Page 141 of The Fates We Tame

“You ready?” I ask Sophia.

“I am.”

I settle everyone around us, and Sophia takes two long, spluttery, coughing inhales on the cigarette before she hands it back to me, then huddles into the corner of the old building.

Tears stream from her eyes. The coughing fit brought color to her cheeks. The dirt Niro applied to her face becomes tearstained.

“Papà,” she says when he answers the video call. “Please. Can you come get me?” She pauses and pretends to look around, terrified.

I can’t catch everything he says in response. As planned, Niro lets off two rounds of bullets into the air outside, and Sophia winces as she jumps.

“Something happened. We were attacked. Men. I don’t know who. Alessio is dead. Theo abandoned me.”

She swipes at her eyes and sobs. “Please, Papà. I don’t know who else to trust.”

When she finally tells him where we are, I breathe a sigh of relief.

The moment she ends the video call, I rush to her. “I’m proud of you.”

“You okay, Puparu?” Alessio asks.

Sophia nods and I help her to her feet before using the sleeve of my Henley to wipe her eyes.

“Puparu? What does that mean?” I ask.

Alessio checks his phone. “It means ‘puppeteer,’ because even from when she was little, she’s been able to pull everyone’s strings. How long until he’s here?”

“Forty minutes,” Sophia says.

And it’s the longest forty minutes of my life. We construct a place for Sophia to wait, and a concealed spot right next to it for me to hide in made from abandoned crates and lumber. There is the tiniest sliver in its construction that allows me to see a little.

Alessio lies on the ground by his car as if dead. The guy had cooly swiped some blood from the guy he shot through the head and wiped it over his own shirt to give the appearance of a lethal wound.

Got to admire the man’s balls and commitment.

When Vincenzo Viscuso arrives, it’s with three other vehicles. But I’m grateful that when they exit, there are only seven people that I can see.

It’s almost suffocating, remaining hidden the way I am. Reminds me of all the time in hospital, being squeezed into tubes while doctors tried to figure out what had happened to me.

Sophia steps forward. “Papà,” she says.

She isn’t meant to move. I know Halo and Saint have the area covered from an upper floor of the building. And, I see Bates, Niro, and Vex shifting behind the vehicles, preventing an exit. King, Clutch, and Spark are behind my position.

“Sophia,” he says. “What the fuck happened here?”

She moves closer to him.

“Sophia,” I hiss. But she ignores me.

“A lesson,” she says coldly.

Vincenzo walks closer to his daughter, and I’m ready to burst out of my hiding place. Given we don’t want a war with the Sicilians if this goes to shit or if Alessio goes back on his word, I remain out of sight.

I’ve often wondered what I felt the night I got injured. Was I scared? Did I know I would get hurt and did it anyway? Did I think I was safe and then get caught off guard?

But if it was anything like this, then it was a gut-level belief that what I was about to do was the right thing.

Because when I see Vincenzo’s arm lift a fraction of an inch, I know he’s going for a weapon. And I’m running before he even has time to acknowledge my presence.