As she spoke, she played a voice recording. It was the boy from the night before, angling for what he'd been promised:
"Auntie Bianca, did I do good? You can't forget the Transformer you swore me!"
I knew it. There was no way it had been a coincidence.
Watching the malice glint in her eyes, instinct told me to walk out of that back room right then, past the bar and the men playing cards who pretended not to listen.
Instead, she snatched the teacup from my hand and dumped the whole thing over her own face, then slammed the cup down onto my foot, where it shattered into pieces against the floor of the social club.
The cold tea slid down her cheeks, and the soaked blouse and tangled hair made her look pitiful, like a wounded little thing some made man might want to avenge.
This woman was truly ruthless when it came to going after me.
She blocked my way, wouldn't let me leave, and shrieked at the top of her lungs:
"Adriana, what are you doing? Why are you doing this to me?"
Her screaming brought the others running. Associates abandoned their glasses, soldiers turned in their chairs, the whole room drawn to the noise like blood in water.
She didn't forget to splash coffee down her own chest, either, and pulled the same trick again, rubbing her neck raw and red until anyone who looked saw a victim.
I couldn't take it anymore. I slapped her hard across the face. The crack of it cut clean through the silence, and for one beat no one breathed.
Lorenzo heard the commotion and came through the door, only to see me, whole and unharmed, standing over a disheveled, miserable Bianca.
Without a second thought, he raised his hand and slapped me too:
"Adriana! If you don't want your place here anymore, then get the hell out!"
Still not satisfied, he shoved me out of the way hard, then scooped Bianca up in his arms and carried her into the back office, the door closing on her soft, practiced sobbing.
I stumbled backward, the small of my back smashing into the edge of the table, the pain dragging tears straight down my face.
The old man who handled the books, the one who'd been hesitating over whether to let me walk clean, settled it with one sweep of his hand.
And Lorenzo, busy soothing Bianca, didn't even glance at what he was signing away. He cut me loose outright.
The money men read the wind and shifted with it, eager to please Bianca, the woman they now figured Lorenzo would keep, and counted out my last tribute on the spot.
I still had a fair amount of client business to hand back, names and numbers that belonged to the crew, so I packaged it all up, ready to send it to Lorenzo.
But it turned out my line into the Family had already been cut.
The only man with the authority to erase someone walking away was Lorenzo.
I sent the parting word to his phone, only to find he had blocked my number and my messages too. Deleted. Blocked. Erased, the way you erase someone who never mattered, the way the Family warns the rest that no one simply leaves.
I walked out of the club without another word, went home and wiped away every trace that belonged to me, then headed straight for the airport.
