"Tomasso, I don't know who you are anymore." My voice was quiet, almost calm. The kind of calm that falls over a room right before someone gives an order that can't be taken back. "I really don't. Not even a little. You feel like a complete stranger to me."
I smiled, cold and hollow, and took one step back. Then another. The marble floor was still freezing beneath my bare feet, but I couldn't feel it anymore. I couldn't feel anything except the slow, deliberate turning of my wedding band beneath my thumb. Once. Twice.
Something flickered across Tomasso's face. Not guilt. Something closer to alarm. The expression of a man who has just realized the ground beneath him might not be as solid as he thought. He reached for my arm. "Giovanna, don't be so petty. I was just helping her out. My love belongs only to you."
I wrenched my arm free.
"Don't touch me. You're filthy."
The words hung in the corridor like gunsmoke. Behind Tomasso, Catarina's hand drifted to her ear again, slow and deliberate, but I was already turning away. My wedding band had gone still against my finger. The turning had stopped.
And in this family, when the turning stopped, the decision had already been made.