Chapter 3 Your Hands Are Shaking

Dante

Before I had her return to New York, I received many security reports about her. The reports shouldn't have been so detailed. But I needed to confirm she was still alive.

Alive, eating, working, occasionally buying a box of nearly expired sandwiches at a Philadelphia convenience store at 3 AM. She had cut her hair short, dyed it a failed red once, then dyed it back to black. She had tattooed snakes on boxers, roses on strippers, and small stars on a mother who lost her child. Her hands had always been steady. Until tonight.

Security reports never wrote whether she hurt or not. They only wrote locations, times, contact subjects, risk levels. One November, she sat in a Philadelphia hospital corridor all night; one February, she changed tattoo shops because her former boss withheld wages; one summer, someone followed her for three blocks, then that person disappeared in a surveillance blind spot. The reports were written without warmth, like everything was just numbers. After I finished reading them, I threw the papers into the shredder. Numbers wouldn't tell me why she was getting thinner and thinner. They also wouldn't tell me if she bought cake when spending birthdays alone. They definitely wouldn't tell me if she still returned to Blackthorn House in her dreams.

I shouldn't know these things. I also had no right to know. Mia stood at the doorway, her face terribly pale.

She looked at the tattoo on my back. That bird was drawn by her. That year, when she drew it on the back of the marriage cancellation agreement, she thought I hadn't seen. Actually I had been watching the whole time. Her tears fell on the paper, smudging a small patch of ink. I took that paper away, she probably thought I took it to destroy.

I didn't. I had it tattooed into my skin. Very stupid.

Also very painful. Pain is sometimes more reliable than memory.

"Cover it, Mia," I said.

She looked at me, her lips moved but made no sound. Nico stood beside her, his face ugly. He was always like this, only thinking he should say something after things became irreparable.

"Dante, she just arrived in New York," Nico said, "Tonight isn't necessary..."

I looked up at him. He shut his mouth. Mia saw.

I knew she saw. She was too smart, smart to the point of pain. She would immediately understand who could speak in this family, and who was merely allowed to open their mouth. So I couldn't touch her in front of people, and couldn't call her Mia. There were still people outside, Nico still stood beside us, every pair of eyes in the club waited to see some old affection between us. Moretti family people were best at tearing a small crack into a road, then dragging people down along that road. That's how they treated her back then, and it would be the same now.

I kept my voice very flat: "Miss Hayes, if you don't want to take this, I can have the driver send you back to Philadelphia."

This sounded decent, like an employer giving a temporary tattoo artist enough choice. Only she could understand that I said Philadelphia, not freedom. As long as she went back, the hospital payments, the first page of her father's case file, the mark on Ray's shoulder, would all turn back into a wall. Of course she understood. Her jaw tightened, but her eyes didn't dodge.

"I won't take it," she spoke.

Her voice was steadier than I imagined. Good. I hated her being afraid of me.

I also wanted her to fear me. These two things didn't conflict. I stood up, put my shirt back on without buttoning it. Her gaze quickly moved away, like my skin would burn her.

"This isn't a one-time cover-up," I said, "The old ink is too deep, at least three times. Each time you complete one, I'll give you one page of your father's case materials."

She laughed. That laugh had no warmth.

"You still know how to do business," Mia said.

"I've always been fair," I pressed the first document on the table.

"You call this fair?" She looked at me.

"You can refuse," I said.

Her expression changed. Of course she knew she couldn't. I put the first document on the table. Brown paper envelope, very thin, only one photocopy inside. She stared at it, didn't reach out.

Her phone rang. She glanced at the screen, her face changed. I didn't need to look to know who it was.

Saint Agnes Hospital. I didn't have them threaten her. I only had them tell her the truth: her mother's treatment had been resumed, the fees came from a Moretti account, the payment memo was "artist arrival confirmed." This was despicable.

I knew. But when I let her go using bloodless methods back then, she almost died in Philadelphia's winter. Bloodless methods were useless. Staying alive was useful.

She thought what she feared most was me. But what she didn't dare look at was me laying her mother's bills, her father's case files, and that little bit of Philadelphia freedom in front of her together. She could curse me, could hate me, but couldn't pretend these things didn't exist. Sometimes poor people's roads aren't few, it's that every one requires payment first. So I made her roads narrower. She would hate me.

But she would walk. Mia hung up the phone and looked up at me. There was hate in her eyes.

Good. Hate was safer than longing.

"You're threatening me with my mother," Mia said.

"I paid her bills," I replied.

"You bought me," her voice turned cold.

"If I could afford to buy you, you wouldn't have been able to leave five years ago." The moment the words left my mouth, even I knew I had crossed the line.

The room went quiet for a moment. Nico's gaze swept across my face. Mia also looked at me.

I shouldn't have said that. Once some things were exposed, they would become knife handles. She would grab it and use all her strength to stab back. Sure enough, she stepped forward, her eyes reddening a bit.

"You think because you let me go, I should thank you?"

I didn't accept her thanks. Because she shouldn't thank me. If I had been ten minutes later that night, she would have been put on a Moretti family car, to a place even I might not have been able to find.

What happened after, I couldn't tell her now. She just needed to stay alive first. Hating me was also fine.

"You don't speak for her," I said to Nico.

Nico's face went pale. I pushed the paper envelope in front of Mia.

"First page."

Only then did she reach out. When the paper was pulled out by her, her fingertips didn't shake. The next second, she saw the signature.

Nico Moretti. That page had been deliberately cut off at the bottom half, only showing the testimony number, date and Nico's signature. The content was incomplete, but enough to make the color slowly drain from her face. Mia slowly looked up at her former fiancé.

Nico opened his mouth: "Mia, I can explain."

She laughed. This time I didn't like her laugh. Too light, and too forced.

"Of course," she said, "You Moretti family people can all explain. It's just that every explanation requires destroying my life first."

She picked up the pen and signed the supplementary agreement. The signature was beautiful, clean, not shaking at all. Then she turned and walked out.

I waited three seconds, then followed. At the end of the corridor, she was leaning against the wall, shoulders tensed very tight. There was no one else there, only wall lamps and the shadow of the rainy night reflected on the window.

"Mia."

She didn't turn around.

"Don't call me."

I looked at her hand hanging at her side. That hand had been steady as a knife when signing just now, but was now shaking.

"Your hands are shaking."

She spun around suddenly.

"Because of disgust."

I nodded.

"That's fine."

She seemed like she hadn't expected me to respond this way, the anger in her eyes caught for a moment. I took out a black key card from my pocket and placed it on the windowsill. Blackthorn House.

When she saw those words, her breathing obviously stopped a beat. Back then, she had lived in that house for three months. Everyone thought it was a cage.

Only I knew clearly in my heart that it was the safest place I could give her at the time.

"I'm not going," she said.

"You will go," I said.

"Dante."

She finally called my name, voice very light, but it tightened around my throat like a noose.

I stepped forward, stopped at a position where I wouldn't touch her.

"Little ink," I said in a low voice, "come home."

Her eyes reddened instantly. At that moment I almost reached out. Almost.

The key card slid from the windowsill edge, and a photo tucked behind it fell out. She looked down. In the photo was the bedroom on the second floor of Blackthorn House. The white dress she had worn five years ago was draped over a chair back, sketch paper by the window had one corner dampened by rain. A ring was placed on the bedside table.

She had never seen that ring. Because I hadn't let her see it. There was a line of writing on the back of the photo.

She was never supposed to marry Nico.

Mia looked up at me. This time, there wasn't only hate in her eyes. There were also questions.

Questions were more dangerous than hate. Because hate would make her stay away from me. Questions would make her come back.