Chapter 22: The Fourth Floor

Adriano's POV

I closed the office door myself and turned the lock, so she would know she could say anything.

It was past noon.

She had slept three hours on my couch in her torn dress, with my jacket over her.

I had not slept at all.

She sat on the edge of the cushions with her hands between her knees.

"Go on," Livia said.

"The first life, I wrote you three letters."

"The first was a hope. The second was a request. The third was a plain question."

"I know. I read the third in my own head for years."

"Nobody answered, and I decided you had read them and said nothing."

She went very still.

"I hated you a little for it," I said. "I want you to know that first. It's the ugliest thing I carry."

"You didn't know Massimo burned them."

"No. I found out at the council, when the doorman said it."

"For three years I thought you had read me and chosen him."

"I didn't choose him," she said. "I didn't know there was a choice."

"I know that now."

I made myself go on.

"I stopped writing. I went to your wedding and stood at the back."

"Why would you go?"

"To see you once with my own eyes, and be done."

She didn't answer.

"Later I saw your son at a christening, and your daughter in a blue blanket in a church doorway."

"I stood at the back and told myself I had no claim."

I rubbed my scarred hand with my thumb.

"On the night of the siege, my lieutenant came to the docks with a warning an hour late."

"The Orsini had hit the line on Fifth Avenue. I took six men and drove to the hotel."

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