Chapter 9: The Council

I looked at the saved clip before Silvio woke up.

My own voice came out of the phone, small and clear.

It's one year. Then I'm out.

I lay there with the sheet pulled up to my chin and the whole of last night still in my muscles.

"Who sent it?" Silvio said.

His eyes were open.

He had a hand under his head and the gauze on his shoulder was still dry, and he didn't sound sleepy at all.

"An unknown number."

"Who was in the room when you said it?"

"My mother, my aunt, Tara." I made myself finish. "And Shane. He was in the kitchen doorway holding his phone against his chest."

"Then my uncle has it too."

"Probably." I sat up. "I said it. It was true when I said it."

He turned his head on the pillow and looked at me for a long moment.

"Was it?"

"It was before the wedding."

He didn't smile, but his hand found mine under the sheet.

"I told you the terms were yours to decide," he said. "They still are. Whatever you want me to do about this, I'll do."

"What do you want to do?"

"Nothing," he said. "I want to hear what you say."

I took a long shower and put on the plainest dress I owned.

At noon, Bruno drove us to Passyunk Avenue.

The Carrara social club was a storefront with painted-over windows and a green awning, and a faded sign for a bakery that had closed forty years ago.

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