Chapter 7: A Wall, Not a Gate

At breakfast I put Gemma's phone beside her coffee cup.

"Your lighter wasn't in it," I said.

Dominic looked up from his eggs.

"What lighter?"

"The one Gemma was looking for in my father's study at two this morning."

Gemma's hand closed over the phone.

"It was in the car, Dominic. I told her. I was being foolish."

"In the study," Dominic said slowly.

"I couldn't sleep."

He looked at me, and then at her, and I watched him decide.

"Gemma gets restless," he said. "She's done it for years. She wanders."

"Does she wander into other men's desks?"

"Ila."

"I'm asking."

He set down his fork.

"She's my friend," he said, flat. "I won't have her treated like a thief in a house I'm a guest in."

Gemma lowered her eyes with a faint, wounded look.

Nico was watching me from the end of the table, and I gave him the smallest shake of my head.

"Of course," I said. "Forgive me."

The phone had been wiped clean before it ever reached Aurelio's man.

He had found one thing.

The last number it called, at ten-forty last night, was a Philadelphia landline.

The club on Passyunk Avenue.

I let that sit in my pocket.

After breakfast I took my father's car and drove to the cemetery alone.

Not alone.

Dominic got into the passenger seat before I could shut the door.

"Don't," I said.

"I won't touch you. Rule one." He put both hands on his knees. "I want to see where they are."

I drove with the window down.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Kneel, Mafia Boss, Your Wife Is Gone from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.