren’t shining. It wasn’t exactly the perfect disguise,
but she had hidden it, at least. There was no sign of the Falcones but I wasn’t dumb enough to think they weren’t there somewhere, if they weren’t already inside Gracewell’s. If I had learnt anything these past few weeks, it was to expect the unexpected.

And trust no one.

I ran towards the diner, conscious of eyes on my back. I swung open the front door under the awning, groaning at the fact that it wasn’t locked. Locking it behind me, I followed the sound of frantic rustling behind the counter and into the kitchen. My mother was flinging pots and pans out of the cupboards.

‘I told you not to come!’

She snapped her head up. She was wild-eyed, her hands still scrabbling against the wood. ‘Where’s that damn safe?’

What the hell had gotten into her?

‘No,’ I said. ‘No way. We are not taking their money. We need to get out of here.’

‘Sophie, stop,
think
,’ my mother urged. ‘We’ve been backed into a corner. You said it yourself, you’re bound by blood. We both know what that means. They’ll come after you either way. At least this way we’ll have a fighting chance.’

I glanced around the kitchen. It was eerily quiet, the sounds of our breathing mingling with the dripping of the tap. I could hear my own heartbeat.

‘We can’t, Mom. They’ll kill us. They’ll kill you.’ The idea swarmed behind my eyes and vibrated in my throat. ‘I can’t lose you too.’

‘They won’t catch us.’ She gestured out on to the diner floor. ‘They’re not here, sweetheart. Look around you.’

‘The Falcones—’

‘The Falcones don’t care about the money.’

I faltered. I knew that was true too. They had more money than they knew what to do with. This was about Jack for them.

‘Where is the safe?’ my mother pleaded. She was panting, and the panic between us was rising. ‘I know you’re scared, I know this isn’t the right thing, but it’s the only way we can do this. Jack’s been bleeding us of money for years. We’re only taking what’s owed to us. We’re only taking enough to disappear. You’re my baby. You’re my whole world. I won’t let them take you from me.’

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.