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It’s not that I’m underestimating Vittorio; I just can’t allow my focus to be split. Not when my son’s life hangs in the balance. Not when Wren’s life hangs in the balance.
I’ve lost too much already. And if there’s one thing that this whole ordeal has given me, it’s clarity.
Well, clarity in part.
I can’t say for sure what Wren means to me or what she is to me. All I know is that I cannot bear to lose her.
“Vittorio has never forgiven a slight, Dmitri,” Aleksandr reminds me. “And you made a fool of him in front of the entire underworld. He’s not going to forget that easily.”
“Nor do I expect him to. I want him replaying that day over and over again in his head. Then I’ll have the excuse to do to him what he did to Bee all those years.”
Aleks’s eyes bulge in alarm, But I don’t ask for his opinion. I don’t care about anyone’s opinion on this subject.
I made my decision the moment that first handful of dirt covered the lid of Bee’s coffin. The cycle of trauma didn’t end with her death.
But it’s going to end with Vittorio’s.
3
WREN
I became an expert eavesdropper when I was five.
For a full month, I was convinced that I had singlehandedly discovered the magic power of a glass held up against a door. The key tool in any eavesdropper’s arsenal. And I, Wren Bethany Turner, at the ripe old age of five, had made this most spectacular invention all on my own.
But God, how I wish I hadn’t.
That’s how I knew that Mom and Dad fought at night after Rose and I were in bed. It’s how I knew that Dad hated Grandpa, even though he gave the best hugs. It’s how I knew that Mom didn’t like the way Dad looked at my friend Casey’s mom at the nativity play or that Dad worried about the fact that we ate out too much, Mom worried about the fact that we didn’t go to church enough, and they both worried about money.
I was too young to know what most of that meant, but there was still a kernel of guilt attached to my eavesdropping. Mysterious as the topics may have been, I knew I wasn’t supposed to be doing what I was doing.
But knowing stuff seemed more important than respecting my parents’ privacy. My five-year-old self had no concept of privacy anyway. And when I did get old enough to know better, taking care of Mom and Rose seemed more important than letting them keep their secrets, too.
I have that same sense of responsibility now as I press my empty water glass up to the door and strain my ears. Except it’s not Mom or Rose I’m trying to protect; it’s the squirming baby in my belly.
Every day, he kicks a little more, a little harder. Sometimes, I feel as though he’s trying to tell me something. Baby Morse Code, saying, Get us outta here, Mama. I don’t want to be born in captivity.
Captivity is for zoo animals. Not for babies. Not for my baby.
I can hear Cian prowling outside—ready to walk into my room and partake in another half-drunk conversation, maybe? Or take another candid photograph without my consent? I have no clue; I just have this hope that, if we can talk a little more, maybe I can convince him to give in to his conscience.
I lurch back when I hear his footsteps grow closer—but then I hear the telltale buzz of a vibrating phone.
“What?” he barks. “Yes… yes… In ainm Dé, man… Listen, I’ve done everything you asked for, even after that shit you pulled at the wedding… I know… Yes, I understand but—” He breaks off and retreats a few steps.
My brain is going haywire. His puppet master was at the wedding? “Done everything you asked for”—what could that mean? I commit every kernel of information to memory, even if it doesn’t add up right now.
“Listen to me…” I’m hoping for a name, but whether by chance or intention, he doesn’t let one slip. “She’s almost nine months pregnant. This isn’t fucking right… Yes, I remember… Fine then.”
His voice softens as he retreats again. I moan in frustration and let the glass fall from my hand and roll across the floor.
It’s been a week since Cian last came in. I’ve spent that time thinking through every iteration of possibilities I can wrap my head around, but the only one that’s seemed viable is what I’m about to do. If it fails, I don’t know what’ll happen next.
I just know I can’t let my child be born into a cage.
I pick up the dropped glass, slip into the bathroom, and shut the door. Then I wrap the glass in a towel and put pressure on it until I feel it crack under my weight. Seconds later, I hear him enter my room. When I unwrap the towel, I have a handful of glass shards. One gleams in the fluorescent light, jagged as a knife.
Perfect.
