Lorenzo's voice was quiet, the kind of quiet that made men lean in to catch every word. "That's right. It's only been a month. I don't believe any experience could turn someone completely insane in such a short time. And this place is well removed from the world. A quiet corner of Falcone land where a woman is left in peace."
His face darkened inch by inch as the thought settled in him. Two fingers found the signet ring on his hand and turned it once, slow, deliberate. "Serafina, I'll give you one last chance. If you remain stubborn, then you can stay on this compound forever and live among the animals with the rest of the disgraced."
Hearing his words, Camilla gave me a triumphant little smirk that no one else caught, her lips curling with a satisfaction she couldn't quite hide. Seeing that I remained unmoved, Lorenzo lost patience fast. The men around the pen straightened when his jaw set. He bit down on each word. "Serafina, you really don't know what's good for you. Since you're beyond saving, I won't waste another second on you. Hand over our daughter. I'm taking her out of this place tonight. I won't have my daughter raised in filth to become something less than human."
Because I gave him nothing, he turned to the keeper of the exile-farm and his tone dropped to something colder. "Where's my daughter? Where is she?"
The hunchbacked keeper's legs nearly buckled. Nunzio wrung the filthy rag between his hands, dipping his head, working his mouth without a sound coming out. "I've been paying you a hundred thousand a month to look after them both, mother and child," Lorenzo said. "What are you hiding? Why don't you even know where my daughter is?"
Under the Don's sharp, suspicious gaze, Nunzio went the color of ash, cold sweat sliding down his forehead. The rag went still in his fists and his eyes flicked sideways.
"Lorenzo, don't frighten him like that," Camilla cut in gently. "The baby's only two months old. She can't be far from her mother. Truthfully, besides Serafina, no one knows where she might be."
Then she turned to me, working her voice into something that sounded like sincerity. "Serafina, the keeper's just a lowly man, an associate who's done his best by you this past month. Please don't make it harder on him than it already is, all right?"
Lorenzo caught her meaning at once. He fixed me with a cold stare and warned, low, "Serafina, where have you hidden our daughter? If anything's happened to our little girl, don't blame me for what I do next."
I finished washing the big yellow ox's feet and fetched a basin of water to go find the little calf. "Baby, be good. Mommy's here to change you."
Lorenzo's face went bloodless and he knocked the basin clean out of my hands. "Serafina, I've had enough of you."
He drew a pocket watch from inside his collar and opened it, and there was the custom photograph of our daughter, soft and small, taken the day she was born. "That's a calf. An animal. Open your eyes and look at Piccola Rosa. This is your own daughter."
I stared at the little watch, at the soft, round baby resting inside it. She was so small; her eyes hadn't even opened yet. Then the stench of blood and rot filled my nose out of nowhere. Terrible images surged up through me. It was as if the tiny baby, still wrapped in her swaddling, hadn't even had time to cry before countless sharp teeth tore her apart.
It was as if a knife was stabbing into my body, gouging out my heart and scraping my bones, bit by bit. Slow, but each cut deep and bloody. My whole body shuddered, and I came back to myself at the soft, tender "moo-moo" of the crying. Then, careless of everything and everyone, I rushed to the little calf where it had slid into the mud pit and gathered it up tight against me, aching for it. "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid. Mommy's here."
Lorenzo was on me in an instant, his eyes bloodshot, and struck me hard across the face. "Serafina, don't push me."
The blow sent my head spinning, a buzzing filling my ears. I didn't care about any of that. All I could see was the wronged little calf in my arms. So I lifted my shirt the way I knew how and moved to feed it. "Good baby, don't cry. Once you drink Mommy's milk, everything will be all right."
"Dio."
A ripple of gasps went through the men gathered at the edge of the pen, and every one of them looked away, as if the sight itself broke some code. Utter shock washed over Lorenzo, as though he'd been struck by lightning. "Serafina, you. All I did was send you and the child here for a month. Was I so wrong? Did you have to throw all of this in my face, to blur the line between people and animals, just to spite me?"
He snarled and wrenched my hair so hard my neck cracked. I felt no pain. I only kept nursing the little calf, patting its head. "Don't be scared, don't be scared. Mommy's here. Everything's fine."
After the brief break in him, Lorenzo let out a cold, cruel laugh. His fingers left the ring entirely. "Serafina. Such a fine actress. Let's see how long you keep up the performance once I roast your precious little calf."
He tore the calf from my arms. I lunged after it, frantic, but Nunzio pinned me to the ground and held me there. Under the heat of the fire the iron griddle turned scorching in seconds. Its legs bound, the little calf cried out in misery, its wet eyes turning to me, helpless, as the heat began to sear its flesh.
Meeting those clear, innocent eyes that knew nothing of death, I was struck all at once by the memory of my daughter's bewildered gaze on me in the moment before she was torn apart.
"Don't be afraid, Mommy's coming." Ignoring the searing pain in my already twisted arms, I threw myself onto the red-hot griddle, over the sound of Lorenzo's hysterical roars.
