Chapter 4
Chapter 4
The second Damian hung up, it was like someone had pulled the bones out of his body.
He turned to look at me, and his eyes were terrifyingly unfamiliar.
"Lucia," he said, one word at a time. "You actually did it."
Before I could speak, he signaled toward the door. Two of his men got out of the car, took me by the arms, one on each side, and shoved me into the back seat.
Daisy lived in an apartment in Astoria. The Vitale family foundation paid her rent.
When the door swung open, the place was wrecked. A lamp was knocked over, and broken picture frames were scattered across the floor. Every photo was of her and Damian.
Daisy lay on the bed, white as paper, her lips blue. I couldn't tell if she was breathing.
Damian's legs gave out. He practically fell to the side of the bed.
"Daisy, it's me." He gripped her hand, his voice shaking so badly it barely sounded like his. "You can hear me, right? Squeeze my hand. Just once."
I stood in the doorway, watching the man who'd sworn at fifteen to protect me for the rest of my life kneel by another woman's bed and beg her to wake up.
The place in my chest where it should have hurt didn't seem to feel anything anymore.
The private doctor Enzo had called arrived fast, and a few of them lifted Daisy onto a stretcher. On the nightstand sat a half-empty bottle of sleeping pills and a folded sheet of paper with a few drops of blood on it.
Damian unfolded the note, read it, and slowly lifted his head.
The next second, his hand was around my throat, pinning me to the wall.
"I was standing in City Hall!" His eyes were bloodshot. "Three years, and I gave you what you wanted. What more do you want? Do you need her dead before you're satisfied?"
"I didn't." I couldn't breathe. I forced the words out one at a time. "I don't even know where she lives. I only went today to get my father's ring back."
He stared at me like I'd just told a joke.
Then he let go of my throat, raised his hand, and slapped me.
My head snapped to the side. My ears rang. I tasted blood.
"The ring?" He tore the ring with the Marino crest off his left ring finger and held it up in front of my face. "This is what you wanted?"
He opened his fingers.
The ring hit the marble floor with a sharp ping, split down the middle, and broke into several pieces.
My father wore that ring for twenty years. It was the last thing he touched before he threw himself across Damian on the docks.
Damian looked at me and didn't move. "Go on. Pick it up. Isn't that what you wanted?"
I got down on my knees and picked up the pieces, one by one. The broken edges were sharp. They cut my fingers, and my blood dripped onto the metal and ran into the crest.
I remembered how my father used to turn that ring with his thumb and say that for a Marino, your word was your oath.
Above me, Damian's voice was as cold as the East River in winter.
"Ten years, Lucia." His voice dropped, every word ground out through his teeth. "Every time I look at you, I see the blood on those docks. Everyone's watching me, waiting for me to pay off that debt. Sometimes I wish no one had taken those three bullets for me."
I clutched the pieces until my palm was slick with blood.
Damian bent down and picked up the half-empty bottle of sleeping pills from the nightstand.
He gripped my jaw and forced my mouth open. "Everything she just went through, you're going to go through. All of it."
Two of his men stepped forward and twisted my arms behind my back.
They shoved the pills into my mouth by the handful. They scraped my throat, bitter and chalky. I tried to spit them out, but someone held the back of my neck down hard and poured water in after them, and it went down the wrong pipe.
The world went dark, a little at a time.
I heard the wheels of the stretcher roll past me. I heard Damian tell Enzo, "Get her to Ferraro's." I heard the door close.
He never looked back.
Right before I lost consciousness, I thought I heard the tide again, wave after wave, crashing against the seawall at Red Hook.
What Damian didn't know was this:
In Isabella's greenhouse, I had already signed the papers ending our engagement.
