Chapter 27
SOFIYA
They locked me in a safehouse I sourced myself and kitted out two years ago. It would be funny if it wasn’t so fucking exhausting. Infuriating. Humbling and pathetic.
As it is, the irony tastes bitter, like the blood I’ve bitten from my tongue.
It’s nestled in the backwoods of northern New Jersey, surrounded by dormant pine. From the outside, it looks like a cosy hunting lodge. Inside, it’s a tomb. No signals or exits unless you know where to look.
They’ve stripped me of everything but my clothes. Tied me to a chair. The same men who used to drive me to school. Granted, they were men I knew I couldn’t trust, but still…
My father is pacing the floor like a caged bull.
Stefano is leaning against the wall, arms crossed, that ever-present smirk bleeding cruelty. And two other Mancinelli men I don’t recognise, but who all radiate the same brand of tension.
I fucked up, got distracted with being dicked down by Rafaelle Salvatore to do the necessary.
El Topo has slipped the net. Again. And he’s now a half-step ahead of me.
Somehow, some way, he escaped during his handoff from Interpol to the FBI.
I don’t know the details – yet. But the moment the handoff was blown wide open, the accusations started flying.
And now here I am. Shackled, being questioned by men who couldn’t find their balls if you handed them to them gift-wrapped and labelled ‘fragile’.
My father stops pacing long enough to look at me. Really look. The disappointment in his face shouldn’t sting, but it does, soft punch or not.
‘You don’t have to be his dog forever,’ I say coldly, chin high. ‘Papa, for once – listen. You know I’d never sell out my blood. But maybe I’m done bleeding for men who don’t deserve it.’
Fury rolls over his face. ‘That’s what you have to say for yourself after betraying your own grandfather? This is how you repay this family?’
‘You mean the family I’ve bled for since I was fifteen?’ My voice is glass-edged. ‘While you sat in palazzos and played godfathers, I was out there stopping your enemies from choking us in our sleep.’
‘You betrayed us,’ my father says, deadly quiet. ‘You let blood outweigh blood.’
A cruel thing, the truth. Especially when it’s twisted like this.
‘I am blood,’ I say, straightening slowly. ‘And for years you treated me like a weapon you could break and rebuild at will. You never asked if I wanted this life. You never cared if I broke trying to hold it all up. But I did it. I did it all. And still I’m not enough.’
‘You’re not,’ Stefano says, stepping closer. ‘Not if you’re whoring for Salvatore scraps.’
I ignore him, knowing he’ll hate that.
‘I gave Nonno the chance to stop dragging this family through hell. He chose not to take it.’
‘And who the fuck are you to think you can call the shots? Your sister tried the same thing,’ he mutters. ‘Before she ran off with Cesare Salvatore. Before she brought disgrace to our name.’
I stiffen. ‘Maddie didn’t betray us. You and Nonno betrayed her first.’
That earns me a backhand. Fast, sharp. But not from my father.
Fucking Stefano.
‘Watch your mouth,’ he sneers.
I smile, bloody-lipped. ‘Still trying to make up for the fact you’ve never been relevant?’
The second crack across my face comes. My body reels. Salt floods my mouth. Rage surges.
But I don’t fall.
I straighten. Breathing slow. Focus narrowing.
‘I’m done.’ My gaze sharpens to a blade. ‘With all of you. With this bullshit loyalty that only ever flowed one way. I want better. I deserve better.’
‘And you think that unhinged Salvatore’s going to give it to you?’ my father sneers.
I don’t answer. But yes. Yes, I do. Even if it’s not a promise Rafaelle has made. It’s the way he sees me. The way he touches me like I’m more than broken glass. Like I’m fire he wants to burn for.
Stefano’s face twists. ‘I always knew you were an ungrateful little—’
Before he can strike again, Matteo raises a hand.
That’s when the call comes.
He steps aside, answering his burner with the gravitas of a pope receiving absolution. I don’t even need to guess who it is when his eyes flick to me.
It’s him. Interpol didn’t lose him by accident. I know Agent DeLuca triple-crossed me. No worries, he’ll get what’s coming to him.
My father turns to me and hits the speaker button. Bonafacio sounds slurred and slippery. Unhinged enough that he’s hardly making sense. But I catch the menace and the intent sure enough.
And every word cuts deeper than the last.
‘My own flesh and blood,’ he’s ranting, ‘sold me out. First Maddelena. Now her. You raise them to be killers and they stab you in the back. Maybe it’s time to wipe the slate clean.’
Silence.
My eyes dart to my father’s face. His nostrils are pinched but there’s a resolute light building in his eyes.
No. He’s fucking not— ‘What are you talking about?’ I blurt.
Then the kicker.
