No,I correct myself.Not my necklace. Gia’s necklace.
“We met at a gallery opening in Manhattan. She was there to escape from her familial obligations. I was there because…” A ghost of a smile flickers on his face, bitter and brief. “Because I wanted to see something beautiful that no one had died for.”
His voice is tender and raw as he speaks about this memory, and even though I know Gia is dead and gone for seven years, I can’t help the bitter jealousy and shame clawing at my throat.
“She wore this deep blue dress that made her look like she’d walked out of a Renaissance painting. And when I introduced myself, she knew exactly who I was,” he continues, and everyword drags me further down into the depth of my shame and jealousy. “She didn’t flinch. Didn’t even try to leave.”
“And that was when you fell for her? Right from the start?”
“Right from the start.” The bitter smile appears again. “She laughed. And I was lost.”
As I listen to him tell the story of his love, I can see a shadow of the Slava that existed before grief carved him into the man I know.
Ludmilla was right. A part of Slava’s heart really did die with Gia.
“This was our place,” he says, glancing around the room. “We spent seven months here in secret from her family. She told her family that her trips to France were nothing more than art trips. And they believed her.”
He tells me how they hid it. Private trips to France that she claimed to her family were art trips. And each trip brought her here to this chateau and the man her family wanted to put in the ground.
“Then she got pregnant.” My voice is hoarse as I say it.
Slava nods. “Then she got pregnant, and we decided that we couldn’t hide anymore. So, we eloped.”
He reaches down into the desk, pulls open a drawer, and takes out a picture frame. In it, there’s a photo of a woman I’ve never seen before but somehow recognize.
Dark hair, warm eyes, and a smirk of a smile that carries both joy and defiance. She’s in a radiant wedding dress, and there, at her throat.
A seven-pointed star with the diamond at its center.
I reach up and touch it, and hate myself more and more.
“Seven points for the seven months of secrecy.” His voice is thick and low now. “The diamond she deserved something that would last forever. Gold because silver was too common, too ordinary, and too expected for a woman who had never been any of those things. And as long as we were here in France, her family could never touch her.”
He puts the photo back into the drawer, and reverently closes it shut.
“How did she die?”
He closes his eyes, and his jaw works for a moment before he opens them again. And when I look into their winter-gray, I see nothing buthate.
“We trusted the wrong person.”
My heart stops. “Luca…”
“Luca,” Slava says. “He was her driver, and she thought she could trust him with our secret when we returned to Queens for Alessandro’s baptism five years ago.”
I gasp. “But why did you come back?”
“Gia wanted our son to know his roots. Against all good judgement, she wanted him to be baptized in New York. I tried to argue against it, telling her that it’s not safe.” He sighs. “But she was adamant about this one thing. So we went back.”
I want to cover my ears and stop listening. With every word, the image that I had of Luca—the protective big brother who would do anything to keep me safe—cracks a little bit more.
And sooner or later, it’s going to shatter.
“When we got back, Luca reported her return to Don Leo.” Slava’s voice is flat now, drained of everything but fact. “He told them everything. The trips to France, Gia’s pregnancy, and her marriage to me. He sold Gia’s entire life for a chance to rise in the D’Ambrosio ranks.”
Slava’s eyes meet mine, and there’s no mercy in them.
“Her family took her from me, and Don Leo killed her himself.” Slava invades my space. “To preserve his family honor.”
