“Thank you. But if I’m not back in three days—”

“How will I know if you’re alive or dead?”

“You won’t. But you should go.”

“What will I tell the baby?”

She’s carrying the only good and decent thing I’ll leave behind in this world. A person with no vengeance, no debts, no broken promises.

What if it all goes wrong?

What if I never see that child?

“Tell him…”

I can’t finish. My breathing isn’t right. It’s doing this hitching thing. A sharp inhale, bubbling like milk at the end of a straw.

I’m crying? I’m fucking crying?

I haven’t cried since I was a kid and my father stood over me with knuckles he’d bloodied on my mother’s face. When I burst into tears, he was so disgusted with me he hit her again, and I willed myself to stop.

Even if I could blubber like a kid balling up a sticky fist and standing over a dropped cone, nothing would change. No woman has ever cried a single thing out of existence, and no man will improve upon what a woman’s perfected.

I clear my throat. Swallow the gunk. Shake it off.

“Dario? Are you all right?”

“You’ve surpassed me,” I say with one last croak, leaning my head against the side window. “I’m the one with nowhere to go. No skills I can use. In every way, you’re my superior. But I got it all wrong. I should have been learning from you.”

A loud clack erupts at the side of my head. I lean back to look out.

A cop had hit the window right where my head rested against it.

Asshole.

I start to roll down the window, but he waves his hand to get me moving. It’s rush hour. No standing. I nod to him, and he walks away to harass the guy in front of me.

“I have to go,” I say.

“I know.” She’s not talking about the phone call. “I’ll wait for you.”

Don’t.

Don’t wait.

Instead of telling her what to do, I tell her the only thing that matters.

“You don’t need me.”

“But I do if I want to be happy.”

She’s competent enough to protect herself and capable enough to live without me. One day she’ll even be happy.

“Three days, okay?”

“You’ll be with me before then.”

“I love you, prima. Never forget that.”

“Never.” She pauses. “Goodbye, Dario, my husband.”

“Good-bye, my wife.”

She hangs up.

Chapter 33

CHAPTER 33

SARAH

I haven’t cried this hard or this long since my first night in the greenhouse.