Chapter 2

Serena reaches the door first.

Then she turns.

"Most mothers would at least ask what happens next."

I pull the sheet tighter around myself.

"What happens next, Serena?"

Her eyes flick toward Dante.

"We'll make sure Leo is taken care of."

"You've been doing that for over a year."

"Someone had to."

Dante picks up his phone.

"You'd better mean this, Lucia."

"I do."

"Don't come back in a week saying you made a mistake."

I look at him.

When we were in college, he waited outside my lectures.

Coffee in one hand.

My favorite pastry in the other.

He used to joke that his last name could get him into any building except mine.

My mother didn't laugh.

She knew his family.

My father had treated Bellini men when they couldn't go to a hospital. After he died, she wanted me as far from their world as possible.

I told Dante that.

He said marrying him would mean I never had to be afraid.

Now two of his men are waiting to escort him out while I sit beside a stranger.

"I won't come back," I say.

Serena glances at the bed.

"Then we'll leave you to it."

The door shuts.

I wait until I can no longer hear them.

I woke up almost half an hour before they arrived.

Long enough to find my clothes.

Long enough to see a message appear on the man's phone.

Her husband's coming. Stay put.

I could have left.

But there would still have been photographs.

Another report from Serena.

Another man whose word mattered more than mine.

I was tired of running ahead of a story they'd already decided to tell.

The stranger moves in his sleep.

I get dressed.

Then I leave without looking at him again.

The next evening, the guard at the Bellini gates won't let me in.

He knows me.

He was at our wedding.

"I need to collect my things."

He looks toward the booth.

"Your access was canceled this morning."

"Call the house."

He does.

I stand outside while he waits for an answer.

A car comes through the exit.

The driver looks at me, then quickly looks away.

After several minutes, the guard opens the pedestrian gate.

"Rosa will meet you at the door."

I walk up the drive.

I used to carry Leo along this path when he wouldn't sleep.

He liked the lights near the fountain.

I knew every loose stone beneath my feet.

Rosa opens the front door before I knock.

Her face changes when she sees me.

"Miss Lucia."

"Where are my things?"

She presses her lips together.

"Come with me."

She takes me through the back hallway to a storage room beside the garage.

I stop in the doorway.

My clothes are packed into trash bags.

A box of shoes sits on top of a framed photograph.

"Serena said the bedroom needed to be ready," Rosa says.

"For what?"

She doesn't answer.

I look at her.

"It's all right."

"No, it isn't."

Her voice is so quiet I almost miss it.

Then she steps back to let me in.

I don't need the clothes.

Not right now.

I need the small porcelain pendant my mother gave me on my wedding day.

Blue flowers.

A thin silver frame.

It belonged to my grandmother before her.

The clasp had broken, so I wrapped it in red cloth and put it in my drawer until I could have it repaired.

I search through two boxes.

Then a bag.

Someone has packed my underwear with a pair of muddy boots.

At the bottom of the next box, I find the red cloth.

I close my hand around it.

For the first time since reaching the gate, I breathe properly.

"What are you doing?"

Leo stands in the doorway.

His hair is longer than it was at our last visit.

There's a small scrape on his chin.

I wonder who cleaned it.

"Getting my things."

Usually, I'd already be reaching for him.

Asking about school.

Trying to make the first few minutes good enough that he wouldn't ask for Serena.

Today, I stay where I am.

He walks into the room and puts one shoe on my coat.

"Aunt Serena said you can't take anything."

"This is mine."

He shakes his head.

"Nothing in this house is yours."