Chapter 3

As we left through the back alley, Ryan slipped a gold-plated family crest pin into my bag.

"This works as a pass anywhere the Sicilians run the black market. If you run into a gang patrol on the way, flash it.

"And remember, don't tell a soul you came home today."

As we passed Rose Lane, I suddenly told Sal, the driver, to pull over.

"Stray cats keep getting into the wine cellar at the estate.

"Go to the black-market chemical supplier up ahead and get me a bottle of the purest potassium cyanide they've got."

Sal was loyal to my family to the bone. He took one look at the gold crest in my hand and got out without a word.

A few minutes later, he passed a small black glass bottle into the back seat and was kind enough to warn me, "Ms. Costa, the dealer says this stuff is deadly. One drop could kill an elephant.

"Hold on to it, and whatever you do, don't spill it in the car."

I tucked the bottle into my sleeve and said nothing.

The last token my brother had given me, meant to keep me at arm's length, had come through for me at the very end.

Back at the estate, the suite I'd lived in for three years looked like it had been ransacked.

Vera was lounging on my chaise, fiddling with the music box.

Back when I dreamed of Leo floating in the sea every night, Victor had built it himself, one piece at a time. He said that once it played, the nightmares couldn't follow me past the bed curtains.

I'd kept it by my pillow and treasured it for two years.

The next second, Vera flicked her wrist.

The music box crashed into the burning logs in the fireplace.

Flames quickly curled around the brass teeth.

Vera giggled.

"What? Does that hurt?

"Too bad Victor didn't give you this because he loved you."

She leaned in, her voice full of glee.

"Back then, you screamed Leo's name every single night.

"The estate was crawling with spies. Victor was afraid you'd let something slip, so he went to all that trouble just to get you to sleep."

I stared at the brass teeth slowly blackening in the fire.

"What about the shooting on Columbus Day?"

Vera acted like she'd heard the funniest joke in the world.

"You really thought that was an accident?

"Victor got word ahead of time that someone was planning to kidnap you.

"But he told his bodyguards to stand down, just so he could use your kidnapping as cover to meet with Leo and pass him information!

"Then he made a big show of taking a bullet for you, and you were so touched you threw yourself at him like a bitch in heat."

She tipped my chin up with one finger.

"You really are cheap."

I remembered that night and the blast of hot air beside my ear.

Luca had collapsed on top of me, his blood soaking my skirt, and Victor had held me tight against his chest.

Shaking, I asked him if he was scared. He kept saying, "Don't be scared. I'm here."

That was the moment I put down the broken glass and stopped seeing him as my sworn enemy.

So all the tenderness that had drawn me to Victor like a moth to a flame had been nothing but a prop he used to fool his enemies.

The more real my tears were, the more convincing the heartbreak looked.

Heavy footsteps cut off her laughter.

Victor pushed the door open and walked in. By then, the music box in the fire was nothing but a lump of charred brass.

I looked at him.

"Last Christmas Eve, when you took me to see the fireworks in Times Square, that was to draw out the five families' spies, wasn't it?"

"Yes." He pulled off his gloves, his voice flat.

"When they held me underwater and I almost drowned, you didn't shoot right away. Was that so you could get a good look at the contact's face?"

Victor was silent for a few seconds.

"I timed it. You weren't going to die."

So Vera hadn't been making it all up.

Victor reached out to touch my face.

But I could suddenly feel the filthy water filling my lungs again, and I flinched back on instinct.

His hand hung in midair.

"Ada, I admit it. At the start, everything I did was calculated.

"But if I hadn't done it, Leo wouldn't be alive today, and my family would have been wiped out.

"Now you get to walk away in one piece and go to Switzerland with more money than you could spend in several lifetimes. For you, that's the best possible ending."

Vera cut in, "Victor, Leo's promotion ceremony is at ten tomorrow morning.

"If her hearse ends up on the same road as the guests' motorcade, that would be bad luck."

Victor frowned and glanced at his watch.

"Then move the injection up two hours."

He turned to Bruno, the butler, who was waiting at the door, and gave the order.

"The shot goes in at six sharp tomorrow morning, and she goes in the coffin. Have it out of Manhattan by eight. Nothing holds up Leo's celebration."

I stood there and listened quietly as he scheduled my death.

The whole Morelli family was celebrating Leo's triumphant return.

And I wasn't even allowed to let my "fake death" get in the way of his big day.

Fine by me.

If I was going to die anyway, what difference did a couple of hours make?