Chapter 16: The Lever

Gianna's POV

Bruce came back to the hangar at five in the morning with gray skin and his jacket buttoned to the chin.

I was already awake on a crate by the radio, with Nonna's urn on the shelf above my head.

He stopped ten feet away and did not come closer.

"He heard it," he said. "All of it. He called her on speaker and she lied to his face, and then the tape played under her."

"And?"

"She hung up. Then she came up to the penthouse and cried."

My jaw went tight.

"Leonard sat there and let her," Bruce said. "He told her he'd been drinking and he was sorry. He told her it was a bad night and he trusted her."

"He lied to her."

"He lied well. I stood in the study with the door open an inch for an hour. She left at two."

"Why would he do that?"

"He wants her on a stage," Bruce said. "He wants her in front of everyone when it comes apart."

I looked at him in the gray light.

He had not slept either.

I wanted to tell him I was still angry, and I wanted to put my hand against his chest and feel his heartbeat.

I did neither.

"Thank you for telling me," I said.

He nodded and went to wash his face at the sink.

At eight, tires crunched on the gravel again.

A black car, long and quiet, stopped outside the big doors.

Leonard got out of the back.

He had shaved and put on a suit, and it hung on him.

"He's here," said the mechanic from the doorway.

"I don't want to see him."

"He's standing in the rain," the medic said.

"Then let him stand."

Hank put down his coffee.

"Raven," he said. "You can say no to a man and still look at him."

I went out.

The rain had started again, a thin gray rain that ran down the burned hills in streaks.

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