Chapter 3

"You weren't here these past few years, so I've been staying in the marriage house. The place was sitting empty."

"Gina had just come up and had nowhere to land, so I let her move in."

I walked a slow circle through the rooms.

Everything I'd arranged with such care before I left had been dumped into the back room, the cookware thrown into a cabinet in a chaotic heap.

The coats in the bedroom closet had been crammed into bags, crushed out of shape.

And my father's memorial portrait, which had stood on the cabinet in the front room like a quiet reminder of whose blood-money had built all of this, had been shoved into a drawer stuffed with junk, thick with dust.

I lifted it out with careful hands, wiped it clean with my sleeve, and turned a hard stare on Gina.

"Why did you touch my father's portrait?"

Gina shrank back, her eyes reddening in an instant, shaking her head.

"I'm sorry, Adriana, I didn't mean to..."

"I live here alone. Every time I walked in and saw a memorial portrait, it scared me!"

"It scared you, but you still moved in?"

"Enough!"

Salvatore cut me off, his voice sharp. The rain against the windows filled the silence he left behind.

"Adriana, it's one photograph. Do you really have to blow this up into some matter of principle?"

"She's young, she gets frightened. What's the harm in putting it away?"

"One photograph?"

I let out a cold laugh, my eyes fixed on him. Somewhere below us, out past the guarded gate of the estate, a car idled in the storm. In this house men waited on his word without breathing. And he stood here defending the girl who'd buried my father in a drawer.

"Say that again while you're looking straight at my father. Go ahead."

He fell silent for a few seconds, then his tone softened.

"All right, don't be angry. This one's on me."

"I should have said something to you beforehand."

And with that he reached for my hand. His thumb had drifted to his wedding band, rolling it once before his hand opened toward me.

"You've been on a plane all morning, running back and forth to the club. You must be exhausted. Rest first."

"I've already made up the spare room for you."

I froze for a moment, wondering if I'd misheard him.

I pulled my hand out of his, and when I spoke, my throat had gone tight.

"You want me in the spare room?"

There was a flicker of impatience under his eyes, but his voice stayed coaxing.

"Tomorrow I'll switch you back myself. Just give Gina tonight."

"Salvatore! Don't push this too far!"

My chest was heaving. I felt the signet ring on my finger, my father's ring, and I turned it once around.

"This is property my father left me before there was ever a union between us. It has nothing to do with you."

"I'm not giving anything up, and I'm not letting her stay another night."

I raised my eyes, glanced at my watch, and turned to Gina.

"It's eight now. Before nine thirty, I want you out of my home."

"Otherwise I'll have you dragged out as a trespasser."

"Adriana, so now you're drawing lines between what's yours and what's mine?"

Salvatore tossed the towel onto the couch and looked at me coldly.

"I'm only doing it now. You've been doing it all along."

I didn't look at him. I took gloves and a mask out of a drawer and walked into the bedroom.

I threw every one of Gina's things out.

Then I hung up my own clothes, piece by piece.

Gina stood rooted where she was, at a loss. Her hand had crept to her stomach, the way it always did when the ground shifted under her.

It wasn't until I hurled the last item out that she rushed over, scooped it into her arms, tears falling in fat drops.

Her whole face crumpled as she looked at me.

"Adriana, I know you're angry, but you can't just throw out the keepsakes my grandmother left me!" Her voice climbed half a register too fast on the last words.

I watched that pitiful little display of hers, wiped my hands with a look of pure dread.

"You were scared of my father's portrait, so of course I'm scared of your grandmother's keepsakes too!"

"So there's nothing to do but throw them out."

Gina had no comeback. She began stuffing her things into a suitcase one by one, and turned to the grim-faced Salvatore, her voice catching.

"Don Falcone, I'm sorry for the trouble."

"I'll go now."

Thunder cracked, and the rain came down hard against the estate.

Salvatore snatched up his car keys and strode for the door.

I watched his retreating back and asked.

"Where are you going?"