Page 4 of Reign

The delicate gold chain catches the car headlights.

I know it’s hers.

I know because I used to touch the little pendant while she held me.

I stare at it. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Papa keeps walking.

He puts me in the backseat and shuts the door.

And the necklace stays there on the ground.

***

I can’t sleep.

It’s been over a month. Papa’s house is not my house.

Mamma and I stayed at the summer house for a long time. For protection. That house felt like her. Like soft perfume and music playing low and her laughter drifting down the hall.

Papa’s house feels too big.

Too cold. Too full of men.

I hear boots on marble. Voices behind closed doors. Phones ringing. Orders barked from room to room.

Mamma was taken on her birthday. Mine was the next day.

No one remembered.

I lie awake staring at the ceiling until I hear the front doors open downstairs.

Familiar voices.

Heavy footsteps.

I slip out of bed and creep to the banister in my nightgown, careful not to let the floor creak.

My fingers curl around the rail as I peek down.

My big brothers are home.

Angelo walks in first, broad and bloodstained, his white shirt ruined red.

Santo comes in behind him.

And I go still.

He doesn’t look like Santo.

His face is hard in a way I’ve never seen before. His hands are bloody. There’s blood on his shirt, blood on his neck, blood on his mouth like he wiped it there and forgot.

He scares me.

Papa strides toward them.

For one awful second, I think something else has happened. Maybe that’s why they look like that.

But then Papa smiles.