"This was the oyster dish the nurse prepared for me specifically. For digestion." My voice was steady, though my hands were not. "I brought it here because you told me to hurry while I was having my lunch. You told me to bring food for everyone. But it feels like I am in too much trouble simply for sitting here amongst you."
I pushed my chair back from the table. The legs scraped against the marble floor, and the sound was obscenely loud in the silence.
"Coming here was a mistake."
"Mia!" Xavier's voice followed me, sharp with authority, as I rose and walked toward the arched doorway that led to the estate's rear courtyard. I heard his chair scrape back, heard his measured footsteps trailing me through the corridor lined with oil paintings of Salvatore patriarchs, their dead eyes watching from gilded frames.
The night air hit me like a wall. It smelled of wet stone and approaching thunder.
"Mia, Mom didn't mean it like that." He caught up to me on the flagstone path, his voice shifting into something that was meant to sound reasonable but landed closer to a command. "Come back inside with me. Right now."
I stopped walking but did not turn around.