Chapter Nine Warning

CHAPTER NINE WARNING

‘Who told you?’ I was trying very hard to keep my voice under control, conscious of the prison guard hovering nearby.

My father patted the empty seat beside him. ‘Can you sit down and we can talk about this properly?’

I kept my arms folded across my chest, my feet planted in the grass in front of the granite slab. ‘Who told you?’ I repeated.

He tilted his chin so he could see my whole face, the entirety of my disgust. His eyes were impossibly large from this angle. ‘Ursula wrote to me,’ he admitted. ‘She was afraid you had forgotten to tell me about it.’

‘If I wanted you here, I would have told you.’

‘I know.’ He had knitted his hands together on his lap, and was digging his fingernails into his knuckles.

‘And yet you came. You came and you made a scene out of it.’

‘She was my wife ,’ he said, as if I needed to be reminded. ‘I love her and I grieve her. And you are my daughter, and I have every right to be here with you.’

‘No,’ I said, leaning closer and dropping my voice to barely more than a whisper. ‘I’m the daughter of Michael Gracewell, and Michael Gracewell is gone. I am not your daughter, Vince .’

My father jerked backwards. ‘Don’t act like this, Sophie. This isn’t like you.’

‘You don’t know me,’ I snapped. ‘And evidently, I don’t know you. All I know is a collection of lies you told me, and all those horrible things you did. All those lives you took!’

‘Keep your voice down!’ Colour rose to his cheeks; his eyes, just like mine, grew dark with warning. ‘Are you trying to get me locked up for the rest of my life?’

I could have punched him. Right then, I could have punched him, but I didn’t because some stupid, vulnerable, childish part of me was still seeing my dad in front of me. The one who used to read me Dr. Seuss before bed, the one who would lift me on to his shoulders and spin me around when I needed cheering up. ‘Do you realize just how much you’ve hurt me? How much you’ve betrayed me?’

He slumped in his seat, the black suit seeming to swallow him up. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I understand what I’ve done. What I’ve lost.’

No. Not this conversation. I was already teetering on the verge of tears, every last emotion from the day lining up inside me, pressing tiny hands against my heart. I stood back, widening the gap between us. ‘Where’s Jack?’

He looked up at me, something sparking in his gaze. He knew. He knew .

‘Do not lie to me one more time.’

He raised his chin, defiance meeting my own. ‘Sophie—’

‘He killed Mom.’

‘I know what happened, Sophie.’

‘He’s the reason she’s dead!’

He flicked a nervous glance towards the prison guard.

‘I know what happened, Sophie. Your uncle—’

I bent at the waist, bringing my face close to his. ‘You weren’t there!’ I hissed. ‘You don’t know. You have no idea. Now tell me where he is so he can pay for what he did!’

And then I saw it. A smoothening of his brow, his eyes dulling, his lips resetting into a thin line. Commander mode. Here was Vince Marino, the skilled assassin. Finally. He was showing himself to me. He was showing me his steeliness, because he had no intention of ratting his brother out.

‘Sophie,’ he said, emotionless now. Calm when he should have been immersed in rage, like I was. ‘Where have you been staying? I know you haven’t been at home.’

‘How do you know that?’ I challenged. ‘Because your scumbag family killed Mom and then came back for her car to burn it out at the entrance to Felice’s driveway?’

Something flickered across his face – a chink in his armour. ‘So you are at the Falcones’,’ he said, distaste curling his lip.

‘I’m not at the Falcones’,’ I returned evenly. ‘I am a Falcone.’

He dropped his head into his hands. I watched him fold over on himself, and tried to quench the tiny flame of anxiety that sprang up at the sight of his anguish. ‘Oh, Sophie,’ he said, raising his head and dragging his palms along his cheeks. ‘What have you done?’

‘Now, there’s the question of the hour. I’ll tell you my answer if you tell me yours.’

‘They’re going to hurt you,’ he said, leaning towards me. ‘Don’t you understand that, Soph? They’re going to hurt you.’

‘They can’t hurt me as much as the Marinos already have.’

‘Why?’ he asked, crestfallen. His voice was weak, his commander facade seeping away like water. This was my father, the man I knew. ‘Why did you go to them?’

I dropped my shoulders, my anger petering into resignation. ‘Where else would I have gone?’

His silence was answer enough.

Nowhere. There was nowhere else to go.

A furtive glance over my shoulder showed me the prison guard was more interested in his phone than in us. Millie was waiting by the car. Everyone else had gone home.

My father buried his face in his hands again. I spoke to the crown of his head, where grey hairs mingled amongst the mousy brown. ‘If you don’t tell me where Jack is, and what he’s doing, I’m going to turn around and walk away, and this conversation will be over for good. I know you know. I don’t know why you’re hiding it after his involvement in Mom’s death, but if you refuse to tell me, then I’ll consider it a betrayal to her as well as me.’ I could hear the cruelty in my voice, but I pushed on, knowing this was the only way forward. He had been cruel, too, only he was too afraid to show it. I would be transparent at least.

