Fuck. A billion in the bank and I can’t buy the one thing I really want. Caterina’s love.
10
BRODY
She walks into the breakfast room in the morning wearing a white sundress and gives me a nervous smile.
“I’m ready for my exam.” She takes her usual seat—at my side—and pours herself a cup of tea. She belongs here. It’s obvious in her every movement. “And then I’ll be out of your hair.”
“You’re not in the way,” I rumble, even as I think back to last night, and herthankingme. Fuck.
“Liar.” She shoots me a wry look and it occurs to me how she’s not nervous around me anymore. That sunny smile isn’t something to hide behind. “Anyway, I’ve decided that after my exam I’m going to get my passport from my apartment, and search for my parents. They said once they wanted to visit the Cayman Islands, so perhaps they’re there.”
“No.”
Her hand stops with a cherry halfway to her perfect little mouth. “What do you mean, no?”
No, in so many ways, not least that is a terrible plan.
“You should wait for your parents to contact you, as they asked.” I’m close to finding them, although Caterina is right about the Cayman Islands.
But before I can think of anything rational to say, she shakes her head. “I’m not imposing on you anymore, or putting you at further risk from the mafia.”
“Caterina. That’s ridiculous, I’m?—”
My phone trills with my second-in-command’s emergency ringtone, stopping me mid-confession of I don’t know what. That I’m the last person who fears a poxy mafia so small as to be fussing over her family’s modest theft? That I’m in love with her? That I’m not letting her go?
Shit.
“You should answer that,” she says, popping the cherry into her mouth and chewing, her gaze sliding from mine.
Not now. Please, not now.
Last night we were on the edge of something. But she’s withdrawing, and although for an instinctive moment my hand twitches to grab her, I make a fist and remember my internal vow. No forcing or suggesting physical contact. She has to ask.
“This will only take a moment,” I assure her, and she shrugs. Because for Bogdan, my second-in-command, to be using that call system, it must be something that I’ve told him is of utmost importance.
“Boss, I think I’ve found them,” Bogdan says as soon as I answer. “The Geraci mafia.”
Finally. The name of the mafia I will obliterate.
Then as Bogdan continues, my stomach bounces like a kangaroo on a trampoline. I’m so close to getting revenge on the Italians who hurt my girl. I can’t pass up this opportunity for Caterina’s safety, quite aside from my pride. But as Bogdan speaks, it’s clear. It must be today, and it has to be me that deals with them. But I was planning to spend the day taking Caterina to her exam then dealing with the fall-out afterwards. And I’m not leaving her alone and at risk for her exam, so that means I’mgoing to mess up the one thing that Caterina has been working towards for the last three years: her degree.
Bogdan outlines the situation and I give directions for what to do next.
“Everything okay?” Caterina asks as I end the call, and the weight of this settles onto my shoulders like a too-heavy bar in the gym, threatening to buckle my knees.
Who do I trust to look after Caterina outside of this building? Normally, I’d say my team, but Steve is still in the hospital, and I’ll need my second-in-command to ensure my revenge goes smoothly. She’ll be in an exam room full of students, none of whom I control. There are so many ways for this to go wrong, from someone pulling the fire alarm and dragging her off, to her being taken by a fellow student paid by the Geraci mafia at the end of the exam.
Clearly, she can’t go to her exam. It’s too high a risk.
The solution is unpalatable.
I need her to stay here.
“How important is your exam?” I know the answer though.
She tilts her head. “The last thing I heard from my parents was that they requested I finish my degree. For years, they’ve been telling me how I must go into business.”
