Chapter 10: Against the Door

I waited until his bedroom door was shut behind us.

"You weren't surprised," I said.

Emanuele hung his jacket on the chair and said nothing.

"The monitor. My father's heart jumped like a rabbit, and you looked at it as though it had said good morning."

"Raffaella."

"You've been looking at it that way all day."

"I'm tired."

"You're lying."

He turned.

His face had gone smooth and hard, the one he wore for the capos.

"There are things I can't tell you yet."

"Can't, or won't?"

"Can't."

"Because you swore to someone?"

His eyes flickered.

It was nothing, one beat.

I saw it anyway.

"Who?" I said. "Who did you swear to?"

"Ask me something else."

"Is my father going to wake up?"

"Ask me something else."

"Is my cousin the one who shot him?"

"I don't know."

He said it flat, and I could hear that it was true.

"I swear I don't. Ask me something I can answer, Raffaella, and I'll answer it."

I crossed the room and shoved him in the chest with both hands.

He didn't move.

I did it again.

"I hate you," I said.

"I know."

"I hate that I came into this house and you didn't tell me one true thing."

"I told you my father died. I told you what the bomb sounded like. That was true."

"That's not enough!"

"No." His voice dropped, low and rough. "It isn't."

His hands closed on my wrists.

I could have pulled free.

He knew it, and I knew it, and neither of us did.

I looked at his mouth.

He was breathing hard.

"Then don't tell me," I said, and my voice shook. "Make me stop asking."

Something in him snapped.

He kissed me, and I kissed him back with teeth.

He walked me backward across the carpet until my shoulders hit the door and the wood boomed.

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