‘I loved your mom, Soph.’ He was speaking to his feet as I glowered at his head. ‘She was the best thing that ever happened to me. Her and you.’

‘You lied to her. She had no idea about all the people you had killed… about your quest for retribution. She didn’t see what was in the safe. The Falcone switchblades. The ring. The names. But I did.’

He snapped his head up. ‘The Falcones took everything from Jack and me. Sophie, they murdered our parents. They shot my mother. My mother . Can you not understand how I’d be angry about that? Can you not understand why I would want to avenge her?’

I wavered, just for a split second. This was dangerous. This was resonance, and I couldn’t afford to feel any empathy with my father. I couldn’t afford to let him draw a link between what he had done and what I wanted to do… unless I could use it to my advantage.

I hunkered down until we were at eye level. ‘Can you not understand why I would want to do the same to the people who killed Mom? Can you not understand why I’m looking for Jack? For Donata?’

He shut his eyes. ‘This isn’t the right path for you, Sophie.’

‘And yet it was for you?’

He flicked his gaze over my shoulder, towards his prison chaperone. ‘Look where it got me, Soph.’

‘Where is he?’ I pressed.

‘Leave them,’ he said at the same time as me. ‘Get away from the Falcones before they hurt you, Sophie. Because they will hurt you. Felice Falcone is mentally unhinged. You won’t survive under the same roof as him. And Angelo’s boys… they have it in for me, Sophie. They’ll have it in for you too.’

‘And go where? The Marinos’? Should I have Thanksgiving dinner at Donata’s house? Sit shoulder to shoulder with Jack? Jack who did nothing as Mom lay unconscious at his feet in the diner?’

My father sucked in a breath. ‘Of course not. I don’t want you anywhere near the underworld, period. It makes corpses of good people, and survivors of the worst. There’s no justice there, Soph. If you trust nothing else I’ve ever said, trust that. It will destroy you.’

I shook my head. ‘It’s too late, Dad.’

‘It’s not too late, Sophie.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. ‘This is not your world. It’s not your path. I made damn sure to keep it from you for this long, I won’t falter now.’

‘He killed her.’ I was beginning to sound like a parrot, but I needed to be heard, and my father was refusing to listen. ‘He had a hand in her death, no matter what he told you.’

‘This is not your fight.’ He held the paper out. It hovered between us, a small white flag. ‘Take it.’

I eyed it with suspicion. ‘What is it?’

‘An address,’ he said. ‘Someone who will help you. Go to them, and they will hide you. Take your life and run with it. If not for me, then for your mother. She would have hated to see you turning to darkness. It would have broken her heart in two.’

I snatched the paper from his hands and opened it, reading the top of the address. ‘Who the hell is M Flores?’

‘Someone who will help you,’ he said simply.

I read the address. ‘ Colorado? ’ I looked up at him. ‘Are you serious? You want me to go to Colorado to stay with some guy I’ve never met?’

‘That’s exactly what I want you to do.’

‘Well, that is ridiculous.’ I brandished the paper between us. ‘You have seriously lost your mind.’

He raised a hand. ‘Put that away. Don’t show it to anyone else. When you go, you have to disappear. Don’t tell another soul the address on that piece of paper.’

I narrowed my eyes at the hurried script. ‘Who is this? And why would they owe you anything?’

He pursed his lips together. Another secret he would not relinquish. He was a fool to give this to me. As if I would ever listen to him. As if I still cared for any of his stupid, reckless advice. My fight was here, in Chicago. My fight was in the underworld, just as his was.

‘I’m not a monster, Sophie.’

I blew out a sigh. I had reached my threshold for this particular genre of conversation. All assassins were the same – deluded – and I was done being the resident counsellor. I was done with second chances, third chances. I could make up my own mind about who to trust from now on; that much had become very clear. ‘How long are you out for?’ I said, eyeing the prison guard.

‘They granted me furlough for the ceremony.’

‘Well, it’s over now. You can take off again.’

I was still inching away, trying to distance myself from the love I used to have for this man, from all the admiration and respect that was now smouldering inside me – a wasteland of childhood affection. ‘Soph, will you do what I said?’

I looked down at the note. I looked at his face.

‘If you prove your loyalty.’ I kept my gaze as steely as his own. ‘Show me that after everything, you’re on our side. Mine and Mom’s. Tell me where Jack is hiding.’

He drew in a loaded breath, his chest puffing out. ‘I won’t do that.’

I crumpled the note and threw it at his feet. ‘Then I can’t trust you.’