Leaving the Capo

Mira Vitale filed for divorce on a Tuesday and moved out by Friday. By Sunday, someone was parked outside her new apartment, and by Monday her clients had stopped calling. Dario Vitale does not lose things. He does not sign papers. He waits. Then the bakery beneath her studio burns, and Dario is standing in the smoke before the first engine arrives. He tells her the divorce petition was the only document that would force his uncle to take her off a list she never knew existed. He has been watching her because someone worse has been watching her longer. Mira will not forgive him. But she will make him a deal: his protection until the trial, and then his signature, and then silence. He agrees, because it is the only way to keep her alive — and the only way to lose her on paper.