Three
Chiara
The screen lights up before I have time to second-guess myself. Alyssa’s face fills it, dark hair pulled back, eyes sharp in the way that’s always made me feel safer and more exposed at the same time.
“Key,” she says, relief and warning tangled together. “You look thin.”
“I’m fine.” I adjust the angle so she can’t see how close the wall is behind me. “What did you find out?”
She exhales, long and deliberate.
“I checked. Quietly. Through my cousin, Reggio. Massimo is still in Calabria.”
The tension I’ve been carrying loosens, not enough to disappear, but enough that I can breathe again. My shoulders drop a fraction. My pulse slows. Calabria means distance, oceans, and far away.
“Okay.” The word comes out steadier than I feel.
“But,” she adds, and of course there’s a but, “that means he’s not in Chicago.”
“Does anyone know if he really is in Italy?” I ask.
Alyssa shakes her head.
“That’s what Reggio told me.”
I nod. I agree with her. We both know that he may have told her that knowing I might ask.
She tilts her head, studying me through the screen. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say again because fine is a shield. Because fine doesn’t invite concern or pity or plans.
Her mouth curves into a smile, soft but persistent. “So. San Francisco. I want details. I picture cable cars, views of the bay, hot men buying you wine.”
I return the smile on cue. “It’s… busy,” I say. “Work keeps me occupied.”
“That’s not what I asked,” she says. “I want to know about all the hot men.”
I hesitate just long enough to feel the lie form. “There are views,” I say carefully. “And good food. It’s different from Chicago. Very few suits. Lots of hoodies. And people jonesing for caffeine.”
She grins, satisfied enough. “See? I knew it. You’re adjusting. Do you have any friends?”
I don’t tell her about the hours or the exhaustion or the way I move through my days like I’m borrowing them from someone else. I don’t tell her how much effort it takes to stay invisible. Alyssa knows too much already. She’s risked enough for me.
“Tell me what’s going on with you,” I say.
She spends the next twenty minutes giving me the low-down on her love life and all our friends. I realize I don’t miss anyone but her.
“I should go,” I say after a moment. “I have an early morning.”
“Of course you do,” she says, rolling her eyes affectionately. “Promise me you’ll call again soon.”
“I promise.”
“If I hear anything,” she adds, her tone shifting, sharpening, “anything at all, I’ll send you a text. Immediately.”
“I know.”
We hold each other’s gaze for a beat longer than necessary, the kind of silence that exists only between people who understand what’s at stake.
“Be careful, Key,” she says softly.
“I am,” I reply, and this time it isn’t a lie.
The screen goes dark, my reflection staring back at me for a second before the phone locks. The quiet rushes in, thick and familiar. I sit there, still, letting my breathing even out, reminding myself that Calabria is far away, and Chicago is only a worry, not a certainty. Not yet.
Three hundred square feet, give or take. One room pretending to be many.
This is what glamour looks like.
I move toward the window and stop short of touching it, my fingers hovering over the frame. It’s been painted shut so many times the seams have vanished.
Alyssa’s voice echoes in my head, bright and teasing, full of a life that assumes safety as a given. Cable cars. Wine. Men with good intentions.
I let her keep that version of me. It costs less than the truth.
The truth is that I work. I go home. I keep my head down and my routines narrow. I don’t linger. I don’t attract attention. I don’t make myself memorable.
It’s not exciting, but it’s stable. Stability has its own kind of beauty, even if it’s not the kind people want to hear about.
Soon enough to reassure her. Not so soon that it looks like fear. Everything is a balance. Even friendship.
I look down at my left hand. At the time, they called it tradition. A promise. A joining of families. They didn’t call it ownership, but that’s what it is.
The arrangement doesn’t require permanence.
Palo Ammazzalamorte is to be my husband and father of my children.
He and I were never expected to stay together in any ordinary sense of the word.
For him, fidelity was optional. What mattered for him was my alignment, obedience, the appearance of cohesion when it was required.
And most importantly I, a Bullucci, remained his.
Palo’s reputation moves through my thoughts without invitation, a catalogue of things no one says out loud. Girlfriends don’t leave him. They disappear. Their exits are explained away in language polished enough to sound reasonable if you don’t look too closely.
My mother disappeared when I was nine years old. And I know she didn’t just leave. But I can’t confront anyone. I can only mourn the loss of her.
I cross the room and kneel in front of the narrow closet, sliding the box out from where it’s hidden under my bed. The cardboard is smooth as I open it.
Inside, there’s very little. What’s left of my cash, my Chicago driver’s license, my passport. No jewelry. And a photograph, its edges soft from handling.
My mother smiles up at me from it, caught in a moment before she understood what her life would become. She disappeared when I was young enough to still ask questions. Eventually, the questions stopped being answered. Then they stopped being allowed.
I close the box and push it back into place, my movements careful, precise. I don’t cry. I’ve learned better than to waste energy on things that don’t change outcomes.
I straighten, my reflection catching briefly in the darkened window.
Chiara Bullucci. Mafia daughter. Northwestern MBA. A line item on a ledger that’s been balanced for years. Property, not person.
I set an alarm for the morning and lie back. I track it with my eyes until my breathing slows.
Control builds slowly through small decisions—what you say, what you hold back, and when you walk away.
Saturday, I’ll go to the farmer’s market and buy the ingredients to make the dish my mother used to make. Something simple. Something that belongs to me.
The farmer’s market is daylight, crowds, and noise, busy enough that nobody pays attention to who’s standing beside them. It’s a perfect place to blend in.
If anyone is watching, they won’t expect me to step into the open.
I won’t linger. I won’t make eye contact. I’ll be another woman buying tomatoes and bread.
I let my hand rest lightly over my wrist, not in fear, not in regret. Just acknowledgment.