Page 83 of Masked Don

She pours her coffee black and leans against the counter, watching Matthew over the rim of her mug.

“He eats like a little soldier,” she says.

Matthew, sensing he’s being discussed, holds up a strip of toast. “You want some toast? I have lots.”

Something flickers across Gen’s face. “No, thank you, sir. I’m all right.”

He shrugs, unbothered, and goes back to his breakfast. I watch her watch him with a look I can’t quite name.

I’ve been wanting to talk to her since the garden. So while Matthew’s busy with his toast, I take the opening.

“Gen, what you said. In the garden about your fiancé?” I keep my voice low. “I haven’t stopped thinking about it.”

Her face closes like a door. “There’s nothing to think about. It’s an old story. Everyone in this house knows it. You’ll learn.”

“I don’t want to learn that; I want to understand it.” I turn my cup in my hands. “Can I ask you something about Enzo? When it happened, did he know?”

She’s quiet for a moment, and I brace for the door to slam. But she doesn’t slam it. Maybe it’s the hour. Maybe it’s the boy. Maybe she’s just tired of holding it all alone.

“No,” she says finally, “not at the time. I’ve made my peace with that much, or near enough. He had his hands full keeping the business alive, and the old man still ran this house. But Papa didn’t tell Enzo everything. I don’t think he realized what Papa had done until long after.”

She takes a slow sip of her coffee. “But he knows now. He’s known for years. And what did he do about it?”

I don’t answer. I don’t think I’m meant to.

“Nothing. He never once said it out loud, because that would’ve meant war with our father.”

“Maybe,” I say carefully, “but wanting your father to be someone better than he is, that’s not the same as being him, Gen.”

She shrugs. “Does it matter? It sure feels close enough from where I’m standing.”

She looks out the window at the garden and the playground and the walls. Matthew is over in the nook now, drawing.

“You know what I’ve decided?” Her voice is flat and strange. “Maybe this family’s just finished. Luca wants to burn it all down. Maybe putting us out of our misery wouldn’t be the worst thing.”

“Don’t say that in front of him.” It comes out sharper than I mean, and I tip my head toward Matthew, who’s mercifully absorbed in his drawing. “I won’t have him growing up thinking he’s part of something evil.”

Genevieve looks at me, really looks, like I’m a piece that doesn’t fit the puzzle she already finished.

“Huh,” she says softly. “He finally found someone who argues back.” A strange, crooked almost-smile appears on her face. “That’s new. That’s very new.”

“I’m not arguing. I’m just…”

“You’re arguing. It’s good. God knows this house could use it.” Something in her softens. “But for what it’s worth, you don’t need to lose sleep. Whatever else my brother is, he takes care of his own. The women and children are kept safe in this family. Tucked away. Just like me.”

She means it warmly. It hits me like cold water anyway, because I hear exactly what’s underneath it. Tucked away. Looked after. A comfortable, well-funded nothing, in silk, in a beautiful house.

“I don’t want to be looked after, Gen,” I say gently, because I can see now that she’s offering me the best thing she knows how to offer. “I want to be part of it. Whatever gets rebuilt here, if anything does, I want my hands on it. I don’t want to be hidden away from it.”

She studies me for a long, long moment. “Yeah,” she says at last. “Yeah, I’m starting to see that.” She pushes herself off the counter, coffee in hand, and pauses beside Matthew on her way out, looking down at his artwork. “Good drawing, kid,” she tells him. “Keep at it.”

“I will,” Matthew says gravely.

She drifts back toward whatever she does with her days and leaves me in the gold kitchen light with my son and a cold cup of coffee and a terrible, uneasy sense of dread in the pit of my stomach.

That night, Candy calls me at eleven-forty. She never calls. She texts, she sends voice memos, she sends me pictures of men’s terrible shoes at the club. She does not call.

“Don’t freak out,” she says, which is how I know to freak out.