Chapter 2: He Took His Own Name

Ella reached into the black box first.

The room went quiet. Vivian stood behind her chair with both hands resting on its back, as if she were presenting a prize. Adrian leaned against the fireplace. He had come because Vivian had promised that tonight would settle the marriage question.

Ella pulled out a white card and turned it over.

“Adrian Rossi,” she read.

Ella smiled before anyone applauded. She held the card against her chest and looked at me. “I suppose that makes me the lucky one.”

Vivian kissed her hair. “You are my daughter. You deserve the best.”

I looked at Adrian. He was watching me, not Ella.

“Mia,” he said, pushing away from the fireplace. “Come here.”

I stayed beside my chair. “It is your turn to celebrate.”

His mouth tightened. “You know this is not how I wanted it.”

“You told me the draw was fair.”

“I said Vivian would listen if the cards gave us a problem.” He crossed the room and took my hand. “We can fix this.”

Ella slipped her arm through Vivian's. “Fix what? I drew the card.”

“You did,” Adrian said. His eyes stayed on me. “Mia can draw next.”

Vivian lifted the second box and placed it in front of me. “Go on. Don't make a scene.”

I put my hand inside. The cards were thick and cold. I pulled one out.

LUCA.

Ella laughed. “The driver?”

Someone near the table repeated the name. Luca drove for the Grant family and handled errands no one important wanted to touch. He was quiet, broad-shouldered, and always wore black. I had never seen him sit at this table.

Adrian took the card from my fingers. His face changed for one second before he gave it back.

“You don't have to accept it,” he said.

Ella tilted her head. “Why not? The box chose.”

Adrian crouched in front of me. “Mia, look at me. I will speak to Vivian. You can have another draw.”

His thumb brushed the tear under my eye. I hated that my body still recognized the gesture as comfort.

“Please don't cry,” he whispered. “Give me one night.”

I wanted to believe him. I wanted the years before Ella returned to be real. I wanted him to stand up and tell Vivian that a card could not erase a promise.

Instead, Vivian announced the engagement. Ella kept Adrian's card. I kept Luca's.

Later, the house filled with music. Guests moved between the dining room and the ballroom, congratulating Ella as if she had won something that belonged to her. I went upstairs for my coat. When I returned, the ballroom lights were low.

Adrian stood beside the second box.

I stopped behind the half-open door.

He was not alone. Vivian had left the box on the table, along with a stack of blank cards and the cards that remained from the first draw. Adrian sorted through them one by one.

“Take your name out,” Ella said from the sofa. “If Mia sees it, she will think she still has a chance.”

Adrian held up a card. “This one says Adrian.”

“Put it with the others.”

He did.

Another card. Another.

I pressed my palm over my mouth. He had promised to help me. He was making sure the box could never help me at all.

Ella stretched out her injured hand. The bandage was clean and white. “She will come begging when she gets tired of that driver.”

Adrian gave a quiet laugh. “She always comes back.”

“Even after tonight?”

“Especially after tonight.”

He placed the final Adrian card on the stack. Then he bent over the box and shook it. The remaining cards slid against the cardboard with a dry rattle.

“I want her to understand,” he said. “I am not losing her. I am teaching her where she belongs.”

The words reached me more clearly than the music downstairs.

I backed away before either of them saw me. In my room, I shut the door and sat on the edge of the bed. My card lay on my palm. LUCA.

The black letters did not change. Neither did the memory of Adrian's thumb beneath my eye.

I understood the cold breakfast. The thin jacket. The phone call he would not answer. They had not been accidents. They had been instructions.

I stayed awake until the sun came up. The box remained on my bed, closed but impossible to ignore. Every time the heating pipes knocked, I heard the dry rattle of cards. I thought about the first time Adrian had promised me something. He had been fourteen, standing under the garage awning with a scraped knee, saying he would never let anyone leave me outside. I had believed the promise because it was simple. The man in the ballroom had not been simple. He had measured my hunger and decided it would make me obedient.

I folded Luca's card into the pocket of my coat. I did not know whether he would accept me. I knew only that I would not let Adrian choose the shape of my life again.

Adrian had promised to speak to Vivian, so I forced myself to consider what he might say in the morning. Perhaps he would claim that taking the cards was a joke. Perhaps he would say Ella had asked him to do it and he had only agreed to calm her. Neither explanation could put the cards back into my hand. I remembered the way he had crouched before me at the table. He had looked into my face while he planned to leave me no way out.

I took the new thin jacket off its hook and held it against my chest. Vivian had given Ella a winter coat without asking for a draw. In the kitchen, Ella had emptied my soup without being told to stop. Now Adrian had emptied the one box that might have brought him back to me. I laid the jacket down. I would not ask any of them to rescue me tomorrow.

At dawn, Vivian knocked once and entered without waiting. She carried the box.

“Your sister's engagement is settled,” she said. “You can still draw again.”

She set it on my bed.

I looked at the lid. Inside were the cards Adrian had chosen to leave me.