While I waited for the offer letter, I decided to go out for a few days. With Bianca there, Dario wouldn't notice I was gone.

I pulled out an old cloth bundle and packed the things that were mine.

There were only four.

The handkerchief the convent's mother superior had given me. At fifteen, I'd pressed it to Dario's bleeding palm. I'd washed it many times since, but never thrown it away.

The white dress I'd worn the first time I met Dario. I couldn't fit into it anymore.

The melted, blackened fragments of the pocket watch I had quietly retrieved from the fireplace.

And one old photograph from when I was seven, just brought to the Salvatore house — empty-eyed.

Dario was right. This wasn't my house. The things that belonged to me had always been few.

As I left my room, I ran into him.

He glanced at the bundle in my hands and frowned. "Trash. Throwing it out?"

I shook my head. "No."

His eyes went over me, lingered on the plain, old coat I was wearing.

"Ugly."

I didn't want to take a single thing from the Vellari or Salvatore houses with me. So I was wearing the clothes I'd bought myself, with the money I'd earned at fifteen.

He said: "I have money. You can — buy nice things."

After he'd shot me, his manner had gotten markedly softer.

It was almost like before Bianca came back. Like nothing had happened.

But I wasn't going to look back anymore.

I didn't answer. I kept walking.

"Take Bianca — with you," he said.

A laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it.

So in his mind, I was still less than her.

She had been cruel to me my whole life. Why would I go to her?

I kept walking.

He started getting frustrated.

"You'll embarrass me — again."

My step finally stopped.

I turned, gave him a thin, mocking smile. "I won't."

I'm never coming back.

"You'd better not," Dario said.

Then he turned and walked away.

When I walked out of the Vellari estate, I took a long breath.

The nuns used to tell me — when I was small — that life would get better. That I'd save up enough one day to go and see the sea.

But growing up only meant moving from one cage into another. Dario couldn't be left alone. Even with money, I couldn't go far. The way I lit up planning a trip — that was exactly how flat I went when it had to be canceled.

At the airport, I was still moving in a daze. The third time the woman at the counter asked, "Miss, where are you flying to?" — I finally said:

"Amalfi."

It was the last place I'd been before the convent.

When I was still Lia, and still mine.

—

My first day in Amalfi, I rented a small motorbike and rode the coast road slowly.

The wind in my face was wonderful.

I sat on the cliffs at Positano for a whole day.

I thought about nothing. I did nothing. No alarm, no list of reminders, no medications, no Dario looking at me with disgust.

I wandered. In a lemon grove in Ravello, a kind-faced old woman pressed a freshly picked lemon into my hand.

"Bambina, perché sei sola?" (Child, why are you alone?)

I went still for a moment.

It had been a long time since anyone had called me child.

Or rather — a long time since anyone had loved me well.

On the third evening, I was sitting on a cliffside terrace, eating tiramisu, finally calm enough to switch on my phone.

Dozens of missed calls flooded in.

I didn't read any of them. I sent a message to the old Don of the Vellari Famiglia.

"Don, the seat I held for Bianca — it's hers now. I'm not coming back."

I tossed the phone aside, stretched my arms behind my head, and let myself sink back.

The owner asked me, in the local dialect, "Signora, you on holiday?"

I shook my head.

In the same dialect she'd used, I answered, "No. I'm free."

When the wind blew across my face, I realized it was wet.

I didn't know when the tears had started.

I hadn't cried clawing my way through the Salvatore house. I hadn't cried when Dario shoved me, when he locked me out of rooms.

But it turns out — when you're free — you do cry.

The next day, the old Don of the Vellari Famiglia arrived at my door in person.