I pull open the drawer where he’d crumpled and dropped the note that had been left for him, and I see it. Just a little wad of paper. I reach in to pick it up, my heart racing. Something tells me not to do it, to leave it alone and let it be.

But I’m not the leave it alone type. Never have been. So I flatten out the little scrap of paper and read it.

Bruno and I are going to see Tilbury. Get some rest. I’ll let you know what we find.

The room goes sideways again, but this time, it isn’t because I stood up too fast. I drop down onto the unmade bed and stare at the carpet, unseeing.

Tilbury. Dr. Tilbury.

I shiver with cold as the bedroom I’m in fades, and I’m in a windowless white room with white lights in the ceiling. They never turn those off, and it’s too bright. I can’t tell if it’s night or day. The room smells like a hospital. I sit up, groggy, set my bare feet on the cold tiled floor and look at my hands. The skin is dry and cracked and red in places. My nails are cut so short they clipped skin.

I turn them over back and front and remember the feel of a gun in my hand. The weight of it. The antiseptic smell is gone then, replaced by an animal scent and blood and rot. I see the kneeling man in front of me in that barn and try to remember what I felt when I pulled the trigger. Try to remember what I thought.

Men’s voices come closer, a door opening.

“Dandelion.”

I blink, turn my hands over again. They’re just my hands with the wedding band on one finger. The ring finger of my other hand empty.

“Dandelion.”

I look up. Amadeo and Bastian stand in the doorway watching me. Bastian is fresh from a shower. Amadeo’s suit is rumpled, and his usual five-o’clock shadow is denser. He looks older today. I study them both, seeing the similarities, the differences. Seeing how they’re both looking at me with something different than usual.

But then their eyes move to the piece of paper in my hand, and mine do too, and I read it again. See that name again. I squeeze my eyes shut. Today is my birthday. I’m twenty-one years old. Not fourteen. I’m in Dominic Benedetti’s penthouse. Not locked in a too-bright, too-antiseptic white room. I’m safe.

I open my eyes and see the skin of my hands again. Pull the towel off my head and let my wet hair drip down my back. It’s long. Not shorn. I see a flash of the woman who cut it. Remember her meaty hands. Her meanness.

“Vittoria.” It’s Amadeo. He’s standing just a few feet from me.