Chapter 13: The Garage

Dario did not say another word until the elevator doors closed on the two of us.

Alessia was already gone.

I had put her in the black sedan with two of his men.

She had looked from his face to mine through the window.

"Mom," she had said, "your friend hasn't blinked since I signed."

"Go home, Alessia. Eat something."

"Is he okay?"

"Not yet," I said.

Now the elevator dropped to the garage, and Dario stood against the far wall with his hands shut at his sides.

The doors opened on concrete and the smell of oil.

He walked out ahead of me and stopped beside a pillar, under a light that buzzed.

"Say it," he said.

"Dario."

"March ninth. Say it to me."

"She was born on March ninth," I said. "At six in the morning, in a county hospital, under my mother's maiden name."

He turned his back to me.

I watched his shoulders go up and stay there.

"Seventeen years," he said, to the pillar.

"I know."

"I stood in a chapel and listened to your father's men say you were dead to us."

"I know."

"I said nothing. I went home and found your closet empty."

"I know what you did."

"No." He turned around. "You don't. You know what you decided I did."

His eyes were wet, and he did not wipe them.

"You were pregnant when you left."

"Yes."

"You were pregnant when you came into my kitchen and told me it was over."

"Yes."

"And I asked you, Marisa. I asked if there was a reason. You said there was a man, a good one, with a clean name."

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