I get up from my stool and hurry outside.

"Angelica, what's wrong?"

"It's Bento," she says, and a tear spills over and runs down her cheek.

"What is it, is he hurt?"

Rina is staying back, but I see her watching us, shaking her head as if she expects the worst.

"No, he's fine, I mean, at least for now."

"Then what's the problem? What happened? Come on." I take her arm. "Let's go back and sit down and you can tell me what happened."

We walk back over to our chaises. She stretches her legs out on hers, and leans her head back, putting her sunglasses back on so that now I can't see her eyes. I gaze out over the pool, which would rival any five-star resort, with its sparkling water, raised spa, and Venetian glass tiles in stunning shades of blue and silver. For a moment I want to just dive beneath the surface and forget all about Angelica's problems, and mine.

But I think Angelica could use a friend, and I'm not sure who else she has to talk to outside the small circle of people who are part of Gino's crime family and not likely to give her any sort of unbiased advice.

"Tell me what happened, Angelica," I say again. "Maybe I can help."

"No one can help. My uncle told me not to see Bento anymore. He said he's already picked out someone for me to marry, and he doesn't want me to get more attached to another man."

"Did he tell you who he wants you to marry?"

"No. Someone who can benefit him, I'm sure. Probably the son of some other mafioso in New York or New Jersey." She pulls her sunglasses down slightly and peers over them at me. "It doesn't matter, because I won't do it. I'm going to marry Bento."

"And you're worried about what your uncle will do if you defy him?"

She makes a dismissive sound. "No, what I'm worried about is that he threatened Bento."

I feel a cold chill run through me. After everything Rina has now told me - and especially how Gino was so dismissive about causing the death of a six-year-old child, shrugging it off as "collateral damage" - I'm finding it easy to imagine him threatening Benedicto, and making good on his threat. Gino has Angelica in mind for some New York mobster and plans to use the marriage to cement an alliance. He's hardly going to let an unknown artist from Columbia stand in his way.

Yes, he's using Benedicto to further the money laundering scheme through the art gallery, but I don't imagine it would be difficult for him to replace Benedicto with another struggling artist who would be happy to have their work displayed and sold through a reputable Miami gallery like Max's. Max's and Gino's I remind myself, since Gino is now Max's not-so-silent partner, as set forth in the documents I drafted. Just because Gino's ownership interest is concealed through the name of a foreign investment company doesn't make it any less his.

I try to focus on Angelica's worries, but my mind keeps going back and rehashing everything Rina told me. I'm still having trouble making sense of it all.

"I'm so mad at Vinnie," Angelica says.

"Wait, what did Vincenzo do?" I can't quite bring myself to think of him as Vinnie.

Her voice trembles. "He went to see Bento. I don't even know how he found him. He asked him how well he thought his career as an artist would go if someone were to break all his fingers." Angelica starts to sob.

"How can Vinnie do this to me? I thought he loved me!"

"I'm sure he does love you," I say, while actually I'm skeptical about whether Vincenzo is capable of loving anyone. I see him as a pretty one-dimensional cold-blooded enforcer for the mob. But I imagine Angelica has seen a different side of him, and who knows?

"So," I say carefully, "do you think Vincenzo would actually do that? Or is he just trying to scare Benedicto away from you?"

We pause, because Rina has just come out with fresh drinks. She sets them down on the table between us, and studies Angelica for a moment. "Whatever it is that has you upset, Angelica, you talk to Mr. Max when he gets back. Mr. Max is good at solving problems."

Rina goes back into the house, and Angelica sniffles.

"Yeah," Angelica says, "the men in my family are all good at solving problems. They solve problems by making people disappear."

This brings on a fresh wave of tears, and I feel helpless.

I'm still wondering what to do, what to say, when Angelica seems to pull herself back together.

"Are you afraid your uncle will make Bento disappear?" I ask her.

She shakes her head no. "I'm afraid Bento will disappear, but not the way you think. Vinnie wouldn't actually hurt him, but Bento doesn't know that. He doesn't believe me."

I'm thinking, yeah, I wouldn't believe you either if I were him, because I can just imagine how convincing Vincenzo was in that conversation.

"What do you mean, not in the way I'm thinking?"

"Bento has not had an easy life. Not like me. He has struggled for everything he has. In Columbia, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Having his art recognized, having it in a gallery here in Miami, is a dream he has had since he was ten years old and his father was killed. The dream not just as an artist, but of pulling his mother and his younger sister out of poverty. This is his chance to give them a better life."

I nod. "And all he has to do to make that come true is give up his relationship with you."

She takes a long drink of her Margarita, then leans back again on the chaise, staring up at the brightness of the blue sky. "Vinnie doesn't realize he doesn't have to threaten to break Bento's fingers. Bento knows pain, and he knows he can survive it."

Angelica sighs. "No, all he has to do is threaten to take away Bento's dream. Bento loves me, but if Uncle Gino and Max tell him they will terminate his contract, take his paintings down from the gallery, and send him away . . ." Her voice trails off, but the implication is clear.

"He'll give you up rather than lose that."

