Chapter 4

I started seeing a therapist.

In secret, at a small private practice on the Upper East Side.

The doctor was famous—a rising star in psychology, they said.

His fee was two hundred dollars for half an hour.

I went once a week.

The first month, my mother asked, “Did all thirty thousand come through?”

I said, “Why?”

She said, “It’s four hundred short.”

I didn’t say I’d spent that four hundred on a therapist.

My parents would only blame me for wasting money, ask why I didn’t use it to buy supplements for my brother.

I stayed silent.

For once, my mother didn’t push.

She reached out and touched my red scarf.

“This scarf is all shrunk, and you’re still wearing it? Take it off. Let me mend it for you.”

It was deep winter.

I wore a black down jacket and an old red scarf around my neck for warmth.

Enzo laughed at me, said I treated that ugly scarf like treasure.

I never told him my mother had knitted it.

I always wore it.

Trying to convince myself she cared about me.

That day I took off the scarf and let her fix it.

I was about to crawl into bed to warm up when Enzo called.

His voice was low. “Come out. I’m waiting at your building entrance.”

It had started snowing.

My mother saw that Enzo was calling me and said nothing.

She handed me an umbrella and told me to go.

At least she had some pride left—she didn’t teach me how to please a man.

Though that was ironic enough.

Outside was freezing.

I zipped my down jacket, wearing only thin wide‑leg pants. My legs were almost too cold to walk.

Inside Enzo’s Maybach, the heat slowly brought my body back.

He was silent and grim the whole ride.

I asked where we were going.

He laughed. “To atone.”

The car stopped in front of a church on the Upper East Side.

White flowers lined the entrance.

It was Catherine Ross’s funeral. Valentina’s mother.

People were coming and going.

Valentina stood at the door in a black dress, tear‑stained.

Enzo said quietly, “Back in high school, after your mother’s public reprimand, Catherine got so upset she had a gastric hemorrhage on the spot. Her health never recovered. Last week, she died of stomach cancer.”

My heart pounded as I looked at Enzo.

His blue eyes reflected the snowlight, cold as ice.

“Go inside,” he said. “Kneel for her.”

Inside the church, people whispered, fabrics rustled.

Most visitors just bowed.

But Enzo pulled me in, knelt, and lit incense.

Then he stood and told me to kneel.

I was wearing thin pants. My knees were already purple from the cold.

I said I didn’t want to.

“You have to kneel,” he said. “You’re kneeling for your mother. It’s what she owes.”

He kept pushing.

Valentina stood by, red‑eyed, staring daggers at me.

Enzo gave his ultimatum: “If you don’t kneel today, we’re done. No more thirty thousand a month. Ever.”

I knelt.

My knees hit the marble floor with a dull thud.

Everyone stared. I heard the sound of falling snow.

And the sound of my heart breaking.