Chapter 8: A Hundredth Thing

I didn't move or speak until he put the phone down.

Then I sat up in the bed and pulled the sheet to my chin.

"Who were you talking to?"

He turned from the window.

He didn't look caught.

He looked like a man who had been waiting for me to wake up and ask.

"One of mine," he said. "A man who works for me."

"You said you're bringing Bianca home."

"I did."

"You told me you were looking for someone for seventeen years." I heard how flat my voice was. "It's her."

"Yes."

"You came here for my sister."

"I came here for Bianca," Ciro said. "I'll tell you the rest on the last day, like I said."

"She's my sister, and she's twenty-five years old, and you are thirty-four."

"Serafina."

"You slept with me last night to get through the door."

"No." He crossed the floor in three strides and stopped at the edge of the bed, close enough to touch.

He didn't touch me.

"I walked into your father's house for her," he said. "I did not take you to bed for her. Those are not the same thing, and you know it."

"Do I?"

"You know exactly what last night was."

I did.

That was the worst part.

I could still feel his weight and his breath against my ear, and I knew he hadn't been pretending any of it.

"She is mine to take out of there," he said. "That's all I can say today."

"Then say nothing."

I put my feet on the floor and found my robe.

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