My driver stepped out in a dark suit and opened the armored door with a small bow.

I sank into the pale leather, closed my eyes, and let the quiet climate of the car wash the morning off me.

We pulled away, leaving behind the four-million-dollar house that Corvin paraded through life as though it were a palace.

Rosario did not ask what had happened.

He had driven me for nine years, and he understood the difference between a silence that wanted company and a silence that wanted to be left alone, and he gave me the second one now, watching the road, letting the city slide past the windows.

I was grateful for it in a way I could not have explained to Corvin if I’d had a hundred years.