Chapter 10: Dario's POV

Dario's POV

I did not sleep.

At six I was still sitting in the chair by the bed, watching Gianna breathe.

She slept on her side with one hand under her cheek. The scar showed at the edge of the sheet.

I had spent five years paying the wrong person.

I had written the check every quarter. I had shaken Stefano Sartori's hand across a dinner table and called him a friend.

I thought about all the ways I could end him before noon.

My consigliere had listed them for me at three in the morning.

A call to the harbor. A shipment that never arrived. A word to the Commission.

Every one of them would work.

Every one of them would also take the whole story out of her hands.

She stirred and opened her eyes.

"You did not go to bed," she said.

"I thought about it."

"You thought about killing him."

"Briefly," I said. "I thought about a lot of things. Mostly I thought that you should decide."

She sat up, and the sheet fell, and I made myself look at her face.

"I want it public," she said. "I want it at his wedding."

"I want it in the same hall, over the same speakers, with every boss in that room."

"That is three weeks away."

"I can wait three weeks." Her voice was rough with sleep.

"He waited five years to take what was mine. He can spend three weeks thinking he got away with it."

"And in the meantime I keep paying him."

"Can you?"

It was a fair question, and I turned it over honestly.

"Yes," I said. "I would rather swallow it for three weeks than warn him."

She nodded slowly.

"Then that is the plan," she said.

I should have felt relief. What I felt was a cold, heavy dread that I could not put a name to.

"Gianna."

"Yes?"

"I want to say something, and I want you to hear it as a fact and not as a trap."

I took a breath. "You owe me nothing. Not for the claim, not for the ring, not for the last twenty-four hours."

"I know."

"If you want the ring off, you say the word."

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