If she wouldn’t have me, then I’d make her keep her promise to me.

I drove to her apartment building and rang random apartments until someone buzzed me in, anger and confusion and rejection circling like a hurricane in my head. It was easy to get into 4A, her shabby little place with its single bedroom, tiny kitchen, and living room barely as big as my bathroom. Light almost penetrated through the window, but not quite, not with the shadow of the building across the street blocking the sun. I looked around the space, opening every drawer, knowing I had no right, but feeling pissed off enough to not care. I’d opened my heart. Fuck, I’d poured it out. And she couldn’t be bothered to give me the fucking time of day?

Well, fuck her.

I’d remind her of her promise.

I unscrewed the lightbulb overhead, took my pistol out of the back of my jeans, and set it on her coffee table. Then I sat back on the couch, watched the door, and waited.

26

Gia

I spilled drinks on three customers and dropped two plates of food after Dominic left. I’d never expected to see him again. I’d never thought he’d show up. I didn’t bother wondering how he’d found me. He had resources. He’d probably been keeping tabs on me all these months.

It kind of pissed me off, now that the shock had worn off. How dare he walk back into my life, when I was just getting it back together? Scraping pieces of myself into something resembling some sort of normal.

After the day we’d met with Scava, I’d felt cold for a long time. Cold and empty. My mom and I had mourned Mateo together. I was pretty sure neither of us had really stopped grieving, but it had been time to move on. We sold the house, and she moved back to Italy with her sister. I moved to New York City and decided I would get my law degree and put assholes like Angus and Victor Scava away. It was what I could do to honor Mateo’s memory.

I’d kept the flash drive with the phone recording. I’d only just turned it over a few weeks ago, in fact. I knew if I did it too soon, Angus would know it was me and retaliate. I’d sent it anonymously, and it had worked. They’d gone after Victor, and Victor was now their star witness against the bigger fish: his uncle.

Seeing Victor like that at the restaurant that night, beaten, his uncle threatening to cut out his tongue, it disgusted me. It made me see without a doubt that this wasn’t who I was. Scava calling me a monster? I had believed him. And I guess I would have been one if I’d gone through with what I’d said I wanted.