Chapter 10: Carmine's Man

Serena's kitchen was too small for four people, and none of us sat.

Paolo stood by the stove with Serena's hand in his.

Vincent leaned in the doorway with his arms crossed.

I stood in the middle of the room with my uncle's jar still in my fist.

"Say all of it," I told Paolo.

"I came into this house for your uncle."

He said it flat.

"Carmine put me with Vincent six months before the wedding. I was his eyes.

"I reported what Vincent ate, who he saw, where he slept.

"I stood up at your wedding and gave a toast. The same night I called Carmine and told him how you looked in the dress."

My stomach rolled.

"The first month," Paolo said, "Carmine told me what the marriage was for."

"Which was what?"

"A baby."

I laughed. It sounded awful.

"Everybody wants me to have a baby. That's the whole problem."

"Not everybody wants it for you."

He didn't look away from me.

"Your uncle wanted a Strozzi heir he could raise himself, as the child's guardian.

"Vincent was going to have an accident the year the baby turned one."

The kitchen got very quiet.

A radiator knocked somewhere under the window.

"You're lying," I said.

"I wish I were."

"My uncle held me at my mother's funeral. He sat up with me every night I had a fever."

"I know," said Paolo. "That's why he picked you."

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