Chapter 2 - SEVEN DAYS
Lily did not believe me.
That was the first sensible thing anyone had done around me in weeks.
She stared at the black sedan parked at the curb, then at Marco Bellini standing beside it with the expression of a man trying very hard not to ask whether his boss had lost his mind.
“You have an empty house?” Lily asked.
“Yes.”
“How empty?”
I almost smiled.
“Too empty.”
She looked toward Marco.
“Who’s he?”
“Marco.”
“Is he dangerous?”
Marco lifted both eyebrows.
I said, “Only when he’s hungry.”
Marco looked offended.
Lily considered that answer.
Then she pointed at me.
“You said seven days.”
“Yes.”
“What happens after?”
The question hit harder than it should have.
I looked at the rain collecting along the sidewalk.
“After seven days, we decide what happens next.”
“You mean you decide.”
“No.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Adults always say ‘we’ when they mean themselves.”
Marco coughed into his fist.
I glanced at him.
He stared at the traffic with sudden fascination.
I crouched again.
“Fine. You decide too.”
Lily hugged the backpack tighter.
“What if I don’t like your house?”
“You leave.”
“What if I don’t like you?”
“You tell me.”
“What if you’re lying?”
“Then Marco helps you call the police.”
Marco finally looked at me.
“Boss.”
“She asked.”
Lily stared at him.
“Would you?”
Marco’s face softened.
“Yes.”
That was apparently enough.
She stood.
She was smaller than I thought.
Too thin.
Her wet sneakers made a squishing sound when she walked.
She did not take my hand.
I respected that.
The ride uptown was quiet.
Lily sat behind Marco, clutching her backpack as though someone might try to take it from her.
I sat beside her.
Five minutes passed.
Then ten.
Finally she asked, “Are you really mafia?”
Marco almost drove onto the sidewalk.
I looked at her.
“Who said that?”
“Nobody.”
“Then why ask?”
“You look like mafia.”
“What does mafia look like?”
She shrugged.
“Expensive. Sad. People do what you say.”
I looked out the window.
Marco said, “Kid’s observant.”
I ignored him.
The Moretti estate in Westchester had twenty-three rooms.
I used four.
After Isabella and Mateo died, I closed the family wing.
I told myself it was because I did not need the space.
Truth was, I could not walk past Mateo’s bedroom without remembering the blue dinosaur taped to his door.
I could not enter Isabella’s dressing room without smelling her perfume.
So I sealed that part of my life behind locked doors and filled the rest with guards.
When Lily stepped into the entrance hall, she looked up at the staircase.
Then at the chandelier.
Then at me.
“You live here alone?”
“Mostly.”
“That’s stupid.”
Marco turned away.
I heard his shoulders shake.
“What?”
Lily pointed around.
“You could fit like fifty people.”
“I don’t want fifty people.”
“Then why have fifty-people house?”
I did not have a good answer.
My housekeeper, Teresa, appeared from the west hall.
She had worked for me since before Mateo was born.
She saw Lily.
Then me.
Then Lily again.
“Dominic?”
“This is Lily.”
Teresa stared.
“She’ll be staying.”
“How long?”
Lily answered.
“Seven days.”
Teresa looked at me.
I said nothing.
She understood enough not to ask.
Dinner that first night was spaghetti.
Not because my kitchen had suddenly become modest.
Because Lily asked for it.
She ate two plates.
Then slowed down halfway through the third as though she had realized she was eating too much in front of us.
“Take your time,” Teresa said.
Lily looked suspicious.
“I can save it?”
“We can make more.”
Her fork stopped.
“Whenever?”
“Yes.”
That word changed something in her face.
Whenever.
People with food security did not understand how powerful that word could be.
I did.
Because I had spent the last three years starving for something money could not replace.
After dinner, Teresa showed Lily to a guest bedroom.
Lily stood in the doorway.
“No.”
Teresa paused.
“What’s wrong?”
“Too big.”
The room had a four-poster bed, silk curtains, fireplace, sitting area.
Lily looked frightened by it.
I understood.
“Which room do you want?”
She looked down the hall.
“The little one.”
A narrow reading room had once been used by Isabella’s aunt.
It had a small bed built into the wall.
We moved blankets there.
Lily kept her backpack beside her pillow.
That first night, I stood outside her door listening to nothing.
I had done the same with Mateo.
Different child.
Different life.
At midnight, I went downstairs.
Marco sat in the study with a drink.
“You brought home a child.”
“I noticed.”
“You asked a homeless nine-year-old to be your daughter.”
“For seven days.”
He stared.
“That explanation does not improve it.”
I sat.
