Page 65 of A Dangerous Bargain

I nod and squeeze her one last time. “I need to see her.”

Mamma darts her thumbs under her eyes, so quick, I almost miss it. “The garden wall needs fixing. I hate to ask, but…”

I bend down and kiss her forehead. Normally a request like this would rankle my pride. Earn a snippy comment about how working with statues is nothing like mortaring stone, and I’m a painter, anyway.

But this time I don’t. “We’ll be all right.”

Giovannia is already perched on the crumbling wall outside. “You seemed surprised to see the banker.”

Oh, she absolutely knows something’s wrong. “What have you been doing lately? Working on becoming Florence’s finest poetess, I hope?”

She rolls a stone under her slipper. Sends it flying with her toe. “No. I’ve been negotiating my own marriage. While you’re here, I’d like you to sign the betrothal papers.”

I rake through my curls, sighing. “I won’t.”

She makes a frustrated noise. “You will! I’m not daft. If I marry, then Elisabetta can have a chance to live the life she wants.”

It feels like some sort of Biblical atrocity, the kind Verrocchio’s workshop is always painting to terrify people into behaving. Each family member sacrificing themselves so the next one can do better, have more. I’ve been stuck in the cycle long enough to know that Giovannia’s sacrifice isn’t going to work.

“I won’t let you do this.”

Giovannia’s eyes flash. “I don’t care if I’m married to an ancient man if he leaves me alone to write. You got to choose your own path, Virgil. Or am I not allowed the same courtesy because I’m a girl?”

No! I want to shout. You’re not allowed to do this because you’re my little sister, and I know that you deserve better.

“Be honest. Does this plan truly make you happy?”

Her stare hardens into a stony mask I know all too well: the same one I’ve worn every day for the past two years. “Someone needs to make sure this family survives.”

And that someone hasn’t been you.

The unspoken words are a chisel to my chest, the single too-strong hit to an incomplete statue that makes the entire thing crumble. I blink, the garden’s colors smearing. “I’ve been trying.”

Giovannia claps a hand over her mouth, eyes wide. “I didn’t mean it like that.” Her voice is ages younger, the little girl who cowered against my side even as she leaned breathlessly forward at the scary parts in Dante’s Inferno. “I know you’re doing your best. We all do. It’s not your fault the bank is greedy and dreadful. I just want my brother back.”

Soon, I think. I’ll bring him back soon; I promise. “I know. I miss him too.”

She punches my shoulder. “I’m not talking about Niccolo. I’m talking about you!”

“Me?”

“Yes, you! When Niccolo disappeared, you became a ghost.” She wipes her own tears away with an angry, defiant gesture. “Sometimes it feels like I lost two brothers.”

Slowly, slow enough that she can back away if she wants to, I gather my sister into a hug. She lets me, fists curling against my chest. I didn’t know she was lonely like me.

“I’m right here. I’ve always been here for you. I’m sorry you didn’t know that.”

Her head notches into the divot between my neck and shoulder. “I know.”

We have a nice, tender moment that lasts maybe half a second before she wriggles away, her look sharpening. “Now tell me what you’re really doing home.”

Curse those terrifying gears of intelligence in her skull! I’ve been away so long, I forgot she’s smarter than me. I shift my weight from foot to foot, unsure how much to say.

Her eyes narrow. “Don’t you dare try to lie—I’ll know.”

She’s right. She’s absolutely right, but there’s still an anxious, scraping feeling inside me. If I tell Giovannia about Niccolo, I can’t take it back. If I let her into the parts of my life I’ve tried my hardest to keep walled off, there’s no asking her to leave.

But aren’t my walls already crumbling?