“Are you insane?”
“Who gave you leave to put our home up against a shylock's ledger?”
Adriana frowned right along with him, her fingers drifting to the bracelet at her wrist, turning it slow.
“Francesca, how could you be so unreasonable?”
“Lorenzo lavishes tribute on you, and here you are, bleeding him dry for cash.”
“How is that any different from every gold-digger who ever crawled to a made man's door?”
I looked at her and smiled.
“Shut your mouth.”
Her face went white.
I turned to Lorenzo.
“I told you long ago I wanted the union dissolved.”
“Sell the house. All I'll take back is the one million I put down on it.”
“Weren't you the one so afraid I was after your money?”
“Dissolve this union now, and I'll see to it the debt never touches your name.”
Lorenzo stared at me, hard.
“There will be no dissolution.”
“Whatever you borrowed, I'll settle it. Every dollar.”
My smile turned colder.
“You settle it, and I'll borrow more.”
“Once the house is mortgaged to the last brick, I'll borrow on the strength of being a Vitale wife.”
“Tell me, Lorenzo. If I truly turned into a deadbeat with a shylock's mark on my back, would you and the whole Family go down into the gutter with me?”
Lorenzo finally froze, as if he were seeing me for the first time.
“Francesca, you're insane.”
“I can get a lot more insane.”
Right there in front of him, I dialed the Donna.
“I want the union with Lorenzo dissolved. I won't take a cent beyond the down payment on my house.”
“Within ten minutes, I want one million in my account, and I want his signature on the papers.”
“Otherwise, I go to the worst shylock in the district right now, and I borrow in the name of a Vitale wife.”
“Every minute you're late, another million. As long as Lorenzo and I are husband and wife, even for one minute, that debt lands on the honor of your blood. I'll drag the Vitales, I'll drag Lorenzo, I'll drag every last one of you straight down to hell with me.”
The Donna's voice came back at once, sharp as a wire.
“Francesca, are you insane?”
I said calmly,
“The clock starts now.”
Ten minutes later, Donna Vitale walked into the hospital with the Family's consiglieri and two enforcers a half-step behind her.
A soldier took Lorenzo by the shoulder and forced him down before the papers.
Lorenzo wrenched against the grip and looked at me, eyes bloodshot.
“Francesca, do you really have to do this?!”
“Do you really have to bring it to this between us, over money?!”
All I said was, “Sign.”
The light in his eyes died, bit by bit. He stared at me in despair, his voice going hoarse.
“I can pay the debt back. I can pay for your father's treatment too.”
“Stop this, please?”
“We can't dissolve it.”
“We have a child.”
I looked coldly at the Donna. She lifted her reading glasses from her face, folded them once along the hinge with slow, deliberate fingers, and gave the enforcers the smallest nod.
A soldier pressed the pen into his hand. The consigliere flipped the pages to the line waiting for his name.
He gripped the pen so hard the veins stood out on the back of his hand. Somewhere down the corridor, a monitor beeped and beeped, and no one in the room moved.
“Francesca.”
“Say something.”
“Say you were wrong, say you won't borrow the money. Tell them to stop.”
I stood right where I was, not even a flicker in my eyes.
Lorenzo's eyes were terrifyingly red.
Held down under the soldier's grip on his shoulder, his fingers trembled so badly he could barely hold the pen.
When the tip touched down, it gouged deep lines into the paper, but he signed his name all the same.
