Page 147 of Ruthless Sin
“Yes.”
“There are files in my desk. Locked drawer. Three years old. Yelena gave them to me before she died. Names. Routes. Financials. Photographs. I haven’t opened the drawer in three years.”
Izzy looks up.
“I’m opening it tomorrow,” I say. “I’m bringing them down.”
She doesn’t say Christ.
She says, “Bring them all.”
“Tomorrow.”
She nods.
I look at Marco.
My youngest brother. Capo only months in. Sleeves rolled. The ink on his knuckles fresh.
He grew up while I wasn’t looking.
Pride. Underneath the shame.
“I am so proud of you, sorry I haven’t been saying it more,” I say.
Marco’s mouth moves a quarter inch.
“I learned from you.”
I have to look at the floor.
I don’t stay for more.
I walk out.
The gallery. The corridor. The back stairs. The hallway to my room.
I walk past Mila’s hallway. Her door is at the end. My chest pulls toward it before my feet do — low, involuntary, a hunger I’ve stopped pretending I don’t have. My jaw goes tight. I turn at the corner before her door.
I do not approach.
I walk to my own room.
The bedroom door is open.
It’s been open every night for weeks.
The small door on the far wall of my bedroom, the one painted the same color as the wall, is closed.
The painting space.
I stop in front of it.
I put my hand on the wood.
I’ve been in this room many times. I haven’t opened this door for another person in three years. Mama saw it when she was alive. The alcove was hers. The easel and the brushes were hers. The painting space is the room she taught me to paint in. She’s the only other person who’s stood inside that door.
I open it.
