"And if I refuse?"
"You won't," Lorenzo says with absolute certainty.
Francesco laughs, but there's no humor in it. "You always were arrogant. Fine. Where?"
"The Benedetti warehouse. Eight o'clock."
"I'll be there. And Lorenzo? If you've hurt her?—"
"She's unharmed."
"She better be. That girl is all I have left of my sister."
The hypocrisy makes bile rise in my throat. All he has left? He was ready to hand me to a monster for a percentage of the drug trade.
"Tomorrow night," Lorenzo says. "Come alone."
"As if either of us would be that stupid."
Lorenzo ends the call without another word.
The silence that follows feels heavy, charged. Like the air before a thunderstorm.
"You can leave us alone now."
Pietro's words take a moment to register. I blink, realizing he's dismissing me like a child sent from the adults' table.
"Of course." I stand, legs slightly unsteady.
None of them look at me as I leave. Whatever they need to discuss about tomorrow night, it doesn't include me.
The hallway feels colder than the living room. Francesco's words echo in my head—wasn't it enough that you took Luna from me?He thinks Lorenzo killed her. But Lorenzo denied it with such certainty, and I can't believe that he could have killed her.
Nothing about Luna ever made sense. One day she was there, this dangerous presence at family gatherings, the next she was gone. Dead in a car accident, my mother said. End of story. No funeral I remember attending. No grave to visit.
"—don't care what you think, Mother!"
Vittoria's sharp voice cuts through my thoughts. She's pacing near the kitchen, phone pressed to her ear, free hand gesturing wildly.
"No, I'm not coming to Sicily. Because Pietro needs me here, that's why."
She spins and sees me. Her expression shifts from frustration to embarrassment.
"I have to go," she says into the phone. "Yes, Mother. I know. Goodbye."
She ends the call with more force than necessary.
"Sorry," I say. "I didn't mean to interrupt."
"You didn't." She runs a hand through her dark hair, messing up the perfect waves. "Just my mother being... my mother."
"Are you okay?"
Vittoria laughs, but it's brittle. "Define okay. My mother calls every day from Sicily to tell me I should leave Chicago, leave the family business, leave everything behind and join her."
"Your mother isn't here?" I realize I haven't seen an older woman around the compound. "I haven't met her."
"No, you wouldn't have. Aria Sartori fled to Sicily the day after we buried my father." Vittoria's voice carries equal parts hurt and understanding. "She couldn't handle it. Losing him, I mean. They were together since she was seventeen."
