Chapter 2

Two days after the Verano sit-down, Rafael sent word that he wanted his wife seen. On her feet, smiling, proof the Sciarras weren't shaken by anything. So I taped the fresh bandage flat, put on a dress that hid it, and walked into the back room at Brenno's, where the men ate long lunches and called it business.

The stitches pulled with every step. I kept my face smooth. I'd had the practice.

The room went quiet when I came in. They'd been talking about me a second before.

Rafael sat at the head of the table. Celeste sat at his right hand, close enough that her arm pressed his.

Nico saw me first.

He was one of Rafael's capos, the kind who laughed loudest when the boss was watching. He leaned back with a cigar and looked me over like I was something that should have been dead by now.

"Look who's walking already." He grinned around the cigar. "Seven for seven and still upright. They should put you on the payroll, sweetheart. Cheapest bulletproof vest we've got."

The table laughed. Every one of them. Men who'd stood behind me at those meetings and left me the front row.

Celeste turned her soft eyes on me and pressed her fingers to her lips, like the joke had hurt her more than it hurt me.

"Nico, stop," she said, in the sweet voice that made everything worse. "It's not her fault. Some people just aren't made for this life." She tilted her head up at Rafael. "We should go easier on her, Rafa. She tries so hard."

She tries so hard. Like I was a slow child the whole room was being patient with.

Sabine was on her feet before I could catch her. My one friend in that room, with a temper that never once checked who was listening.

"Tries so hard?" Her chair scraped back. "She took a blade for him at the door while you were tucked away upstate. Show everyone your scars, Celeste." She looked her up and down. "Oh. Right. You don't have any."

"Sabine." I closed my hand over her wrist. "Sit down."

"They're laughing at you, Orla. And he's sitting right there letting them."

"I know." I picked up my coat. "That's the point."

I didn't look at Nico. I didn't look at Celeste. I looked at Rafael, who hadn't said one word the whole time, whose jaw had gone tight the way it did when something was wrong and he didn't want to name it out loud.

"You know the funny thing about a decoy, Rafael?" I said. "It only works while the shooter still believes it's the real target. One day they'll figure out it isn't." I held his eyes. "So will you."

His hand moved. An inch off the table, toward me, the way it used to move when he still reached for me first. Then Celeste leaned into his side, and his hand came back down.

I walked out with my head up and didn't turn around to check his face. I'd read it seven times. It always said sorry.

Sabine caught me on the steps, still shaking with it. I told her to go home. She didn't want to. She went anyway, because I asked.

Odette was waiting in the car.

She didn't ask how it went. She'd stitched me back together too many times to need it spelled out.

She reached into her bag and pressed a phone into my hand. Cheap, black, one number saved and nothing else on it.

"It's clean," she said, keeping her voice down even though it was only us. "Nothing on it leads to me. Nothing to you. You call that number from the airport. Not before. Not from anywhere he keeps eyes." Her gaze held mine. "But once you do this, there's no taking it back. He'll bury an empty box, Orla. He'll think you're dead."

"Good," I said. "Let him."

She had her own reasons for helping me. I'd stopped asking what they were a long time ago.

I slid the clean phone into my bag, next to the one he could still track, and the old one lit up against my fingers.

His name on the screen.

He never called after he pulled my guards. Not once in two years. He'd go silent for a week and let the quiet do his apologizing for him.

The screen kept glowing. His name, again, and again.