When lunch is ready, we physically force Greta to sit down and eat with us, instead of working the whole time. Nero convinces her to drink one, and then several glasses of wine, at which point she starts to tell us stories about a famous writer she used to know, who she might have slept with “once or twice,” until he wrote a character based on her that offended her terribly.

“Was it Kurt Vonnegut?” Sebastian says.

“No.” Greta shakes her head. “And I’m not telling you his name, he was married some of the time.”

“Was it Steinbeck?” Nero says, grinning wickedly.

“No! How old do you think I am?” Greta says, outraged.

“Maya Angelou,” I say, with an expression of innocence.

“No! Stop guessing, you disrespectful little beasts.”

“That’s not disrespectful,” Dante says. “Those are all excellent authors. Now, if we said Dan Brown . . .”

Greta, who loves The DaVinci Code, has had enough of all of us.

“That’s it!” she says, rising threateningly from her seat. “I’m throwing your dessert in the trash.”

Nero makes a frantic signal to me to go rescue the semifreddo from the freezer before Greta can wreak her revenge.

All in all, the day is as cheerful as I could hope for, given the occasion. The only person who isn’t in as good of spirits as usual is Sebastian. He’s doing his best to smile and participate in games and conversation with the rest of us, but I can tell that the weeks of inactivity, and the loss of his favorite thing in the world, is wearing on him. He looks thin and tired. His face is pale, like he hasn’t been sleeping much.

I know he doesn’t want me to apologize again. But watching him try to navigate the narrow hallways and numerous staircases of the house on those damn crutches is killing me.

Even with that unhappy reminder, the afternoon ends too soon. Once we’ve all eaten and cleared the table, Dante and Nero have to get back to the Oak Street Tower project, and Sebastian has a biology class.

I could stay with Papa, but I know he’s going to finish the wine while looking through old photo albums. I don’t have the heart for it. All those pictures of Papa, Mama, and my brothers traveling in Sicily, Rome, Paris, and Barcelona, while I’m not yet in existence, or at best, a baby in a stroller. It just reminds me of what I missed.

So, I give my father a kiss and offer to help Greta with the dishes, knowing she won’t let me, then I go back down to the garage to retrieve Nessa’s Jeep.

I’m back at the Griffins’ mansion by 3:00 in the afternoon.

I don’t expect to find anybody home other than the staff. When Imogen isn’t working on family business, she’s spreading her influence over dozens of charities and boards, or else strategically socializing with the wealthy and influential wives of Chicago’s top citizens. Fergus, Callum, and Riona work long hours, and Nessa has classes almost every day — either at Loyola, or at Lake City Ballet.

Yet, as I enter through the side door into the kitchen, I hear two male voices.

It’s Callum and his bodyguard, sitting on the barstools in their shirtsleeves, jackets draped over the backs of their chairs.

I don’t know what they’re talking about, but I’m immediately enraged by the sight of the brutish boxer, who I now know is named Jackson Howell Du Pont. Callum met him at school, in his Lakeside Academy days. Jack is one of the many, many descendants of the Du Pont family, who first made their fortune in gunpowder, then later by inventing nylon, Kevlar, and Teflon.

Unfortunately for Jackie boy, the Du Ponts were a little too successful at spreading their name and their seed, because there’s now about four thousand of them, and Jack’s particular branch barely had enough scratch to pay for his fancy private school education, without the usual accompanying trust fund. So poor Jack is reduced to driving Callum around, running his errands, watching his back, and occasionally breaking kneecaps on his behalf. Like he did to my brother.

Fresh from the sight of Sebastian’s dark circles and unhappy smile, I want to grab the closest piano wire and wrap it around Jack’s fucking throat. Callum has wisely kept his bodyguard on the back burner, away from casa Griffin and out of my sight. But I guess he didn’t expect me home so early.

“What the fuck is he doing here?” I snarl.

Callum and Jack have already stood up, startled by my sudden appearance.

“Now, Aida,” Callum says, holding up his hands in warning. “That’s water under the bridge.”

“Is it?” I snarl. “Because Sebastian is still hobbling around. While this punch-drunk fuck boy is apparently still on your payroll.”

Jack rolls his eyes, sauntering over to the fruit bowl on the counter and picking out a nice, juicy apple.

“Put your bitch on a leash,” he says to Callum.

To my surprise, Callum drops his hands and turns on Jack, his face still but his eyes blazing.

“What did you say?” he demands.

I see the dull gleam of metal inside Jack’s suit jacket. A Ruger LC9 in the inside pocket, hanging over the back of his chair, instead of securely attached to his body. What a fucking amateur.

In two steps I’ve reached the jacket and pulled out the gun. I check that it’s loaded, then slip off the safety and chamber a round.

Both Callum and Jack freeze like deer at the sound of the bullet sliding into the chamber.

“Aida!” Callum says sharply. “Don’t you—”

I’m already pointing the gun at Jack.

“Leaving your weapon unattended.” I click my tongue, shaking my head in mock disapproval. “Very sloppy, Jackie boy. Where did you get your training, the Chicago Police Academy? Or was it clown college?”

“Get fucked, you lippy cunt,” Jack snarls, his blocky face red with rage, and his teeth bared. “If you weren’t married to him—”

“You’d what? Get your teeth kicked in like last time?” I snort.

Jack is so mad that I know he’d already be charging at me, if I didn’t have the gun pointed right at his chest.

Callum is in a more ambivalent position. On the one hand, I can tell he’s pissed that I pulled a gun in his kitchen and pointed it at his bodyguard. On the other hand, he doesn’t like the way Jack is talking to me. Not one bit.

“Put the gun down, Aida,” he orders me.

But it’s Jack he’s looking at with cold fury in his eyes.

“I will,” I say, lowering the gun so the barrel is pointed directly at Jack’s knee. “After he pays for what he did to my brother.”

I haven’t actually shot anybody before. I’ve been to the range plenty of times with my brothers. We’ve put up those paper cut-outs, sometimes a blank human silhouette, sometimes a zombie or a burglar. I know how to aim for center mass, how to group my shots. How to squeeze the trigger instead of jerking it, how to control the backfire.

It’s strange aiming at an actual person. I can see the droplets of sweat along Jack’s hairline, the way his right eye twitches slightly as he glares at me. I can see his chest rising and falling. He’s an actual person, despite being a raging douche. Am I really going to put a bullet in him?

Jack decides that the best way to get out of this is to try to intimidate me. Maybe he thinks it’s reverse psychology. Or maybe he’s just dumb.