Chapter 4

"Two hours," Julian said, "Consider it a lesson, Sienna. Apologize to Valerie and this is over."

My lips were too stiff to move.

Valerie crouched beside me, all soft concern, and hooked her arm through mine. "Don't be harsh, you two. She didn't mean it." She smiled at me. "We're still best friends, right?"

Her thumb found the burn at my waist and dug in.

White light burst behind my eyes. I shoved her off before I could think.

She screamed.

Christian's hand closed on my collar. He hauled me up and slammed me into the wall. My stitches took the full force of it. I made a sound I had never made before.

"You never learn," he said, almost gently.

Julian stepped in and pressed down on my shoulder. My knees folded. I hit the floor in front of Valerie's heels.

"Apologize."

I tried to rise. My legs would not answer.

Valerie lifted her left hand. The diamond threw sparks under the lobby lights. "Don't make her say it," she said sweetly. "Just kiss the ring, Sienna. Like you mean it. That's how you say sorry to me."

The lobby had gone quiet. Julian's staff lined the doors and the mezzanine rail: assistants, analysts, security. All of them watching.

I looked up at the boy I had loved since I was twelve.

He nodded once.

Christian sighed. "You forced my hand, amore." He raised two fingers toward the mezzanine.

Paper began to fall. Glossy squares, hundreds of them, drifting down like snow.

One landed by my knee. I looked at it and stopped breathing.

My bare shoulder. My face, sharp and clear. The man beside me was a black smudge. On the next card, a different man, the same smudge.

Christian had taken them himself. Just for me, he had said once, laughing in bed. I had thought it was a joke.

Someone bent and picked a card up. "That's her," he said. "She's been sleeping with both of them."

"She's the one who burned Valerie's hand last night."

"Homewrecker."

A shoe came down on my hand. Then hands were on my arms, shoving me from one to the next. A fist. A boot heel. Something warm ran down my back. My white blouse turned red.

Under the shouting, from somewhere near the doors, I heard Valerie laugh. It was small and pleased.

Through the legs around me, I saw three figures walking to the doors. Valerie tucked under Julian's arm. Christian's palm at her back.

None of them turned around.

I don't know how long it lasted. The crowd grew bored, the way crowds do.

I dragged myself along the wall to the parking garage, one hand on the concrete. Level B2. Space 14.

Empty.

My phone buzzed in my coat. Julian.

Val wants cakes. I took your car.

Think about what you did. Saturday is still on. Wash up and be ready. I'll send a driver.

I read it twice. Then I laughed. It hurt so much I had to stop.

I did not need to look up the number. I had known it by heart since I was nine, and I had never once dialed it.

It rang one time.

"Signorina," a man said, very quietly.

"Put my father on."

A pause. Then the voice that had run half the eastern docks for thirty years. "Sienna."

"Papa." I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the cold floor. "I'm coming home."

"Three years," my father said. "I waited three years for this call."

"I know, Papa."

He was quiet for a moment. "I won't say I told you so. Not tonight. But say it properly. My men will want to hear it from your mouth."

I closed my eyes.

"This is Sienna, daughter of the Don. I'm calling in everything we're owed. The protection. The money. Every lender who owes my father. Every union that takes his orders. Every favor. Pull it all." 

My voice did not shake. 

"By sunrise, I want Julian's company to be a hole in the ground."