Chapter 2: The House of Wolves

The drive is silent.

I count the trees blurring past the tinted window to keep from screaming.

Fifty-two. Fifty-three. Fifty-four.

It’s a rhythm. A heartbeat. If I focus on the numbers, I don't have to think about the fact that I just sold my life for a debt I didn't create. If I count, I’m not really here. I’m just a ghost riding in a stranger’s car.

We leave the city behind. The road winds up the cliffs, higher and higher, until the sea is just a dark, crashing bruise far below us.

Then I see it.

The Vitale estate doesn't look like a home. It looks like a fortress built to keep the world out—and keep the sins inside.

It’s all grey concrete and sharp angles. Brutalist. Cold. It sits on the edge of the cliff like a predator waiting to jump. High walls topped with cameras surround it, blinking red eyes in the gloom.

The iron gates open with a heavy, metallic groan.

"Welcome home," Aureliano says from the seat beside me.

He doesn't sound welcoming. He sounds like a warden welcoming a prisoner to death row.

The car stops. The driver opens my door.

I step out. The air up here is different. It smells of salt, ozone, and impending violence. It chills the sweat on my back.

I wrap my thin arms around myself. I try to make myself small. Invisible. It’s a trick I learned years ago when my father would come home smelling of whiskey and bad luck. If you take up less space, maybe the monsters won't see you.

Aureliano doesn't wait for me. He walks toward the massive front doors. I have to jog to keep up, my wet shoes squelching on the pristine stone.

Inside is worse.

Marble. Everything is marble. The floors are white and veined with grey, stretching out like a frozen lake. The walls are high, echoing with every footstep.

It’s beautiful. And it feels completely dead.

There is no warmth here. No clutter. Just expensive emptiness.

"Kitchen," Aureliano commands. He doesn't look back.

I follow. I count my steps on the marble. Click. Click. Click.

We enter a kitchen that is bigger than my entire apartment. Stainless steel surfaces gleam under harsh, clinical lights.

A man is standing by the island.

He is huge. Broader than Aureliano, with shoulders that strain against his black t-shirt. His head is shaved, revealing a jagged, pale scar that runs behind his ear like a lightning strike.

Ciro Vitale. The Enforcer.

He doesn't look up when we enter. He is cleaning a knife.

He runs a cloth over the blade, slow and methodical. Shhhk. Shhhk.

The sound grates on my nerves like sandpaper. His knuckles are bruised, the skin split and healing in angry red welts.

"Ciro," Aureliano says. "The payment."

Ciro stops cleaning. He looks up.

His eyes are black voids. There is no curiosity in them, only a flat, terrifying indifference. He looks at me the way a butcher looks at a side of beef—checking the weight, estimating the cut.

He doesn't speak. He just looks back at the knife and resumes cleaning.

Shhhk. Shhhk.

I swallow hard. My throat clicks. I am furniture to him. Less than furniture.

"Don't mind him," Aureliano says, though he doesn't sound apologetic. "He prefers silence."

He keeps walking. I trail behind, terrified to stay near Ciro but terrified to follow Aureliano.

We pass a wall of glass that looks out onto a patio.

There is a pool, the water turquoise and still. A man is lounging on a deck chair, spinning a gold lighter in his hand.

Spadino. The youngest.

He looks up as we pass. Unlike Ciro, he doesn't ignore me.

He stares.

He has curly dark hair and a face that would be handsome if it wasn't for the cruel smirk twisting his lips. He tracks me through the glass like a cat watching a bird hit a window.

He flicks the lighter. Click. Spark. Click.

He doesn't wave. He just watches, his eyes hungry and mocking. He looks like he’s already imagining how I break.

I look away. I focus on the floor.

One step. Two steps. Don't look at them. Don't let them see you fear.

"Your room is upstairs," Aureliano says.

We climb a floating staircase. My legs feel heavy, like I’m walking underwater.

The hallway is long and lined with doors. It’s quiet. Too quiet. The kind of silence that happens right before a gun goes off.

"Here."

Aureliano opens a door at the end of the hall.

It isn't a dungeon. It’s a bedroom. Large, impersonal, with a massive bed in the center covered in crisp white linens. It looks like a hotel room where bad things happen to good people.

"Dinner is at eight," Aureliano says. "Do not be late. And Graziella?"

I turn to look at him. He is standing in the doorway, blocking the only exit. He fills the frame.

"Clean yourself up. You look like a drowned rat."

He shuts the door.

The lock clicks.

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. My knees give out, and I sink onto the cold floor.

I am trapped.

I look around the room, desperate for something familiar, something that isn't grey or cold or expensive.

My eyes land on a row of framed photos on the far wall. They are black and white. Old family portraits.

I stand up, my legs shaking, and walk over to them.

There is a picture of three boys. Aureliano, tall and serious even as a child. Ciro, scowling at the camera. Spadino, laughing with a missing tooth.

And next to it, a portrait of a man and a woman.

The man is older, severe. The Patriarch. He has Aureliano's eyes.

The woman standing next to him is beautiful. She wears a long, elegant dress with lace sleeves. She has her hand on the man's shoulder.

But I can't see her face.

Someone has taken a sharp object—a knife, maybe Ciro's knife—and scratched it out.

The paper is torn. The scratches are violent, angry white gouges over her eyes, her mouth, her smile. It is an erasure born of hate.

I lean closer. My breath hitches.

I know that dress.

I reach into my pocket, my fingers trembling, and pull out the cheap, plastic locket I always wear. I pop it open.

Inside is a tiny, folded photo of my mother. She is laughing, holding an ice cream cone.

She is wearing the exact same lace dress.

The room spins.

That was my mother.

And someone in this house hated her enough to destroy her memory.