Chapter 4

The next morning, I came downstairs and there she was. Bianca.

She hadn't gone home.

She saw me and smiled. "Sophie, since I'm basically your older sister, I thought I'd stay a few days — and help with Dario's recovery while I'm here. You don't mind, do you?"

Before I could answer, Dario cut in fast. "Stay. Anytime. Don't — worry about her." He added: "This isn't her house. The one who was supposed to marry me — wasn't her. She can't do anything right."

It was like a slap.

Bianca used to say the same things to me when we were small.

"This isn't your house. Get out."

But the convent hadn't been my house either.

What did a home even look like? I couldn't remember.

Maybe it was time I went and found my own.

Dario put Bianca in the best guest room in the main house — the one next to his bedroom. South-facing, with a view of the entire garden. My room was tucked into the easternmost corner. From my window I looked out at a patch of empty ground.

I sat in front of the dressing table, staring at the ring on my left hand.

After all these years, the band had left a faint white mark at the base of my finger, like a small scar.

I slid the ring off and pushed it to the back of the dresser drawer, where I kept the things I no longer used.

I curved my mouth into a small, tired smile.

It was never my place to begin with.

Maybe it really was time to go.

How many five-year stretches does a person get?

After Bianca moved in, she carried a cup of coffee into Dario's study every day, smiling.

That study had always been forbidden to me.

Once, I lingered at the door for a few seconds too long. Dario came charging out and knocked the hot tea straight out of my hand.

He watched me cry out from the burn and only said: "Don't stand here. Don't look in."

He even said the place was "filthy now," and made the staff scrub the spot where I'd been standing — over and over.

After that, I took the long way around rather than pass that door.

But there she was, standing right in the middle of his study, holding something I knew well.

A photograph.

The photograph of Dario and Luca.

Five years ago, not long after the wedding, I'd helped tidy Dario's bedroom. Things were piled everywhere. I gathered the loose photographs and slid them into frames. That photo was one of them.

When Dario walked in and saw the frame, he stared at me. His voice came out shaking with rage. "Don't touch his things. I'll kill you. I really — will kill you."

I never touched anything of his again. Not when I brought his medicine. Not when I straightened the room. I learned how to move around him without leaving a trace.

And now Bianca was holding that photograph in her hand like it was nothing. She tilted her head, studied it, said something — and Dario actually nodded. The corner of his mouth lifted.

I stood at the door with the medicine tray and felt nailed to the floor.

The pills were Dario's. Three p.m., every afternoon — two white tablets and one capsule. I'd set an alarm for it five years ago. I had never missed a single day.

Dario looked up. He saw me.

He frowned.

"Come in."

My heart skipped. He was finally letting me inside?

I walked in carefully, slowly, the tray balanced in my hands.

I stopped in front of him and held out the medicine.

He didn't take it.

He reached into his pocket, pulled out a key, and — in front of me — slipped it around Bianca's neck.

"From now on, she comes and goes from this room as she pleases."

Bianca looked down at the key, then up at me. She gave me a small, satisfied smile.

"Why?" I heard myself ask. "Why her? Why not me? I'm your wife."

Dario's face went cold.

"She's not — like you. She understands the field. She understands Luca. She understands me. You don't understand any of it. You'd only — dirty the place."

A flicker of something — almost panic — crossed his eyes as he glanced at Bianca.

"I haven't — I never — thought of her as my wife."

Just like that, we were back at zero.

How absurd.

All because I'd put time and love into a gift for him.

I set the cup of medicine on the edge of his desk and walked out.

As I turned, I heard Bianca's voice behind me.

"What would a stray from a convent know? It's enough that I do."

"The young Don of the Vellari Famiglia deserves the best Donna at his side."

Dario gave a low, scornful sound.

"She's exhausting. She'll never — leave. Not in this lifetime."

My step caught for half a second, but I didn't stop.

I went to find the old Don of the Vellari Famiglia. Dario's grandfather.