‘What do you say, figghiu miu?’ my grandfather cajoles, his voice oiled evil. ‘You’ve been the one I’ve been most proud of. The exception to the rotten rule. What do you say we start over. With the boy? He’ll be a new beginning for all of us.’
A new beginning. The boy.
Maddie’s son.
My godson.
Something cold and wretched and furious detonates inside my chest. It takes a second for my brain to catch up, to process what I just heard. My legs nearly give out, even though I’m still seated.
I watch my father, silently imploring, hoping for a crumb I already know I’m not going to find.
Bonafacio rants on some more. And my father doesn’t object. Not once.
‘You can’t seriously be listening to this? Have you gone ins—’
Another backhand. Pain radiates from my jaw to my left eye. I grit my teeth, suck in a slow, long breath. Still I ignore Stefano, for now. I’ll deal with him later.
I lock eyes with my father as he listens to his father prattle on as if he’s ordering a round of grappa instead of mass familicide.
My heart shreds and sinks into the floor when I realise he’s actually considering it.
That’s when I know.
There’s no more reasoning with insane men. No more trying to save them from themselves. The loyalty I’ve bled for this family? Means nothing. I’m just a spent weapon to them. A tool they want to bury now I don’t serve their purpose. But I’m not going quietly.
No more.
I hunch into myself, pretend to be nursing my sore cheek with my bound hands. But I slowly fish out the pin from the hair tie wound around my wrist – blessedly missed in their search.
Narciso’s name is tossed into the mix and fresh sheets of ice unravel over me. Apparently not even the male descendant is to be spared their cold-blooded intent.
I slide the pin into the lock at the back of my cuff.
Three seconds. I cover the click with a cough. Then I wait. Count breaths. Let the rage sharpen to a blade.
Then I move.
The first man drops with a knife to the neck.
Mine. Recovered from under the lip of the table.
The second is slower, clumsier. My elbow cracks his nose as he draws his gun.
I knee him in the balls the good old-fashioned way and when he drops the gun to nurse his not-quite-crown jewels, I catch it. Fire.
Stefano darts around frantically, then too stupid to spot the hidden door three feet away, he dives, narrowly avoiding the next shot. But I wing his leg. He shrieks like the weasel he is and goes down.
Matteo – because I’m never calling this man Papà ever again – shouts for the capos outside.
I wait, pick them off as they barge through the door.
One by one, they fall. Until they wise up. I know there are two or three outside but for now…
I turn back, panting, vision ringing at the edges. Only Matteo and Stefano remain.
Matteo stares at me like I’m the stranger. ‘You won’t kill me,’ he states with bravado so false I’m stunned he’s not pissing himself.
Coward.
‘You’re right. I won’t kill you. But someone will, soon enough. All I need to do is tell Cesare Salvatore what you planned here for his newborn son and…’ I click my fingers.
He flinches.
‘Your nonno is right. We should’ve drilled better manners into you decades ago. Or better still, killed you in your fucking sleep,’ he rasps, bloodied.
Sadness shrouds me but I lock it down, hard. ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘You probably should’ve. You should’ve done a lot of—’
His gaze flicks behind me then moves away quickly in the laughably obvious universal gesture of nuthin-to-see-here.
My insides clench and I brace for the worst, already moving to protect myself as I turn. To see Stefano, still on the floor raising his gun, aiming at me.
Fuck.
I brace—
The shot comes. But it’s not from Stefano. Nor as deafening as I imagined it would be.
A single crack that barely shatters the glass through the window from which it arrives.
Stefano’s head snaps back, then he slumps like a sack of flour.
Matteo lunges for me.
Another shot takes out his right knee. He drops to the floor in a sickening heap, wailing like a wounded animal.
Sniper.
I stagger to the window, my breath lightly fogging as I look out.
There, within the dense foliage, I spot the glint of a scope I wouldn’t have if he didn’t want me to. Then a figure. Black coat. Familiar gait.
Rafaelle Salvatore.
My sidekick, this time. Not my leader.
He lifts two fingers in a lazy salute, leans against the tree. Then my phone pings. I retrieve it from the drawer one of the men tossed it into.
Come on out. It’s time to go now, my brave, beautiful, badass tigra.
I’m covered in my family’s blood, clutching a borrowed gun with my face throbbing.
But I’ve never been happier in my life.
And as I step outside of the carnage I didn’t create, I let my heart unfurl. To embrace all the reasons why.
Rafaelle
She comes to me smelling of blood and cordite and copper and sweat.
But beneath it, her. My glorious tigra.
Wild and stubborn and painfully, beautifully alive.
I meet her halfway, stepping over a body – one of the dozen fucks who thought they could cage her. His neck’s been opened like a fruit rind.