Chapter 5

Three weeks after Sofia got out of the hospital, Matteo suddenly started coming back to me every day. At first, I didn't know what had happened. It was only later that I heard from his driver that Sofia had danced with another man at a club she and Matteo often went to, and the two of them had fought over it.

Matteo stopped going to see her.

When I asked him about it, he only said, as if it were nothing, "Who she wants to get to know is her business."

He said it so calmly that I almost believed him. For those few days, it felt like he was finally giving me all the time he'd owed me over the past three years. He came with me to rehab. He had dinner with me. He even planned my birthday all over again, after two disasters in a row had kept me from celebrating it.

On my birthday, he took me to a rooftop restaurant in Manhattan. The whole floor had been cleared except for one table. The lights of New York spread out below us, and the wind curled around the glass walls. Wrapped in his jacket, I suddenly remembered the year I turned 17, when he first took me up to the roof of the old Rossi building.

Back then, he hadn't taken over anything yet. He shoved a can of truly awful soda into my hand and promised that once he had money, he'd rent out the best spot in the whole city for my birthday.

"What are you thinking about?"

Matteo slid the cake over to me.

"How broke you used to be."

He laughed.

"When was I ever broke?"

"When I was 17."

"I wasn't broke. I just hadn't started making real money yet."

I laughed too. I hadn't felt this light in a long time. I even started to wonder whether I'd just been too sensitive these past few months.

Maybe he was just tied down by what he owed her and his sense of duty. Maybe with enough time, we really could go back to how things were. Halfway through dinner, Matteo's phone lit up several times in a row.

He glanced at it but didn't answer.

"Work?" I asked.

"Nothing important."

Ten minutes later, he got up to take a call about Rossi family business and left his other phone, the encrypted one, on the table. Its screen suddenly lit up. I hadn't meant to look.

But the message was so long that the preview took up the whole lock screen.

"I already talked to him and made things clear. Can you please have your people lift the ban on him? I promise I won't dance with him again, and I won't see him alone either. Matteo, I know I was wrong. I really do."

My fingers slowly went cold. Right below it was a second message.

"It's been three days since you came to see me. You can't still be mad, can you?"

I stared at the word "ban."

When Matteo came back, the first thing he saw was the lit-up screen. He stopped short. I looked up at him.

"You banned that man from every Rossi family venue?"

His face darkened a little.

"It's just a warning."

"You had to ban him from every club and restaurant you control just to warn him?"

"The guy has a shady background."

"So because Sofia danced with him once, you ran him out of your territory?"

Matteo reached over and took the phone.

"Elena, it's not what you think."

Suddenly, I laughed.

"Then what is it?"

He didn't answer. I stood up.

"Look at me."

Matteo's frown deepened.

"Elena."

"Look me in the eye and say it."

I pointed at the phone in his hand and asked, slowly and clearly, "You've been coming back to me these past few days. Is that because you finally decided to set clear boundaries with Sofia, or are you just doing it to spite her?"

His jaw tightened.

"I came back because today is your birthday."

"Then why won't you answer the first part?"

"Because it's a pointless question."

"Not to me."

The air grew colder by the second. He was clearly running out of patience.

"She took a bullet for me. I don't want her running around with some guy nobody knows anything about. Is that a problem?"

"Would you blacklist a guy friend of mine from every Rossi family venue?"

"You'd never do something like that."

"So you still haven't answered."

Matteo shut his eyes for a second. Right then, the phone buzzed again. This time it was a photo.

It showed the wound on Sofia's shoulder, oozing blood, with part of the bandage soaked red. Under it was a single line.

"I think my wound opened up again."

Alarm flashed across Matteo's face. Almost instinctively, he grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair. I stayed where I was and watched him.

"Today is my birthday."

He paused.

"Her wound might be infected. I'm just going to take a look at it."

"There are doctors at the hospital."

"Elena." His voice hardened. "She took that bullet for me."

That again. Suddenly, I didn't have the energy to fight anymore.

"Go."

Matteo looked at me like he wanted to say something.

In the end, all he said was, "I'll be back later."

Then he was gone. The candles on the table were still burning. The waiter hovered near the door, unsure whether he should come in.

I sat back down and pushed the birthday cake away. It had only been cut once.