I followed at a distance, watching their taillights weave through traffic. The city unfolded around me like a map of everything I was about to lose. The old stone buildings with their wrought-iron balconies. The narrow alleys where laundry still hung between windows like white flags of surrender. The waterfront promenade where the fishing boats rocked against their moorings and the salt air carried the faint, sweet rot of the sea.
The three of us had grown up here together. Blood-promised since we were old enough to understand the word. From the time we could walk, Giancarlo and Salvatore had trailed after me through these streets, pulling my braids, fighting each other for the right to carry my schoolbag, swearing with the grave sincerity of children that they would marry me when we were grown. That they would protect me. That nothing in this world or the next would ever touch me while they lived.
And then my parents were killed.