Chapter 2
Mia did not cry until the car turned out of the Moretti gates.
She sat in the back seat between her school coat and the anniversary gift bag she had made for her parents, wiping her face with both sleeves as if she could erase the last ten minutes.
Natalie watched her in the mirror. Every part of her wanted to promise that nothing would change. It would have been the easiest lie she had told all night.
"The Black Swan," she told Benny.
Dom looked over from the passenger seat. "Mrs. Moretti, Luca will send someone after you."
"Then Vera should hear this before he arrives."
The Black Swan sat at the edge of St. Rosa, where the restaurants gave way to repair shops and brick apartment buildings. The front light was off, but an amber lamp burned behind the bar.
Vera Collins opened the door before Natalie knocked twice.
At twenty-six, Vera no longer resembled the frightened college student Natalie had once found bleeding behind a diner. Her dark hair was tied up with a pencil. A ring of keys hung from one belt loop, and a short-barreled shotgun rested on a shelf beneath the register.
She took one look at Mia and moved the weapon out of sight.
"Hot chocolate or grilled cheese?" Vera asked her.
Mia sniffed. "Both?"
"Correct answer. Upstairs, second door. Pick any shirt from my dresser that doesn't have a swear word on it."
Mia glanced toward Natalie.
"Go ahead," Natalie said. "I'll be right here."
Vera waited until the upstairs door closed.
"Who do I have to bury?"
"Luca is sleeping with Serena Vale."
Vera's expression barely changed. "That explains the way Serena has been walking into rooms lately."
"He put my wedding ruby around her neck. At our anniversary party."
That made Vera go still.
Natalie placed both hands on the bar. "I said I wanted a divorce in front of everyone. Luca said Mia stays with him."
"Of course he did."
"I need a lawyer, a place for Mia, and enough time to pack."
Vera pulled a clean glass from the rack, filled it with water, and set it in front of her. "If you file tomorrow, what does Luca keep?"
"I don't care about the house."
"I didn't ask about the house."
Vera counted on her fingers. "He keeps the Moretti name.
He keeps the men your father brought him. He keeps every wife who calls you when a husband doesn't come home.
He keeps the church dinners you planned, the neighborhood he only remembers at election time, and the story that you helped build because you loved him."
Natalie said nothing.
"You walk away tomorrow," Vera continued, "and Serena walks into a life you spent fifteen years making possible. Luca loses a wife and keeps her work."
"So I stay and let him humiliate me?"
"No." Vera pushed the water closer. "You stay long enough to take back what was yours before he started calling it his. Then you divorce whatever is left."
Seven years earlier, Vera had been nineteen and bleeding on the curb behind a closed diner.
Two men stood over her. One held her backpack. The other had her phone.
Natalie had seen them from the back seat of the Moretti car.
"Stop," she told Dom.
"Stay inside, Mrs. Moretti."
Natalie opened the door. "That wasn't a suggestion."
The taller man was Tommy Bell, nephew to a card runner in one of Luca's crews. He claimed Vera's stepfather owed money. Natalie picked Vera's student ID out of a puddle and read the name.
"She's nineteen," Natalie said.
"Old enough to pay a family debt," Tommy muttered.
"Then tell your uncle to explain to Luca why his men collect from college girls on Caruso ground."
The backpack hit the pavement. Then the phone.
After they left, Natalie crouched beside Vera.
"What do you want?"
Vera looked at the wet textbooks spilling from her bag. "I want to finish school."
"Then tomorrow you go to class. I'll handle tonight."
Natalie had given her a room for three weeks. Vera finished school, worked nights, and eventually bought the failing neighborhood bar where they now stood.
She had never asked the Morettis for another thing.
"You told me tomorrow belonged to you," Vera said now. "Don't hand yours to Serena."
Natalie looked toward the ceiling. Mia's footsteps crossed the spare room above them.
"What exactly are you suggesting?"
Vera leaned closer. "First, you go home."
"Luca will think I surrendered."
"Good. Let him."
"And then?"
"We find out how much of Luca Moretti belongs to Luca Moretti."
Vera reached beneath the bar and took out a small black address book held shut by a rubber band.
"What's that?"
"People who answer when I call. Bartenders. A nurse. Two motel owners. A tow driver. Women who have hidden other women for one night and never asked why."
Natalie stared at her.
"You built this?"
"You opened one door for me. I learned how to keep a few open for somebody else."
"Vera, if Luca finds out-"
"He watches every man carrying a gun. He never watches the woman pouring the drink."
Natalie's phone buzzed. Luca.
She answered.
"Come home," he said.
"Mia is sleeping."
"Then wake her. We finish family business in our own house."
Natalie met Vera's eyes. The plan was not complete. It barely had a name.
But she understood its first move.
"We'll be home in twenty minutes," she said.
Luca was waiting in the study when she returned. He had removed his jacket. An untouched cigar rested between two fingers.
"And the divorce?" he asked.
"Not tonight. Mia shouldn't lose her home because you lost your mind."
Relief passed through his face so quickly another woman might have missed it.
"I knew you would be reasonable."
Natalie met his eyes. "Don't mistake quiet for forgiveness."
"I never do."
He did not believe her surrender completely. That was fine. She only needed him to believe she still wanted the marriage more than she wanted to hurt him.
Upstairs, Luca slept beside her.
Natalie lay awake and counted what he believed belonged to him.
The house. The name. The men. The city. Her.
By morning, she knew where to begin.