She nods. "It is my life he will disappear from. I can't blame him. Do you have any idea what it's like to love someone so much, but the path they have chosen makes it impossible for you to be together?"

Yes, actually I know exactly how that feels. But I don't say that. Angelica doesn't need to hear my problems now.

"Can't you talk to your uncle?" I say, instead. "Explain how you feel about Bento, tell him you don't want to marry a guy he picked out for you as part of some mob alliance. God, women aren't chattel anymore. He can't trade you like a piece of property for a business advantage." I'm starting to get angry now, not just for Angelica, but on behalf of all women who have been treated like this through the ages.

"No," Angelica says, laughing as she wipes the tears from her eyes. "It's not like that. It's . . . hard to explain. It's duty and loyalty. Uncle Gino raised me, gave me everything I ever wanted. I owe him my loyalty. And I love him." She raises her eyes to meet my gaze. "It's about family. That's what matters."

"Nobody owes anyone else something like this." I can't wrap my head round her way of thinking.

"You don't understand."

"No, I don't."

"Making an advantageous marriage is just part of business, Hadley. At least that's how business works in my family. And Uncle Gino wouldn't promise me to someone who would mistreat me. He loves me."

I think about what Max told me about the marriage that was arranged for his mother in Ireland, furthering an alliance in the Irish mob. A marriage to the man who beat her on their wedding night because she wasn't a virgin. And who abused her until finally, broken and bruised, her only choice was to reach out to Maxwell Bennett, or die.

I hope Angelica doesn't find herself in a marriage that is not only loveless but brutal.

"Love can grow," she says, as if guessing the direction my thoughts have taken. "It doesn't always, but it can. I believe my parents came to love each other, even though they did not marry for love."

I remember now that Gino's sister was married to a made man in the Mafia, a marriage that her father or maybe Gino must have arranged.

"But they died when you were a baby. How would you know?"

She gestures with her hands. "Photos, videos, the stories Uncle Gino has told me. I can tell just from looking at these things when the obligation turned into something more. I can tell by their eyes, the way they looked at each other. A photo of my father holding my mother who is holding me when I was only a few months old."

Now her eyes have a dreamy look.

"And you're ready to take a chance on that?" I ask her. "Marry someone your uncle has picked out for you, maybe even some man you've never met?"

"No," Angelica says. "That's the problem. I'm not. Because I can't stop wanting Bento. I would run away with him if I could, disgrace my uncle and betray my family."

"But it sounds like Bento won't do that."

"No. He can't. We were just arguing about it now. I have money, money that came to me from my parents once I turned 21. I don't have to depend on Uncle Gino for support. Bento and I could go anywhere in the world. I could pay to take care of his mother and his sister, to give them a better life. But he says no. He says he won't accept charity from me, from the woman he loves. Instead, he will just toss me aside to sell his paintings at the gallery. While I marry another man."

"I'm so sorry." It doesn't seem like there's an answer for Angelica.

"So I don't know what I'm going to do." She looks down at the glass in her hand and takes a long drink. "Rina!" she calls, and moments later the older woman steps outside and looks our way.

"We're going to need more of these," Angelica says, holding up the now almost empty glass.

"If we have too many more of these, we probably aren't going to get out to a club tonight," I say. "This is my third and it really starting to hit me."

"I don't care," Angelica says. "We can decide later. Even if we're really drunk, Enzo can drive us and no one's going to bother us at Max's club. It doesn't matter that he and Gabe are out of town."

Before long, Rina comes out and refills our glasses, and I start letting my guard down and tell Angelica about my problems with Max, and my mixed feelings about Brad, the new guy I've just started going out with. For someone who has led such a sheltered life, she is remarkably astute about the situation.

Then again, I guess I've lived a pretty sheltered life myself. Until I met Max. Representing economically disadvantaged people on misdemeanor charges in the Philly PD's office didn't really expose me to hard core criminals. Angelica, on the other hand, has a hired killer for a bodyguard and an uncle who can make people "disappear" with a snap of his fingers.

Both of us are in love with men we can't have.

In another hour we are both completely plastered and just lying there on our chaises shaded by a large umbrella on a stand, inhaling the aroma of whatever Rina is making for dinner.

"I hope it's manicotti," Angelica says sleepily. "Rina makes the best manicotti."

I'm drifting off to sleep, feeling warm and fuzzy about the friendship that seems to be developing between Angelica and me, both of us longing for something we know we can't have and trying to make sense of our lives, when I feel a hand on my shoulder.

I open my eyes and for just a moment I think I'm dreaming.

Max is standing over me, dressed in one of his expensive Italian business suits, his tie loosened and the top button of his dress shirt undone.

"What are you doing here, Hadley?" He doesn't sound pleased to see me. I pull myself up to a sitting position and try to get my bearings through the haze of too much sun and too many Margaritas.

"Max. I thought you were still in New York."

"Obviously not." His voice is cool, measured.

Standing just behind him is a man I recognize even though I've never met him before.

"Hello," I say, as he stares back at me. "You must be Uncle Eddie."