Chapter 3

For the first few months after the wedding, Matteo rarely came to the main bedroom.

He was never rude and he never went out of his way to humiliate me. He was simply cold. In the morning he would ask the driver what time I was going out. At night he would leave the charity paperwork I had to sign on the table. Beyond that, we were more like two business partners forced to live in the same house.

At first I didn't care.

I was too busy watching the Rossi family.

I grew up on stories about mafia families. Brothers turning on each other over territory, uncles and nephews selling each other out for money, women used as bargaining chips in marriage pacts and alliances.

I assumed the Rossi family was the same, just better at keeping the filth out of sight.

But none of that happened.

Rosa remembered every child's birthday. However late Matteo got in, he went to the main house to look in on her first. After Bianca married, she brought Luca back for dinner every few days. Cousins fought over the last piece of tiramisu in the kitchen, and even the men who stood armed at the gate joined the family for a Christmas cookout in the backyard.

They were hardly law-abiding, of course.

The underground business, the fights over the port, the favors owed. All of it was there.

But in that house, nobody went without dinner for losing a match. Nobody got shut in a room all day for saying the wrong thing. Nobody had to prove they were better than another child to earn a seat at the table.

It was the first time I had seen a family like that.

For the first time, I understood that for some people, going home really was just that: going home.

One night everyone was in the dining room. Bianca was talking about her first charity event as a married woman, and a few of the younger cousins crowded around her to see the photographs.

I sat at the far end of the long table. Nobody chased me off and nobody made a point of freezing me out.

But when the talk turned to childhood, I had nothing to add.

They laughed about Matteo stealing his father's car at ten, and about Bianca being afraid of thunder and carrying her pillow to her brother's door whenever it rained. They laughed about the time Rosa was ill and the whole family crammed into the kitchen to make a truly terrible pot of soup.

They laughed loudly.

I laughed along with them.

But as I laughed, an emptiness opened in my chest.

I went up to my room before dinner ended.

There was a bottle of whiskey in the cabinet. I almost never drank, but that night I poured myself drink after drink. By the end, I couldn't even remember making the call.

When Matteo came back I was sitting on the carpet with my back against the bed.

He stopped in the doorway, his expression grim. "How much have you had?"

"No idea."

"Why are you drinking?"

"I'm happy."

I looked up and smiled at him.

"Your family is wonderful."

He didn't say anything. He came over, crouched down and reached for my glass.

I caught his cuff.

"Matteo."

"Yes."

"Why does Bianca get everything?"

He paused. "Meaning what?"

"She has a mother."

The second it was out of my mouth, the tears came with no warning at all.

"And she has you."

I was mortified, but I couldn't stop. The whiskey brought out everything I'd sooner die than say sober.

"She shoots well and someone praises her for it. She loses and someone keeps her dinner warm. She gets married and every one of you is happy for her."

I had his cuff in my fist.

"What about me?"

Matteo didn't interrupt.

"When I was 12, I played a passage wrong, and my mother threw the sheet music in my face. When Bianca was 16, she beat me by three points in moving-target shooting. I practiced until the skin between my thumb and forefinger split, but my mother only said a little blood was nothing. Once I cut my hair short. She didn't like it, so she had the rest cut off too."

Matteo's expression grew darker with every word.

"Why would she do that?"

"Because I had to win."

"Who decided that?"

"She did."

I laughed a little, but the tears only came harder.

"Before she died, she held on to me and told me not to lose. So I can't lose. If I do, what was her whole life for?"

The room was quiet for a long time.

Matteo took the glass out of my hand.

I thought he would tell me my mother was insane, or that I was.

He didn't pass judgment on any of it. He just sat down on the carpet and pulled me against him.

He moved stiffly, as though he'd never held a drunk person before.

"Serafina."

I rested against his chest and listened to the strong, steady beat of his heart.

"You don't have to be better than her to stay here."

I froze.

"What?"

"You don't have to beat Bianca." He lowered his head, and his voice was very quiet. "You get to sit at that table anyway. You're my wife."

That only made me cry harder.

Not because it was a beautiful thing to say. Because I had lived all those years and nobody had ever told me that before.

Not my mother.

Not my father.

I had never even thought it myself.

That night I cried until I had no strength left, and Matteo carried me to bed. I clung to his hand. When I woke the next morning, he was still beside me.

I looked at his face for a long time while he slept.

It was the first time I had ever been truly afraid of losing someone.

And from that day, the marriage I had schemed my way into stopped being only a trophy.