Chapter 13: By Name

I didn't put it down.

I held the folder against his shirt, which I was still wearing, and I turned around.

Matteo stood in the doorway with one hand on the frame.

He hadn't shaved, and his face was gray.

"Say it," I said.

"Say what?"

"What the card says. Out loud. In your voice."

He didn't look away.

"You're Salvatore Moretti's eldest child," he said. "His wife told him you died the night you were born."

"And you knew."

"Since the winter before the peace talks."

"The grave," I said. "You stood at my mother's grave with me and let me read her name for the first time."

"Yes."

"You let me cry on that cemetery path, and you knew who the man with the lilies was."

"Yes."

Each answer was flat and quick, and he didn't dress any of them up.

I noticed that. It was the thing about him I had trusted from the first night, and now it was the thing cutting me.

"Why me?" I asked. "Why did you ask for the eldest by name?"

"I wanted Salvatore to hand over the one thing he owned and never knew he had."

His jaw moved.

"I wanted to take her from him and watch him find out what he'd given me."

"So it was a punishment."

"It was supposed to be."

"For him."

"For him," Matteo said. "You were the weapon, Nora. I'm not going to tell you otherwise."

My hands were cold on the folder.

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