Chapter 4

I almost laughed. Then I remembered Nico swearing he’d tell her the truth.

Cara turned to her friends and raised her voice.

“You want to know how far she’ll go? Every morning, she gets in his car like the back seat’s got her name on it. I left her a note telling her to find her own ride, and she called the cops. Told them Nico was harassing a woman who worked for him.”

Someone on the couch let out a low whistle.

“Now he has to take me to the coffee shop first, then go all the way back for her,” Cara went on. “If he cuts her off, she’ll tell people he’s punishing her for going to the cops. The family can’t have that kind of talk going around. Nico has to think about his reputation.”

There it was.

The accident that had backed up traffic. The alarm that hadn’t gone off. The burst pipe and the neighbors downstairs.

Every time I’d opened the door and found the passenger seat empty, I’d taken it as proof that Nico had kept his word. All it proved was that he’d already dropped her off.

I’d given him a second chance because of Owen. Nico had used it to figure out how to keep lying to both of us.

I called the lawyer who handled the Bellandi family’s properties. He’d closed the sale on the Westchester house himself. He picked up on the second ring.

“I’m at the Westchester house. Get here now and bring some people with you. The place is full of strangers. I want the damage documented before anybody leaves.”

Cara ripped the phone out of my hand and threw it down. It struck the hearth and landed facedown among the cigarette butts.

“Your house?” she said. “Jesus, do you even hear yourself? This is Nico’s house.”

“Somebody ought to tell her she has to land the guy before she starts claiming his property,” a woman on the couch said.

Another snorted. “She heard he had money and got down on her knees. That’s all there is to it.”

“You’re too nice, Cara,” said a third. “I’d have slapped her twice.”

Cara stepped closer. My cheek was still hot from the first slap. This time, I saw her hand coming, but she went for my collar. She twisted the fabric in her fist and pulled me toward her.

“Hear that?” she said. “Everybody in this room knows what you are.”

Her eyes dropped to my throat. My collar had fallen open, exposing the little green pendant I wore beneath my clothes.

“Well, somebody paid good money for that.” She hooked a finger through the chain. “Who’d you sleep with to get it?”

I went for her wrist, but she jerked her hand back before I could get a grip. The clasp snapped. By the time I felt the scrape on the back of my neck, the pendant was swinging from her fingers.

“Give it back.”

Cara looked up at my face. Whatever she saw there made her smile.

“That valuable, huh?”

“It’s worth nothing to you.” I reached for the chain. She pulled it away. “It was my mother’s. Give it back, Cara.”

I’d been sick from the day I was born. When I was four, I spent three nights unconscious in a hospital bed. On the third night, a doctor took my parents into the hall and told them to prepare themselves.

My father had called every specialist whose name he knew. My mother went to a shrine in the hills where she’d prayed as a girl. A priest there kept a small jade pendant carved with the image of the Virgin. She meant to bring it back to the hospital and put it in my hand.

She vowed to make the climb on foot, dropping to her knees and touching her forehead to the ground after every step. It was a hundred degrees that afternoon. By the time she reached the shrine, her knees were torn open and blood was running into her eyes. Two women held her upright while the priest put the pendant in her palm.

I woke up in the hospital. By then, my mother had been taken in with heatstroke. She never recovered.

The last time I saw her, someone lifted me onto the edge of her bed. She took my hand between hers and pressed the jade into it. I remember how much effort it took her to close my fingers around something that small.

“Promise me you’ll keep it safe,” she whispered.

I promised. For years, every time I changed the chain, I sat down and did it over a folded towel so the pendant couldn’t fall onto the floor. It was the only thing I wore every day.

Now Cara had it dangling a few inches above the stone hearth. I stopped reaching for it. I was afraid she’d let go just to watch me scramble.

“Cara,” I said, as evenly as I could. “Put it in my hand.”

She watched me hold out my palm.

“You know what?” she said. “The more you want it back, the more I want to smash it.”