“Well . . .” my stomach gives a little squirm. Even after all this time. “I’m actually supposed to do a shoot for Balenciaga next week.”

“In Chicago?”

I pause. “Yes.”

“That’s what your assistant said. I’m glad to hear it—because your mother and I will be there at the same time.”

“Oh, great,” I say weakly.

I was already dreading going back to Chicago. I haven’t been there in almost a decade. The idea of meeting up with my parents there . . . it doesn’t exactly thrill me. Too many old memories dredged up.

“I’m holding a rally,” Tata says. “In support of the Freedom Foundation. The Mayor of Chicago will be speaking, as well as one of the city aldermen. I’d like you to be there.”

I fidget in place, shifting from foot to foot. “I don’t know, Tata . . . I’m not very political . . .”

“It’s a good cause, little one. You could lend your support to something meaningful . . .”

There’s that note of disapproval again. He doesn’t think my career is meaningful. I’m one of the top paid models in the world, and he still sees this as a frivolous hobby.

“Just sit on the podium with me. You don’t have to speak. You can do that, can’t you?” my father says in his most reasonable tone. It’s framed as a request, but I know he expects me to say yes. I bristle against that pressure. I’ve been on my own for a long time now. I don’t actually have to do what he says.

But, at the same time, my parents are all I have now that Serwa is gone. Other than Henry, of course. I don’t want to tear down the truce between us. Not over something as petty as this.

Chicago is a big city. I can go there without running into Dante.

“Alright, Tata,” I hear myself say. “I’ll go to your rally.”

After I hang up, I pull out my phone and find the picture of Dante I’ve saved all these years. I try not to look at it, because he looks so fierce and angry. Like he's staring into my soul, and he doesn’t like what he sees.

I’m addicted. Sometimes I resist for months. But I always come back to it again. I’ve never had the strength to delete it.

I look at his black eyes. That ferocious jaw. The firm lines of his mouth.

The ache I feel is as strong as ever.

I shut off my phone and shove it away from me.

22

Dante

I drive over to Riona’s law firm to drop off the documents she needs for our new business credit line. Riona is the eldest daughter of the Griffins. Her family and mine have partnered for the South Shore development. She’s handling the legal aspects of our new joint business entity.

It’s not the sort of law she usually does. In fact, she started as a defense attorney, keeping the Griffins’ soldiers out of trouble as they handled some of the less savory aspects of Irish mafia business.

She got me out of hot water when I was arrested on a bullshit murder charge.

It was pretty fucking ironic, sitting in Cook County Jail for a crime I actually didn’t commit. After all the things I’ve gotten away with over the years . . . I didn’t expect to be framed for shooting some two-bit nobody.

Anyway, Riona helped me out, and I haven’t forgotten it. I owe her a favor. A couple of favors, probably.

Her brother is married to my baby sister, so we were already in-laws. Now we’ve become friends. I meet her for lunch sometimes, when I’m close to her office. And every once in a while, when she’s really pissed off about something, we go for a run together. She needs it—generally speaking, Riona is wound tighter than a two-dollar watch.

Today is no different. She comes hustling out of her office with two bright spots of color on her cheeks in an otherwise pale face. She’s got her red hair pulled back in a sleek bun, and she’s wearing her typical ball-busting attorney outfit of a dark navy pantsuit and a cream silk blouse.

“Hey!” she says when she spots me. “I’m grabbing a coffee from the cafe downstairs—you want to come?”

“Sure,” I say. “I brought these.”

I hand her the documents.

“Oh, thanks,” Riona says, looking them over quickly to make sure I didn’t forget anything. That doesn’t offend me—I know it’s her way to check everything twice, because she doesn’t trust anyone to be as meticulous as she is. “I’ll drop these off at my office, first.”

I follow her down the hall to her private corner office. I’ve been in here a couple times before. It looks more like a fancy Manhattan living room than an office—pewter-colored walls, modern art prints, some weird sculpture that looks like a solar model. I mean, it’s super stylish, but it’s cold and intense, a bit like Riona herself.

She puts the documents down on her desk. I notice she lines the edge of the folder up with the corner of her desk, even though she’s gonna move it again as soon as she comes back.

“Did you get those lease agreements from Abigail Green?” she asks me.

“Yeah.”

Riona gives me a quick glance. “She’s very . . . persistent, isn’t she?”

“She’s good at her job,” I say shortly.

“I bet she’s good at a lot of things . . .” Riona says, turning her cool green eyes on me.

“I’m not fucking her,” I grunt.

“That’s too bad,” Riona says. “I probably could have gotten her to knock down her commission a point.”

“Nope. You’ll just have to use your usual lawyer tricks—a relentless onslaught of argument until you beat her into submission.”

Riona smiles. “You know me so well.”

“I guess so. ‘Cause I can tell you came out of that meeting pretty fuckin’ hot.”

“Oh, that,” Riona scowls. “It’s this case I’ve been working on—the other attorney filed a bunch of bullshit motions. He’s trying to annoy me into giving up.”

He defiantly doesn’t know Riona, then.

“Do you want me to murder him for you?” I say.

Riona snorts. “If he keeps irritating me, then maybe . . . and by the way, thank you for not putting that in a text message this time.”

“No paper trail. I’m learning,” I say, tapping my temple with my index finger. “I can just see you getting your phone records subpoenaed for some case. Then they pull you up on the stand and say, ‘Ms. Griffin, can you read for the court your conversation of September twenty-eighth with Mr. Gallo?’ ”

Riona laughs, playing along. “Well judge, he said, ‘Do you want me to murder him for you?’, and I said, ‘Yes please—slowly, with a pickaxe.’ But it was all in good fun, your honor. The fact that he slipped and fell on a pickaxe later that night was completely coincidental . . .”

We head down to the cafe on the ground floor of her building. It’s a clean, bright space, with pastries delivered fresh three times a day. They get the orders out in minutes—an absolute must for all the lawyers on the clock. Riona’s firm shares the building with several other law groups, so everybody in here looks busy, grumpy, and ready to file an injunction if they didn’t get the right amount of foam on their latte.