me. You thought me grieving was better than me knowing my brother was alive. And maybe you meant well. Maybe you had good intentions. But you've hurt me, Matty, because you did the one thing you promised you'd never do—you treated me like that fragile ice princess."
She shoved up from the step and headed for the house, stalling on the porch, face-to-face with Gavin. "Have you seen him? Dante?"
Gavin nodded.
"Is he okay?"
Gavin hesitated.
"Don't lie to me," she said. "Please don't."
"He has his moments."
"Does he know about me?" Her hands ghosted across her stomach. "About us?"
"He knows what everybody else does."
"Which is what?"
"That you vanished."
She stomped past him, bursting into the house and slamming the door behind her.
"That girl," Gavin said, pointing to the door, "is just like her brother."
Matty ran his hands down his face. "This isn't how any of this was supposed to happen."
"I don't know," Gavin said. "Isn't this kind of what it's like to be a Barsanti?"
"What? All fucked up?"
"Pretty much."
"Story of my life," Matty said, "but this was supposed to be different. This was supposed to be a fresh start, a chance to do things right. This wasn't supposed to be like everything else."
"Yeah, well, you took the girl away from the Galantes but you'll never take the Galante out of that girl. And you know, I don't think you really want to."
Gavin strolled off the porch, stepping past Matty.
"I'm going to leave you to your wife," he said, heading for his rental car. "Not sucking the poison out of this bite."
Matty glared at him, watching as the car drove off, before heading inside. The downstairs was empty, silent, so he headed up to the second floor, finding Genna sitting on the top step, lingering in the dim hallway. Her phone was in her hand, and she absently flipped it open and closed, staring into nothingness, her mind off somewhere else.
After a few flips, her gaze went to her phone. She pressed buttons, fingers working fast, as she dialed a phone number.
"What are you…?" He trailed off, not bothering to finish his question as she brought the phone to her ear, listening. From where he stood, he heard the voicemail pick up without ringing, a male voice telling her to leave a message. Dante.
"I've called that number a few times, just to hear his voice," she whispered, flipping the phone closed again. "Not once has he answered. It stopped ringing long ago."
"I don't know what to tell you."
She nodded, standing up, like she wasn't surprised by his lack of explanation. "I need some time alone to think. So can you give me that?"
"Whatever you need."
A sinking feeling settled in the pit of Matty's stomach as he watched her walk down the hall, disappearing into the little boy's bedroom and closing the door, shutting him out.
So many times he imagined their own little boy moving into that room. Maybe it was naïve, but Matty thought it could work. He believed they would've been happy. It wasn't perfect, but hell, it was something. It was their something. But he knew, watching that door close behind Genna, that any hope of that happening had disappeared.
Matty wandered the house in silence before heading to bed alone after dark. It took awhile for him to doze off, in and out of a restless sleep, jolting awake sometime after midnight, that feeling inside of him growing stronger, rooting deeper. Throwing the covers off, he climbed out of bed, pausing when he noticed the door across the hall wide open.
No Genna.
He searched the house, seeking her out, sighing when he spotted her. Genna sat behind the wheel of the Lincoln out back, illuminated only by a sliver of moonlight. Matty walked outside, joining her, slipping into the passenger seat. A key stuck out of the ignition, the car turned off but her seatbelt clipped on, like she wanted to run but that first step was too terrifying. He wondered how long she'd be sitting there, how long she'd been contemplating leaving him. Tears coated her cheeks, her eyes bloodshot as she stared straight ahead. Besides her phone on the seat next to her, she had nothing with her… nothing except that old, worn out map she'd stolen from the truck when they first set out on their journey, those veins and arteries pumping life through a country that she'd scoured relentlessly, searching for the heart.
"I'm guessing you've finally decided where you want to go," he said. "Finally decided where you want to call