She falls silent. The rosary beads keep clicking.
A nurse appears with an update after three hours. Both surgeries are proceeding normally. No complications. These things simply take time.
I thank her. My voice sounds distant, like it belongs to someone else.
Sometime later, the door opens again, and I spin around, expecting another nurse.
Instead, I see a young woman with dark jeans, a cream cashmere sweater, and her caramel blonde hair pulled back from her face.
But what I notice first are her eyes. Montoni amber eyes.
“Adora?” I ask in a choked voice. Cristiano’s sister, whom I haven’t laid eyes on in years. Not since before Cristiano and I slept together, and he swore to murder his father. She was just fifteen then, a pretty, slender girl who was polite to me, but no more than that. She looks even prettier than I remember, but she’s tense.
“Mina.” She crosses the room and pulls me into a hug before I can react.
I stiffen, but something about the warmth of her arms makes me sag against her, and she holds me up.
“I only found out that Cristiano was going into surgery late last night,” she says into my hair. “Your mother called me. Apparently, my brother has a son and didn’t think to tell me.”
I should have thought of his family and reminded him to call the people who love him. If something happens to him on the operating table, Adora won’t get the chance to say goodbye.
“I’m so sorry. He’s been…focused.”
“Typical Cristiano. One thing on his mind, and the rest of the world ceases to exist.” There’s no judgment in her voice. Just weary affection for a brother she knows too well. She pulls back, her hands on my shoulders, studying my face. “How are you holding up?”
Old admonishments from Mom about not causing problems in Mr. Montoni’s mansion tumble through my mind.Don’t shout. Don’t run through the corridors. Don’t shriek with laughter. This is their house, not ours.
Even now, with my son dying and Cristiano cut open to save him, some small part of me wants to perform humility for AdoraMontoni. Prove that I’m handling this gracefully in the pristine hospital room that her brother is paying for.
I force the words past my lips, but they’re cracked and broken. “I’m okay.”
“You look like you’re about to shatter.” She guides me toward the chair beside my mother. “Sit. Just for a few minutes.”
I don’t have the strength to argue. I sink into the chair next to Mom, and Adora takes the windowsill.
“So, I have a nephew?” she asks, a smile lighting her face. “I’d love to hear about him.”
My first instinct is to deflect and give a polite, minimal answer and retreat back into my shell. He’s four, he likes dinosaurs. But Adora is looking at me with such genuine warmth, and talking about Leon might be the only thing that keeps me from losing my mind.
Shakily, as I speak about my most cherished person in the world, my heart rate slows and some of the coiled tension unravels in my belly. Adora listens to every word I say, and in those amber eyes I know so well, I see a growing desire to meet the little boy.
“He has his father’s eyes,” I tell her. “Your eyes.”
The biggest smile yet splits Adora’s face. “He does? Of course he does. Every man of Montoni blood has those eyes, and many of the women as well,” she says, gesturing at her face.
Then she does something entirely unexpected.
“I can’t tell you how happy I am that you and Leon are part of the family,” Adora says, taking my hand and squeezing it tightly. She leans forward so she can beam at Mom as well. “And you, Mrs. Santoro. Family is so, so important.”
As Adora grips my hand, her eyes suddenly shimmer with tears.
I remember the rumors that Mom, Rosa, and I have discussed around the kitchen table. That Adora Montoni and hermafia don husband poisoned Mr. Montoni at their own wedding, as revenge for the slaughter of almost the entire Vici family. It’s difficult to imagine a sweet young woman like Adora committing murder, but maybe she had no choice. I know better than most what Mr. Montoni was like to his own children.
When I discussed Mr. Montoni’s death with my mother and sister, it felt like we were gossiping about characters from a television show. Now the hand that stirred cyanide into her father’s champagne is gripping mine.
I should be horrified. Instead, I find myself gripping back.
Four hours after the surgeries began, we receive another update from a nurse. Still proceeding normally. Cristiano’s surgery is nearly complete. Leon’s will take several more hours. Recipient surgeries are always longer, the nurse explains. His failing liver has to be removed before he can accept the lobe of Cristiano’s healthy liver.
