Chapter 11: Throw It Back

Mirella's POV

"Go downstairs," I said to my brothers. "Both of you."

Corrado opened his mouth.

"Now."

They went.

I heard the iron stairs ring under their shoes, one flight, two, and then the loading dock door.

Tancredi stood in the middle of the room with his hands at his sides.

He had not said anything yet.

I held up the card.

"Fourteen months," I said. "Papà's men had your number in their pockets for fourteen months, and I fought your card every Friday."

"Yes."

"You looked at my picture and you lied to their faces."

"Yes."

"And you never said a word to me."

"No."

"Why?"

He didn't dress it up.

"Because I wanted you here," he said. "I told myself it was to keep you safe. It wasn't. If you knew, you'd have gone."

"You decided that for me."

"I did."

"You don't get to decide what I'd have done."

"I know."

"I spent five years being decided about."

He took it without moving.

"I'm not asking you to forgive it," he said. "I'm telling you I'd do it again, and I'd hate myself, and I'd do it."

I should have hit him.

I had a fist ready.

Instead I heard what I had told myself the whole time I fought for him, and what I had never told him.

I had been sure he kept me for the gate money.

I had been sure I was a good bet and nothing else.

"You wrote a rule," I said. "No touching."

"Yes."

"And a rule about my name."

"Yes."

"And a rule about leaving in one piece."

"Rule three was the only one I meant," he said.

"You said it was because you hated to lose."

"I lied about that too."

"Then say the true one."

He looked at me.

"I'd lose everything I own before I lost you," he said. "That's the whole of it."

I crossed the room and put both my hands in the front of his sweater.

"You're a coward," I said.

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