Vendetta (Blood for Blood #1)(38)

As the black SUV screeched to a halt on the street beside us, I felt my insides collapse in disappointment. Nic untangled himself from me and lunged forward to bang on the car’s blacked-out window.

“Gino? Dom?” he shouted. “Cosa vuoi?”

With a sleek casualness, the window buzzed down and the driver leaned across the passenger seat.

“Luca?” Nic sounded shocked.

Luca, in all his icy-eyed splendor, spat, “Get in, Nicoli.”

“What the hell is going on?”

Luca threw his arm out and popped the passenger door so that it swung open against his brother’s body. “Get in the car now.”

Nic turned back to me, his expression apologetic. “He can be a bit over the top sometimes …”

“Without her,” Luca interrupted.

“Have you gone insane? Or are you just having an * day? I’m not ditching Sophie in the middle of the street!”

Luca rubbed his hand across his forehead and released a sharp sigh. “I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, little brother, but it’s not funny.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Have you spoken to Dom today?”

“No.”

“Vieni qui.”

Nic leaned into the open window.

Luca dropped his voice and spoke in one endless, hurried thread. Even though I could tell they had switched to Italian, I stood with my arms folded and listened. And though what I heard was mostly an incomprehensible string of syllables, I managed to glean one word successfully. And that word was “Gracewell.”

The second I heard my name spring from Luca’s lips, Nic turned around and regarded me with a poorly concealed display of horror. His mouth, which had been soft against mine just moments ago, was pursed in a hard line, and suddenly he was looking at me like he didn’t know who I was.

“What’s going on?”

“What’s your name?” he asked in a strained voice.

“You know my name,” I replied, feeling scared by how unrecognizable he suddenly seemed. “It’s Sophie.”

“Sophie what?”

“Nic …”

“Sophie what?” he pressed, his voice growing frighteningly shrill.

“G-Gracewell,” I stammered, my lips trembling.

He looked like he was about to pass out. “Cazzo!”

“What does it matter what my name is?” I heard the desperation in my voice, but I didn’t care.

He shook his head. “But it doesn’t make any sense.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have to go.” The words seemed forced, but he pushed them out determinedly.

“What does it matter?” I asked again. “What did Luca say about me?”

Behind Nic, Luca stared impassively at the road, but his hands were gripping the steering wheel so hard, they looked like marble. “Get in the car, Nic. Don’t drag this out.”

Nic lingered, looking at me like I had just slapped him hard in the face.

“Luca …” he pleaded, as if the rug had been pulled from underneath his feet and he had fallen hard on the ground beneath it.

Luca didn’t turn his head, and when he spoke again his voice was rough with anger. “Get. Away. From. Her. Now.”

I grabbed on to Nic’s arm. I didn’t know where he was going, but I knew I didn’t want it to be without me.

“Now!” Luca bared his pointed teeth like a wolf.

There was a moment of nothingness, when my heart crumpled, and then Nic pulled his arm from me, ripped himself out of our bubble, and jumped into the passenger seat, slamming the door behind him.

I leapt forward and gripped the open window as the engine roared to life beneath me. It was then that I saw there was blood all over Luca’s shirt.

“What happened?” I gasped, my stomach filling with dread. If that were his own blood, Luca would have been in the hospital. But he wasn’t. He was sitting across from me, seething and unscathed. Several disappearances and two strange deaths in the last two weeks — Mrs. Bailey’s words rang in my ears. “Where did all that blood come from?”

Luca didn’t respond, and Nic spoke instead. “Get back from the car, Sophie.”

“Is this about my dad?”

Luca and Nic exchanged a loaded glance, and suddenly I felt like a pariah all over again.

“I want to know what he said!” I shouted at Nic. “Tell me!”

It was Luca who finally responded. Turning his head slowly, he stared at me until his icy blue eyes dominated my worldview. “Gracewell,” he hissed, “get off my car, or I will remove you from it myself.”

Nic cursed under his breath, but still he wouldn’t look at me. Luca, on the other hand, held his hostile gaze until, shattering under the weight of it, I took my hands off the car and stumbled back.

The engine revved twice, and then the Priestly brothers sped off into the night without another glance in my direction. I was left standing alone in the middle of a deserted street as a string of questions exploded inside my brain.





“It is only in love and murder that we still remain sincere.”

FRIEDRICH DüRRENMATT, Incident at Twilight