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After my parents died, I threw myself into my studies. I fought hard for the fellowship I wanted. I barely looked up when crossing the street at school and was almost hit by a car because I was too deep into my favorite anatomy book.

I still remember the part I was studying. Rete ovarii. A part of female anatomy removed by researchers from most anatomy textbooks because they thought it wasn’t useful, since it contracted after puberty. It wasn’t until decades later that other researchers learned it produces hormones, among other functions.

Which means that doctors the world over were operating in and around it without much thought, damaging the organ all willy-nilly because some men didn’t know what it did.

That realization hit me, and then a car almost did, as I stood there dumbfounded, nose still in my book.

So I never made time for real romance or intimacy. That nonsense seemed like another distraction, and I had lives to save, including my own. Now that I’m here, lying to a little girl, lying to an old woman, lying to myself just so I can get through the next five minutes… faking it hurts.

My phone is charging on the nightstand where someone plugged it in—an act of kindness I never asked for. I sit on the bed’s edge and craft the lie in two directions.

To Mark: Great news! I’m currently in Italy for work and also got married. I’ll call you this week. I’m very happy.

To Adeline: You’re going to hear something insane. But I’m fine. Details soon.

I look at both drafts until the screen darkens against my thumb, then send them one after the other. I place the phone face down on the nightstand to ignore the replies until I’m ready. Some conversations require a full night’s sleep between sending and receiving a response. Besides, they might not see it until morning.

Is it morning back home? I have no idea. My internal clock is broken.

I change with the bathroom door locked and claim the far edge of the vast bed, back turned to his side, and put out the light.

The house talks to itself in the dark. Old pipes. A door somewhere below. Wind working through the cypress row. My body reports in from places that do not forget what Lupo did to them.

I’d love to be able to forget Lupo. But lying here in his bed, that’s not an option, so I force myself to focus on other things.

His mother suspects me of wanting his money, and she’s half right, and the half she’s missing is worse. So. Thirteen more days. One patient, one performance, one man I refuse to want again. Focus on the priorities. I’ve run longer gauntlets on less sleep, and I held the line every time.

The far edge of this bed is mine, and the middle is a border. Borders only work when somebody enforces them, so I roll that perfectly folded blanket and tuck it between our sleeping spots to keep him from getting any ideas.

He’ll find it when he comes to bed, and he will know what it means, and that will be that. No sneaky hands, no morning wood pressing against me. It’s for the best.

So why do I want to be my worst?

8

LUPO

After a week in Italy, I’ve settled into an unplanned morning routine. Sarah’s laugh in the breakfast room, my mother’s jazz records playing through the kitchen wall, and the doctor’s voice weaving between them—all while I take calls in the study with the door slightly more open than I used to keep it.

A man could get used to this. A smarter man would remember what it costs to have things worth taking.

The lab in Basel works fast when I pay for fast. Nick sets the report on my desk before my second espresso finishes pouring. He stays standing while I read. That’s never good.

Lane eight out of Genoa. Six crates flagged by Doyle’s second counts—weights off by seventy-eight kilos at the yard. Doyle called it in the same day, per the procedure I gave him in Boston, and for that he gets a raise he’ll never connect to the reason.

Page two holds the photographs. Blister packs, sealed foil, the print crisp enough to fool a pharmacist at arm’s length. The labels read methotrexate, and the tablets under them are pale, yellow-coated cellulose and chalk with a whisper of actual drug pressed in. Enough to pass a strip test and nothing after it.

Methotrexate. The one my daughter takes with orange juice every Thursday of her life, in a minuscule amount no doctor would call a dosage.

And here I thought I was gonna have a good day. Serves me right, I guess. Optimism is for ignorant people.

“Who?”

“Brancati freight, nested in our crates.” Nick is almost as pissed as I am. His shoulders are bunched, and his stupid limp ponytail has been tugged downward enough times to rat on him.

“Go on.”

“The routing codes lead to their broker in Genoa. Three other lanes display a similar weight drift over the past five months. It’s Matteo, and this isn’t due to sloppiness. It’s policy.”