Chapter 4

Before dawn, black crepe was wound around the iron gates.

Luna helped me into a white funeral dress, her tears falling onto the skirt one by one.

"Ms. Ada, let me go to Switzerland with you."

Bruno blocked the doorway with two bodyguards, his face cold.

"The Don has already signed off on your severance.

"Ms. Costa will be living under a new name. She can't keep anyone around who knows who she really is."

Luna clutched at Bruno's sleeve and begged them desperately.

"She has a bad stomach. When it rains, the pain has her doubled over, and she can't sleep at night without her pills.

"If you send me away, who's going to remember to warm her milk?"

She wiped her tears and added, "I'm marrying Riccardo from the funeral home next month. Please, let me see her off. No one will prepare her for burial with more care than I will..."

Bruno didn't budge.

I pressed a check I'd prepared long before into her hand.

"From now on, you won't have to get up in the middle of the night to make me a bowl of oatmeal."

The bodyguards grabbed her arms and dragged her out. She sobbed and kept twisting around to look back.

"Ms. Ada, eat your meals on time when you get to Switzerland, and don't ruin your health over these cold-blooded bastards again!"

The heavy oak door slammed shut and cut off her crying. I never answered.

My mother, Ryan, and Leo, now in a sharp new suit, were already waiting in the living room.

My mother stepped forward and pressed a pearl-studded cross necklace into my hand.

"I had this blessed at St. Patrick's Cathedral to keep you safe.

"If you have nightmares in Switzerland, hold it and pray to the Lord."

She patted the back of my hand and, keeping her voice low, went over her instructions again and again.

"Remember, the minute you get off the plane, erase all your old contacts. No more letters home. No calls.

"From today on, there's no Ada in this family.

"If anyone finds out you're alive, your brother's standing in the family and Leo's future are both finished."

I looked down and ran my thumb over the cold silver cross.

When I was ten, I came down with pneumonia and a 104-degree fever that wouldn't break. My mother knelt in the hospital hallway all night and prayed.

Crying, she'd said I was her whole heart. She'd give up 20 years of her own life if it meant I'd be safe and well.

She still remembered that I was afraid of the dark and of nightmares. She'd even gotten me something blessed to keep me safe.

Only this time, what she'd prayed for was that I'd rot away in a foreign country like a ghost and never come back to taint their futures.

Leo stood beside the white coffin, watching me with a look I couldn't read.

"I've had the villa on Lake Zurich all set up for you.

"I had a whole wall of roses planted in the yard. You always loved roses."

I glanced up at him.

"I'm allergic to rose pollen. It's white camellias I like."

Leo froze.

On the day we got engaged, we'd planted a white camellia together in the backyard of the old house.

He'd taken off his suit jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and dug until he was dripping with sweat. There was a smudge of black dirt on the tip of his nose.

I laughed, held out my handkerchief, and told him he looked like a gardener. He just grinned wickedly and wiped the dirt from his hands across my cheek.

He pointed at the little sapling and swore that when it was covered in blossoms, he'd build me a glass greenhouse right next to it.

The next spring, the camellia bloomed as white as snow.

But by then, Leo had already been "dumped at sea."

I watered it every day and wouldn't let any gardener prune it. I guarded the one thing he'd left me like a madwoman.

Then Victor took me away by force.

With no one to tend it, the white camellia soon withered and died among the weeds.

Leo avoided my eyes and said stiffly, "I've been so busy these last few years. I got it mixed up.

"When you get to Switzerland, I'll have the roses dug up and camellias planted instead."

The antique clock on the wall read ten minutes to six, and there was still no sign of Victor.

Bruno glanced at his phone and explained, "The Don is at headquarters getting things ready for Leo's ceremony at ten.

"He said Ms. Costa has always been sensible, so there's no need to wait for him before the injection."

Ryan impatiently hurried them along.

"The Don's given the word, so let's get on with it.

"Don't let a funeral spoil today's celebration."

Leo drew the drug up into the syringe.

Under cover of my wide sleeve, I emptied the drug from the syringe and refilled it with saline from the half-full bottle the doctor had left by the bed. Then I set the little bottle from my sleeve beside it.

The syringe rocked a little. The liquid stayed perfectly clear.

My mother dug a strawberry hard candy out of her purse and held it out.

"Ada's been scared of shots and medicine since she was little.

"Take the sedative first, then suck on a candy. The shot won't hurt as much."

I looked at my mother's lined face and suddenly remembered my 18th birthday party.

In front of every guest, she'd kissed my forehead and said that no matter how bad the storms got out there, her arms would always be my safe harbor.

If a man ever treated me badly, I could run home anytime, and she'd have my back.

I'd believed her. On countless nights when I wanted to die, those words got me through.

But yesterday, when I really did come home, she brushed my hair and warmed up my soup, and then she helped me into a burial dress herself.

She remembered every one of my habits and every little thing I liked.

The only thing she forgot was to ask whether it hurt to be played for a fool by everyone for three years.

Leo handed me a glass of water to wash down the sedative.

"Drink this first. Once you're lying down, I'll give you the shot. It's only ten hours of sleep.

"As soon as the ceremony's over, I'll get out of my tux and come pick you up across the state line."

Ryan folded his arms and chimed in, "You've always been the sensible one.

"For the family's sake, put up with it one last time."

I took the drugged water and swallowed it in one gulp along with the sedative.

My mother hurried to hold out a cherry.

I turned my head away.

Only people putting on a show need something sweet to cover the taste.

Someone who's really about to die doesn't.

Leo helped me lie down in the cold coffin and carefully smoothed my skirt.

"Don't be afraid.

"In ten hours, I promise I'll wake you up."

Ryan glanced around warily.

"Don't turn on the cooling until you're over the state line. We can't let the feds find a single crack in this."

My mother held my hand. Her hot tears fell on the back of it.

"When you get to Switzerland, forget all of this.

"Don't hate your mom."

The needle slid into my vein.

Whatever was in the syringe seemed to race through my blood.

It felt like a huge iron hand was crushing my heart. Every breath cut like a knife, and the voices around me grew fainter and fainter.

Three years ago, on the dock, Leo had given me half a piece of cherry pie and told me to wait for him.

And at Leo's wake, Victor had carried me away and told me that from then on, I wasn't allowed to keep waiting for a dead man.

The man I'd waited for had come back alive.

The man who'd sworn to protect me had finally gotten the ending he wanted.

One of them would take the ring, the other would clear his name, and everyone would get a fresh start.

They'd left me a different name, a house by a lake, and a safe little life that barred me from ever returning to New York.

They called it my way out.

But spending the rest of my life rotting like that made me sick.

At last, hurried footsteps sounded outside the door. Then I heard Victor's voice.

"Has she had the injection?"

Bruno answered quietly, "Just now."

The footsteps stopped beside the coffin.

Victor saw the cherries in my mother's hand and scowled.

"Why didn't you give her something sweet?

"She hates pain more than anything."

I wanted so badly to open my eyes and tell him to save it.

Whatever pain this life had to give, I'd already swallowed it.

My mother squeezed my hand and kept soothing me.

"It's just a nap.

"Ada, when you open your eyes, it'll all be over."

I slowly let my heavy eyes close.

After one last violent spasm in my chest, my heartbeat dropped to zero.