“She needed somewhere safe.”
“So call someone.”
“I did something else.”
“Clearly.”
Marco set down his glass.
“Dominic, you start treatment Monday.”
“No.”
His face hardened.
“We already discussed this.”
“You discussed it. I said no.”
“You have one month.”
“That’s optimistic.”
“Enrico said—”
“I heard him.”
Marco leaned forward.
“Then why bring her here?”
I looked toward the ceiling.
Because upstairs, there was a child who might wake hungry and find food.
Because someone now expected me to be downstairs tomorrow morning.
Because seven days had become the first amount of future I had promised anyone since Mateo died.
“I don’t know.”
Marco stared at me.
Then he said quietly, “Maybe you do.”
The next morning Lily knocked on my bedroom door at 6:12.
Not gently.
“Dominic?”
I opened it.
She held a piece of paper.
“What?”
“You said daughter.”
“For seven days.”
“Daughters get breakfast.”
I looked at the clock.
“Apparently.”
“Pancakes.”
My chest tightened.
Mateo.
Pancakes.
The last thing he had asked me for.
I almost said no.
Then Lily looked at me.
Not knowing.
Not trying to hurt me.
Just hungry.
“Kitchen,” I said.
Teresa offered to cook.
Lily refused.
“He said daughter. He has to.”
I had not made pancakes in twenty years.
The first batch burned.
The second stuck.
The third came out roughly circular.
Lily ate them anyway.
“These are bad.”
“Thank you.”
“But better than shelter pancakes.”
I stopped.
She kept eating.
“What shelter?”
She looked up.
“The one on Forty-Seventh.”
“How long were you there?”
“Until they said I had to go to a different place.”
“Why didn’t you?”
She shrugged.
“Bad man.”
My hand tightened around the spatula.
“What bad man?”
She immediately closed.
“Nothing.”
“Lily.”
“You said I can leave if I don’t like questions.”
I stopped.
She was right.
“I did.”
She watched me.
Then she asked, “Are you dying?”
The spatula slipped from my hand.
“What?”
“You have hospital bracelet.”
I looked at my wrist.
I had forgotten to remove it.
“And you walk like you hurt.”
I sat.
“Maybe.”
“How maybe?”
“The doctors think I’m very sick.”
“Can they fix it?”
“There’s treatment.”
“Are you doing it?”
“No.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
I had answered that question for Enrico.
For Marco.
For myself.
For what?
But saying it to Lily sounded different.
“I don’t know.”
She stared at me.
Then she pushed the plate away.
“You’re stupid too.”
I almost laughed.
“That seems to be a theme.”
She stood.
“You gave me seven days.”
“Yes.”
“So you have to be alive seven days.”
“I expect to be.”
“And after?”
I said nothing.
She folded her arms.
“You said we decide.”
“That’s true.”
“You can’t decide if you’re dead.”
For the first time since Dr. Falcone showed me the scans, anger moved through me.
Not at Lily.
At death.
At the idea that a little girl with nowhere safe to sleep might trust me for one week and wake to another missing adult.
I picked up my phone.
Called Enrico.
He answered on the second ring.
“Dominic?”
“Treatment.”
Silence.
Then:
“What about it?”
“When do we start?”
Enrico exhaled.
“Monday.”
“Make it today.”
Across the kitchen, Lily picked up her fork again.
“Good.”
I looked at her.
“You’re very controlling.”
“You’re welcome.”
That afternoon, my younger brother arrived.
Adrian Moretti was thirty-four.
Charming where I was quiet.
Warm where I was cold.
He handled most of the legitimate family companies after Isabella died because I had stopped caring enough to sit through meetings.
When he entered the dining room that night, Lily was sitting in Mateo’s old chair.
Not because I put her there.
Because she chose it.
Adrian stopped.
His wineglass froze halfway to his mouth.
He looked at Lily.
Then me.
“Who is this?”
“Lily.”
She waved.
“Hi.”
Adrian did not wave back.
“What is she doing here?”
The question was too sharp.
I noticed.
“She’s staying.”
“For how long?”
“Maybe longer.”
His eyes snapped to mine.
Then he saw the hospital folder beside my plate.
“What’s that?”
“Treatment schedule.”
Adrian’s face lost color.
“You’re doing the trial?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you decided against it.”
“I changed my mind.”
He stared at Lily.
Just one second.
Fear.
Real fear.
Then the smile returned.
“Of course.”
He raised his wineglass.
“To fighting.”
I lifted mine.
May you like
But I did not drink.
Because suddenly, for the first time since the diagnosis, I wondered whether the man most surprised by my decision to live might know something about why I had been told I was dying.
