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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE THE LIE

When I woke up the sun had risen somewhere behind a thick sheen of dark clouds and even the air inside was crackling. I showered, washing off the fear and the sweat, and by the time I emerged again, freshly clothed in denim shorts and a tank top, I looked a little less like death-with-frizzy-hair.

I found my mother hovering in her room. She had changed into a tracksuit and white sneakers, and had clipped her hair back behind her ears. She stopped folding a T-shirt when I came in. I could never tell her what I was about to do. I couldn’t explain my intentions because she wouldn’t understand them, and she wouldn’t let me go. Not after everything Donata had told her about the Falcones. She’d think me a lunatic for going to the murderers’ palace.

‘I’ve got to go out for a bit,’ I told her. ‘But I’ll be back this evening.’

‘Where are you going that will take so long? I thought you were just going to the bank…’

‘Errands,’ I said, keeping my voice lofty. I gestured around me at the air, hoping to distract her from the threads of suspicion that were connecting behind her eyes. ‘I’ll go to the bank and get my savings. I have to see Millie and let her know what’s going on. And I want to pick up a few things too.’

‘Oh,’ she said, bewildered. ‘Do you want me to come with you?’

‘I think you should carry on packing, so we can get a head start.’

She was nodding at all the clothes that had spilt out around her. ‘Yes,’ she said, frowning. ‘There’s a lot to do.’

I stepped back from her, smiling without feeling the joy that was supposed to go with it. ‘Exactly.’

Millie was already waiting for me when I flung the front door open. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ she grumbled as I got into the car. I had spent thirty minutes talking her around last night before I finally got her on board.

‘I hope so too,’ I said.

‘You know you can always stay with me. I can ask my dad to lend—’

‘Mil,’ I cut her off. ‘This isn’t a vacation, it’s a blood feud, and I told you a thousand times, I am not involving you.’

‘What if they refuse to help you, Soph? Any bright ideas then?’

I flopped back against the seat, staring out the windshield at the sinking grey sky. ‘Then I guess I’m going to have to rob a bank.’