Chapter 3

After the baptism, Ethan started taking his phone into the bathroom.

He used to leave it on the nightstand when he showered. Now he brought it in and set it face-down on the sink, and when he came out, the screen was always dark.

I said nothing, because I didn't have proof yet.

I couldn't afford to panic and give Ethan an opening to take Luca from me.

The next morning, while washing Luca's little clothes, I took down the dark gray coat Ethan kept hanging in the entryway.

There was something stiff in the right pocket. I thought it was the rubber connector of his stethoscope. What I pulled out was a collar. Real leather, dark brown, with a round metal tag hanging from it.

I turned it over toward the light from the window and made out a single engraved letter: S.

I checked the style and the length. It wasn't my size.

I said nothing. I tucked the collar back exactly as I'd found it, hung the coat back on the rack, and straightened the buttons.

I almost had enough.

At eleven that night, with every light in the apartment out, I crept into the nursery.

Luca was sound asleep, little fists clenched, mouth slightly open. I reached out and touched his cheek, so lightly. Soft. Warm.

"Mommy had a dog once," I said quietly. "I was going to wait until you could walk, so you two could play together. Daddy sent him away. But Mommy's still here. Luca, would you come away with Mommy?"

The light snapped on behind me. Ethan stood in the doorway, pajama collar open, hair a mess. "What time is it? You've been unstable lately. Stay out of here at night."

"He's my son."

"I know." He pulled open the drawer by the crib and took out a pacifier. "But the state you're in worries me."

"Are you worried my condition will get worse, or worried it'll get better and stop giving you excuses to see Serena?"

Ethan frowned. "What is that supposed to mean?"

I took a parking receipt out of my pocket. It was dated last Wednesday afternoon.

I had asked him where he was that day. He said he was in a four-hour surgery.

But the truth was that he'd spent two hours and fifteen minutes in the garage beneath Serena's building that afternoon.

"I was visiting a patient's family."

"I saw that address on the guest list for Luca's baptism. I know it's Serena's building. What a coincidence that your patient's family lives there too."

"Sophia." He braced one hand on the door and tugged at the open neck of his pajama shirt, irritated. "The state you're in really worries me. You've started going through my things."

"I was doing laundry. The receipt fell out of a pocket."

"I don't want to fight with you. I think you need to calm down." With that, Ethan turned and left.

I sat down against the crib, head bowed, both hands clenched on my knees.

When he'd stepped close just now, I had smelled it. Rosewood. The same scent I'd caught on Serena.

He hadn't set foot in an operating room today. He had gone to her place, then come home, stood across from me, and told me in that fake-concerned voice that my condition worried him.

I let out a bitter laugh. Just then, my phone buzzed.

It was a scheduling notice from one of Ethan's colleagues in the practice group chat. "Reminder: Dr. Reed is out of New York all day tomorrow. Flying to Boston in the morning, back after the evening shift. Send emergency cases to me."

Boston. I stared at the word. In the world I grew up in, Boston meant exactly one thing.

That was Castiglia territory.

Three years ago, the Castiglias tried to move in on the East River docks, and my father drove them straight back out.

They never tried a second time, because they changed tactics.

They stopped going after docks. They started buying the people who could walk freely in and out of every family's bedrooms and operating rooms.

Lawyers. Accountants. Doctors.

A third of this city's secrets sat in Ethan's records cabinets, and tomorrow he would be in Boston all day.

If the Castiglias controlled Ethan, their next targets would be his wife and son. Me and Luca.

In the crib, Luca smacked his lips, squirmed, and settled back into sleep.

I stared at his face for a long, long time.

I stood up and walked to the window. The Upper East Side night was quiet. Down on the street, a black SUV sat in front of a fire hydrant, engine running. It had been there for forty minutes.

I watched it for a long while. Then I took out the phone with its single contact. Gabriel's last message was still on the screen.

I typed a line, deleted it, typed another, deleted that too. What I finally sent was one short message. "Move it up."

Gabriel replied even faster than last time. "When."

"Seven tomorrow morning. Once he's on the plane."

After I sent it, I went back into the nursery and sat down beside the crib. Luca was fast asleep. I reached out and pulled his little blanket up a bit higher.

"Luca." I kept my voice very low. "Tomorrow morning at seven, someone is coming to pick us up. He'll call you by your name. He'll call you Moretti. I'm sorry, baby. Mommy wanted you to grow up ordinary."