Chapter 6

I didn't go to Bianca's wedding.

My phone had been buzzing nonstop since early that morning.

People asking whether I was ill. People waiting to see whether I would come tearing into the hotel at the last minute. People forwarding me video from the ceremony on purpose.

I answered none of it.

At ten that morning, I went to the Moretti family's indoor range.

While my mother was alive, I hated that room more than anywhere.

Bianca shot moving targets for the first time at 16 and beat me by three points. My mother sent me to bed without dinner that night, and the next day she brought me back here and stood behind the glass watching me shoot again and again.

I shot until the skin between my thumb and forefinger split and I could barely hold the gun.

All she said was, "Again."

I did beat Bianca in the end, and I beat her plenty of times after that.

But every time I picked up a gun, my first thought was never the target. It was Bianca's score.

The first thing I did when I walked in that day was switch off the scoreboard.

The range officer blinked at me. "No score, Ms. Moretti?"

"No score."

"Then how will you know—"

"I'll know whether I hit it."

I chose a handgun that fit my hand better. Instead of the long-distance targets Bianca excelled at, I practiced on close-range moving targets, the ones I was most comfortable with.

The first set was ugly.

It made me smile.

It turns out that once you stop looking at somebody else's score, shooting badly doesn't kill anyone.

It took a few more rounds before I noticed there was someone in the rest area.

Niccolo was sitting there with his cane against the chair.

I pulled off my earmuffs. "How did you get in here?"

"Your father asked me here to discuss security arrangements." He glanced at my target sheet. "I thought I'd check whether you'd eaten anything else so spicy it made you cry."

"That was an accident."

"Mm."

"You don't believe me?"

"I believe you."

He was very clearly fighting a smile. Insufferable.

I didn't bother answering and reloaded.

Then Niccolo asked, "Isn't the Bellini wedding today?"

"Yes."

"You're not going?"

"No."

I brought the gun up and put three rounds into the center zone.

"Luca used to be the man I most wanted to marry."

Saying it out loud surprised me a little.

It didn't embarrass me at all.

Niccolo looked neither triumphant nor bitter. He only asked, "And now?"

I put the gun down.

That question was much harder than "Do you still love him?"

After a moment I said, "I'd get more use out of my old false lashes than out of him."

Niccolo nodded. "Sounds good to me."

That night the wedding photographs filled every feed.

Bianca wore a white gown, Luca's arm around her as they left the hotel. In one photograph, he was bending down to lift her train clear of the car door.

I threw the phone onto the bed.

On the table was the invitation to a charity dinner that my father had sent up.

The Ferro Foundation.

Caterina Ferro.

I hadn't opened it yet when a message from Niccolo arrived.

"The dinner next week. Together?"

I thought about it and sent back one word.

"Sure."

Then I looked up at my closet.

Almost everything in it was pale, and a lot of it had been bought for Luca.

All at once the sight of it irritated me.

The next day, I took the dark red suit from the very back of my closet and sent it out to be altered.

It was the color my mother hated most on me.

She always said it was too loud.

Now I wanted to try it.