The devoted husband they were gushing about was mine. The gorgeous men filing through that room were Rossetti soldiers and capos paying tribute to their Don's household, kissing Catarina's hand like she was the Donna, bringing gifts wrapped in silk for a child that wasn't even Tomasso's blood. And three doors down, the actual wife of the Don of the Rossetti Family had bled out a daughter alone on the floor and no one had come.
I walked to Catarina's door. The hallway smelled of flowers. Lilies and roses, dozens of arrangements from well-wishers, crowding the corridor outside her room like an altar. I stopped in the doorway.
Sure enough, Tomasso was lying beside her, asleep.
He looked peaceful. His jaw was slack, the tension gone from his shoulders, one arm draped across the mattress. The blood-oath scar on his right palm was visible, the one from his fratellanza with Fausto, and even in sleep his fingers were curled loosely around Catarina's wrist as if she were something precious he was afraid to lose.