Page 39 of The Butcher's Wife

It’s a Glock, so there’s no safety to switch on. I’ve shot one once before with Rafa at the range. My hands sweat, but I hold it as steadily as I can.

I can do this.

I can do this.

Footsteps slowly grow louder until they’re in front of the bedroom door. The door handle jiggles. My finger twitches on the trigger.

And they walk away.

I wait for a long time, what feels like hours, expecting them to return, but they don’t.

With my left hand, I pull my phone back out and turn itback on. There are a dozen missed calls from Carlo and one from the apartment complex.

I call Carlo first.

“Tell this fucker to let me up,” he screams into the phone.

“Sir, if you don’t calm down, I will be calling the police,” says a voice I recognize as the doorman’s.

“It’s my brother,” I whisper. “Please let him up.”

The doorman sighs, but several minutes later, there’s a knock on the door. “Hey, it’s me. Carlo.”

I throw my gun on the bed and race to the door, scrambling to unlock it. Carlo wraps me in a quick hug, then looks me up and down.

“There’s no one here,” a man calls from downstairs.

“You okay?” Carlo asks.

“I—yes. They didn’t come into the room.”

“Did you see who it was?”

I shake my head, and he looks a little doubtful, but he doesn’t say anything about it. “Why don’t we get some food downstairs?”

I don’t want to make food for my brother’s friends, but my hands are trembling, and I want to be alone even less, so I nod.

Downstairs, three of Carlo’s friends are splayed out on Dom’s couch. Russell has a bandage around his neck and is the only one not openly staring at me.

“Heard a ghost, Serafina?” Mark asks. He’s my least favorite of the bunch, with his dead eyes and stupid jokes. He sprawls his thin limbs over the couch like a creepy puppet.

I ignore him and turn to the kitchen to pull out cut meats for a snacking tray. This is what’s expected of me. I stay silent. I make food.

As I slice paper-thin cuts of the meat with shaky hands, Carlo’s friend Checkers speaks up, “I can’t believe we’re missing the Velvet Kitty for this.”

“Yeah, Carlo, when are we getting out of here?” Mark asks. “Your sister ain’t gonna strip for us.”

“Shut up,” Carlo says without any heat.

Same old, same old. All the men in my life do is talk about honor and loyalty, unless it’s their friends stepping on their wives or sisters.

“You doing okay?” Carlo murmurs.

I press down on the knife with the heel of my hand, carving away a nearly transparent slice of meat. My hands are moving steadier now that some of the adrenaline has drained away and a fog of apathy is settling back into place. “Yeah.”

Carlo scrubs the back of his neck. “Do you want to come with us? We’re going to get a few drinks.”

There’s no such thing as a few drinks with Carlo, but when I glance up and see the dark skyscrapers stretching out beyond the windows of the living room like a handful of jagged teeth, I feel lost.