7. Federica
FEDERICA
Iget home at twenty past midnight.
My face in the mirror is a mess. Smudged liner. Red eyes. Dried tear tracks on both cheeks. I look like I lost a fight with my own nervous system.
For a second, I just stare at myself.
Then I say, out loud, “Well. Congratulations, apparently.”
I almost laugh. It comes out wrong, so I stop.
I wash my face, change into an old NYU sweatshirt I should have thrown out years ago, and sit at the kitchen table with my phone in front of me.
My hands are still shaking.
I scroll past the messages from the event, from Rose, from the client, from the caterer who is very sorry about the salami incident now that it has become a legal concern. I find Savannah’s name and press call.
She answers on the second ring.
“Hey, babe.” Her voice is soft, but alert.
I hear water running in the background, then a drawer closing.
Late-night kitchen sounds. Very Savannah.
“You okay? I got scared when I didn't see you come back to the event.
Rose and I thought something happened to you.
Also, don't worry about the party, we salvaged what we could. By the end, the client was way too hammered to be unhappy about your absence or the meat or?—”
“Camillo sold me to Valerio Greco.”
The water shuts off.
“What?” She screams.
“Camillo sold me to Valerio Greco,” I repeat. “To pay off his debts.”
There is silence.
Then, in the background, a low male voice says, “Is she hurt?”
Riccardo. Of course he heard. Of course he went straight to bodily harm.
Savannah says, away from the phone, “No, nothing like that. Go back to bed.”
A pause.
“Riccardo. I will call you if we need to murder someone.”
I close my eyes. “That’s oddly touching.”
“Fede,” she says, back in my ear. “Tell me everything. Start wherever you can.”
So I do.
I tell her about the loan sharks, and how Valerio took over and saved my brother.
I tell her how Camillo looked in that office. Ashamed, yes. Sorry, maybe. But still relieved enough to let me be the price.
Savannah swears so sharply I almost smile.
“Sorry,” she says. “No, I’m not. What the actual fuck?”
“Yeah.”
“How are you feeling? Really?”
“I…” I look down at my hands. They’re still shaking. “I’m furious at both of them, but not the same way.”
“Tell me.”
“With Camillo, I’m angry, but I’m not shocked. That’s the disgusting part. I want to be shocked. I want to sit here and say I never saw this coming, but that would be a lie.”
Savannah stays quiet.
“He has been taking pieces of my life for years,” I say.
“Money first. Then time. Then my name, my work, my silence. I kept telling myself he was family. That he needed help. That he was reckless but good. That one day he would stand on his own and all the things I gave him would have been worth it.”
My throat tightens. I hate that it does.
“I think some part of me always knew he would ask for too much eventually. I just didn’t think too much would mean me.”
Savannah exhales. “I hate him a lot right now.”
“Get in line.”
“No, I’m serious. I’m making a line. I’m first.”
This time, I do smile. It hurts, but it happens.
Then it fades.
“Valerio is different.”
“Because you expected better from him?”
“Yes.” The answer comes too fast. Too clean.
I hate that too. “Because he knew me. Not the family version of me. Not the black sheep daughter. He knew me. He knew what it cost me when my parents cut me off. He knew how hard I worked after. Rio saw things I never said out loud.” The room blurs a little.
I blink hard. “And the worst part is, he didn’t even ask. ”
“Fede.”
“He could have asked me.” My voice cracks, and that makes me angrier. “He could have come to me and said, here is what happened, here is what I can do, here is what it would mean. And if he had asked...”
I stop.
The answer rises in me so fast I almost choke on it.
If he had asked, I might have said yes.
Savannah hears the truth in my silence. I can tell. But she doesn’t say anything, and I’m grateful for it.
“I hate him for taking that from me,” I continue.
“The choice?”
“Yes.” I wipe under my eye with the sleeve of my sweatshirt. “And the fantasy. Which is ridiculous, because I’m twenty-eight years old and I should not have fantasies about my brother’s best friend asking me to marry him like we live in a romcom with organized crime.”
Savannah lets out a tiny laugh. “Dark romance, maybe.”
“Don’t genre-classify my crisis.”
“Sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“No, I’m not.”
I breathe out, and for the first time since the elevator doors closed, I feel like I can get air all the way into my lungs.
“Thank you,” I whisper. “For being a great friend.”
I can practically hear her grin. “What, like it’s hard?”
We both burst out laughing.
Three seconds after we say goodnight and hang up, my phone buzzes against the table.
I pluck it tiredly and glance at the screen.
Valentina.
My stomach gives a tired little twist.
Valentina Greco is the only member of that family who still texts me like nothing got ruined six months ago. Rio vanished into Capo Greco. His parents stopped appearing in public. The whole Greco world went tight and silent.
But Tina kept sending messages from Europe.
Paris first. Then Rome, Amsterdam, Madrid. The trip was supposed to be ours once. After graduation. Backpacks, cheap hostels, too much wine, photos in front of every ugly fountain we could find.
Then my parents pulled my tuition, my graduation disappeared, and Valentina spent years telling me we would still go one day.
Six months ago, she finally went without me.
I was happy for her. I still am. Mostly. There is a small, mean part of me that aches every time she sends a photo of tiled walls or blue water or a breakfast pastry with a bite already taken out. I do not like that part of myself, but tonight I am too tired to pretend it isn’t there.
Her message sits on the screen.
TINA: Hey. Heard my brother was an asshole to you tonight. You okay? xx
I stare at it for a second too long.
Then I type back.
FEDE: Yeah, he was a real prince.
TINA: Wanna talk about it?
FEDE: Nope. Tell me about Lisbon.
Three dots appear almost immediately.
TINA: Lisbon remains superior to all other cities.
Orange tiles, pretty boys, and an apartment with a sea view I am pretending I can afford.
You’d hate the stairs and love the pastry.
We should go back together someday. When all this drama blows over.
Whatever the drama even is, because fucked if Rio would tell me.
My chest tightens.
I miss her suddenly. So much it surprises me.
FEDE: Now I'm hungry. Send proof of life via custard tart.
TINA: Bossy. I missed you.
It's an odd way to phrase it. We've been texting constantly during her trip. She's the one person other than Savannah who gets all my life updates in real time, timezones be damned. But I'm way too tired to police my best friend over typos.
I close my eyes.
FEDE: Miss you too, Tina. Gonna hit the hay now.
TINA: What are you, a cowboy?
FEDE: I wish. I'd honestly take shoveling horseshit over the metaphorical horseshit my life has become in the past 24 hours.
TINA: Wow. Poetic. I'll be expecting a follow-up on that. When you're feeling better.
I smile despite myself.
FEDE: It's a date. Goodnight, V.
TINA: Goodnight, F. Sleep tight.
I almost laugh. Sleep? With the storm raging through my head right now?
It’ll be a miracle if I don’t throw up. Though I guess a night spent hugging the porcelain throne beats staring at the ceiling and wondering what I’ve done to deserve this rotten karma.
Maybe I was an asshole in my past life. Hell, maybe I was Hitler.
I type back a quick, You too, and watch Tina’s status switch to offline.
I plug in my phone to charge and collapse on the bed. I consider doomscrolling or picking up my Kindle, but in the end, I just bury my face in the pillow. I’m too tired. Too hurt.
As I drift off, I cling to the consolation that, at least, one Greco has never lied to me.