I stared up at him, unable to believe the words coming out of his mouth. My voice shook. "That's my question to ask, not yours. Tomasso, I'm carrying your child. And while I was sleeping, you were in there with another woman. Have you no shame at all?"
The words came out louder than I intended, and somewhere down the hall a door closed softly. Another soldier, disappearing. Another witness choosing blindness. The compound breathed around us, full of men who would kill on Tomasso's order, and not one of them would meet my eyes in the morning.
"Giovanna, don't overthink this. Catarina's husband is dead. She hasn't had any intimacy in a long time. I was just helping her out. It's perfectly normal, isn't it?" He softened his tone like he was coaxing a child, the same voice he used when he wanted a capo to accept a bad deal without realizing it. Measured. Warm. Utterly false. "Relax. There's nothing between us beyond this. You're my wife. You always will be. Be good. Don't get upset. It's bad for the baby."
"He's right, Giovanna." Catarina drifted out in her nightgown, her voice dripping with sweetness. The hallway light fell across her throat and collarbone, and the marks there were vivid, unmistakable. She stood beside my husband in the corridor of my home as though she had been standing there for years. "Tomasso and I are just taking care of a physical need, that's all. I swear it won't affect your marriage. As long as he's willing to look after me and my child going forward, I'll be perfectly content."
She tilted her chin up and smiled. "Really. I would never try to steal him from you. I know the one he truly loves is you."
The hickeys on her neck and chest burned into my vision like needles, the pain driving straight from my eyes down into the pit of my stomach. I thought of the code Tomasso had invoked to bring her here. The sacred obligation. The honor of the fratellanza. And I thought of how easily sacred things could be hollowed out and worn as masks by people who had no use for them except as shields.
I looked at the two of them standing there, and I couldn't form a single word.