Gone for Ten Years, Gone Forever

To avoid stirring anything I'd have to clean up later, I kept my voice soft. "You're reading shadows where there aren't any. I'm not throwing these things out. I'm only letting the right people handle the restoration. How could I not want them?"

The calm on my face did its work. Lorenzo's shoulders eased the way a man's do when he thinks he's just stepped off a tripwire.

"All right," he said. "I'll have someone build a whole new set of cabinets at the house. Somewhere proper to keep them."

I nodded. "Aren't the two of you due somewhere? Go. I need sleep."

With that I turned for the bedroom, and I had the door locked behind me before he could find another word.

When I woke in the afternoon I tore another day off the calendar by the window. Five left.

A message had come from Don Marchetti, my old mentor and protector on the Council, asking me to come see him about the paper that had just surfaced in the journal that mattered. Lorenzo, out of nowhere, called too. I told him I had to go up to the university. He said he was already downstairs and would take me.

Sabina was sitting in the passenger seat by the time I reached the car.

I hesitated for a single second before sliding into the back without a word.

Her laughter broke the quiet first. "Adriana, don't sulk. Lorenzo's always let me ride up front. Back when he used to drive my father's car, I'd sit beside him every time. They say riding in the back makes it feel like you've hired the man at the wheel. Like a chauffeur. Rude, you know? So I got used to it."

I wasn't sulking. I even smiled, and the warmth was real enough. "Sit wherever you like."

Lorenzo's eyes found me in the rearview mirror again and again, hunting for somewhere to land a conversation.

"On the way over," he started, fingers beginning a slow drum against the rim of his coffee cup in the console, "I heard talk about some cleaner working under the name 'Vitale Adriana.' Word is they pulled off something the Council itself can't stop praising. Real value to the whole organization. Funny thing, it's the same line of work as yours."

I said nothing. Vitale Adriana was the cover name I worked beneath, an alias Don Marchetti had bound me to under Omertà for my own safety.

Before Lorenzo could push, Sabina twisted in her seat, voice dipped in honey.

"Adriana, you've spent so many years at this, and I've never once heard your name come up like that." She gasped and pressed a hand to her mouth, theatrical. "Oh, no, I didn't mean it that way. I just say things plain. No offense!"

For half a breath the doe-eyes went flat, something cold and counting underneath. Then she remembered herself and softened it back into a pout.

Even Lorenzo's look had curdled into something close to disdain.

"Adriana," he said, every syllable padded with that patient, lowering tone, "sometimes you have to accept that people are simply built different. You've run yourself ragged for years, and it's all been aimless. After the wedding, why not let it go? I've climbed far enough that you'll never need to work another day."

I gave him nothing he could hold and turned to my phone, answering Don Marchetti. Their words had stopped reaching me a long while ago.

Two blocks from the university, Sabina asked to be let out.

"Thanks for the ride, Lorenzo. Love you!" she chirped, sliding from the car. Then, with a wink aimed squarely at me, "Sister, I'll go on ahead."

I read the name on the gates of the neighborhood and asked it lightly. "Isn't this the address of the safehouse meant for the bride?"

"Oh," Lorenzo said, easy as breathing. "She's probably calling on a friend."

I let it lie.

He felt the silence and reached to fill it. "She's still hurt. I figured I'd drop her on the way. Don't be so petty about it."

My face stayed level. "Of course. Perfectly ordinary, an older brother seeing his little sister home. Isn't it?"

The words snagged in his throat.

When we reached the university, Lorenzo pulled a great armful of flowers from the trunk and pushed them into my hands.

"I know you've been low these past few days," he said, coaxing. "I'm sorry, all right? Let this be me making it right."

"And the wedding dress, you're right, forget it ever happened. I'll have one cut for you fresh by the best designer in the city. How's that?"

His face was full of expectation, as if I owed him gratitude for the effort.

I glanced at his phone, where he was scrolling through one extravagant gown after another, but whatever interest I'd once had for it was long gone.

None of it touched me now. I was leaving soon.

I pushed the phone gently aside and pressed the flowers back into his arms. "Pick whichever you want. My mentor is waiting."

As I turned to go, Lorenzo caught my hand. "Adriana," he said, and there was a tremor in it now. "What's wrong with you? What's really going on?"

For the first time, his face held confusion, and beneath it something that looked very much like panic. Like loss.