Mafiosa (Blood for Blood #3)(32)

I swirled the facts around in my head. It’s not like I thought he was a good guy already, but I hadn’t expected him to be so hateable. It was almost too easy, that he would be the perfect villain. It was easy to hate him. I tried to harness that feeling. I would need it. I would need nothing but that burning, festering hatred. A shred of empathy and it would all go to hell.

‘This is for your mother, remember?’ Nic added, his gaze boring into mine. ‘This is for what they took from you.’

Yes. He was right. That was why I was here. I remembered the diner, the fire, the heat … the smoke. This was for her.

Nic turned on some music on his phone, and closed his eyes, humming under his breath. I looked through the windscreen, at messy graffiti and overflowing dumpsters. Somewhere close by, The Sicilian Kiss was awaiting our arrival, and Libero Marino was walking to his demise. I tried to concentrate on the music, letting the melody sweep me into a different place.

Time crawled.

And then …

Dom swiped his finger across his phone screen, read a text, smirked at Nic, and, as simply as if he was putting on his favourite movie, said, ‘Show time.’

Seven minutes later, I had scaled a three-storey fire escape and was standing on the roof of The Sicilian Kiss, my gun clenched inside my coat pocket, and my teeth chattering so hard I could barely hear myself think. According to Paulie, there were only five people inside the bar: Libero Marino, Eric Cain, the owner (a Falcone snitch who was holing himself away on the ground floor), and two of Libero’s buyers, who had just shown up for the drug deal.

We went in via the fire escape on the roof, while Paulie made his way through the front entrance at the same time. Nic and Dom formed a barrier in front of me, shoulder to shoulder and dressed entirely in black, their coats zipped up past their chins. We descended the stairs quietly and quickly, leaving the cold behind us. My face was hot and my breathing was coming quick and sharp. It felt like every part of my skin was tingling. I could feel the adrenalin, like a shot of hot metal coursing through my bloodstream.

We stalled in a narrow corridor at the bottom of the fire escape. The place was dank and musty. There was a door right in front of us, with a circle of glass set in the centre. Voices wafted from a lowly-lit room with black walls and rickety old tables. Someone laughed behind the door – it was loud and sharp, and I cringed at the familiarity. That was Eric Cain, Jack’s best friend. Could Jack be nearby, too? What about my father?

No. Paulie would have warned us. This was his job, and Nic said they didn’t call him ‘The Ghost’ for nothing. He was always nearby, always watching. He moved unseen inside the shadows. Even if the time had changed at the last minute, his sources wouldn’t have. I told myself that over and over, Nic’s warning flashing inside my head. Don’t psyche yourself out.

Nic crept up to the window and peered in. He held up four fingers. Dom pulled the slider on his gun back. I copied him, my fingers warm with adrenalin as they slid against the cool metal.

Nic glanced over his shoulder, one hand already pressed against the door. Dom was looking at his phone, counting under his breath. Paulie was obviously coming up the opposite stairs.

Nic gestured to a puddle of darkness behind the stairs. ‘Hide until we call you.’

Something flared inside me – need, anger, excitement?

‘Let me come in,’ I whispered. ‘Don’t leave me out here.’

Nic shook his head, his attention already disengaging from me. ‘You’re not ready for this part yet.’

Before I could protest, or even figure out whether I truly wanted to protest, the boys raised their guns, swung the door open and started shooting. And then my feet were moving too, carrying me through the gap in the door as it shut after them, and propelling me towards the gunfire, my own weapon raised.

Nic fired first, and Eric Cain went down, his body collapsing on to the table and sending glasses smashing to the ground. Everyone started roaring, and the long, narrow room exploded into chaos. I zeroed in on Libero as he rolled backwards, away from Dom’s aim, and flipped a table between them. Paulie appeared from nowhere and dispatched the first buyer with two quick shots in the back. The second buyer shot at Nic, but missed – narrowly. I stumbled backwards, crouching behind the bar and trying to aim at someone – at Eric’s floundering form, at the table Libero was now using for a shield. But everyone just kept moving.

I wasn’t used to moving targets.

The second buyer went down, his body convulsing as a fresh wound gushed blood down his neck. His leg twitched and then stopped. The first buyer was out, too. Nic finished Eric Cain, his back between us as the final shot rang out, and then … then there was only Libero Marino, crouching like a scared rat on the other side of an upturned table.

It had all happened so quickly. A flash. And now three people were dead. My pulse was roaring in my eardrums. I stood up from behind the bar, where shards of glass and spilt whisky lay in pools. I ignored the bodies, fought the urge to turn and study them. To stare death in the face and feel it spread inside me like ice. My adrenalin put one foot in front of the other, carrying me towards Nic and Dom. Libero’s gun was empty. He flung it at us as we converged on him – three angels of death. It landed with a hollow click at my feet. I kicked it away.

Paulie disappeared downstairs again, already getting to work on making the mess disappear.

The table was blocking Libero up to the neck, but there was no way out for him, and he knew it. He didn’t even look afraid. He did, however, look like Sara. Those wide eyes. Dimples, too, I noticed at close range, but only because he was frowning so severely and his facial hair was patchier than it had been in the photo.