I guessed it was my fault, in the end. He knew I'd always forgive him because I loved him. He had learned that the way a man learns the combination to a safe. Through repetition. Through testing the limits. Through understanding that the lock would always give.
And this was the price I had to pay.
The next morning, I didn't find my husband on the couch.
The blanket was folded. The pillow was back in the hall closet. The espresso machine in the kitchen was cold, which meant he hadn't even stopped for coffee before leaving.
I didn't wonder where he went early in the morning. It wasn't the first time. He'd be back when it was already late in the evening, slipping through the front door with the particular exhaustion of a man who has spent the day being someone else's comfort.
Dante called three times before noon. His voice carried that tight, rapid quality it always got when he was about to deliver information he knew the Boss wouldn't want to hear. I could almost hear him tapping the face of his watch on the other end of the line.
"Mrs. Valente, is the Boss at the estate? He hasn't come to the club. He's not answering his phone."
Three calls. Three variations of the same question. Each one more carefully worded than the last, because even a low-ranking soldier knew better than to imply that the Boss was unaccounted for.
Putting it all together, there was only one place I could think of. Somewhere with Silvana. Probably in an obstetrician's office, looking at the ultrasound of the child he had chosen to create. Sitting beside the woman he had chosen to give his bloodline to. Holding her hand, maybe. The way he had never held mine.
I was heading somewhere too.
After making an appointment at the private clinic on the east side of the city, I called a cab. Not the Family car. Not Dante. A yellow cab, anonymous and ordinary, because what I was about to do was mine alone, and no one in the Valente household would ever know about it.
The clinic was clean and quiet. The kind of place where they didn't ask questions and they didn't keep records that anyone could find. I lay on the table and stared at the ceiling, and the fluorescent light above me buzzed with a faint, insistent hum that sounded like a question I couldn't answer.