I reached for the car door and was about to climb in when a hand closed around my wrist.
"What did the Don mean by 'one last time'? Are you keeping something from us?"
I looked down at the hand. Calmly, I pulled my wrist free.
"Nothing." My voice was flat. "The Don just doesn't want me dwelling in the past. That's all he meant."
I got in the car and shut the door.
Clean. Final. I didn't look at him again.
He stood there, staring at his own hand where my wrist had been. His fingers hung empty. His brow tightened without him meaning it to, and his signet ring pressed hard against his knuckle, unmoving.
He sensed it, dimly, that something was slipping out of his grasp. But the feeling was too shapeless to hold, too faint to name.
He wanted to press further.
But Adrian Winslow was already jogging back, threading her arm through his.
"Let's go, darling."
He swallowed the words he'd been about to say.
At the cemetery, we hadn't been out of the car long before his phone rang. He glanced at the screen, gestured for us to go ahead, and stepped away.
I carried the flowers to the grave and set them down gently.
The photograph on the headstone was identical to Julian Moretti's face.