Caterina’s gaze drifts curiously over the table and lands on me. There it is—the hit of awareness. A flicker of surprise sharp enough to nick, the smallest freeze at the hinge of her jaw, the way her shoulders gather a fraction like she’s catching her balance on a step that wasn’t there. Not fear. Calculation. Betrayal she leashes fast because she immediately believes that I played her.
She files the nameShannonbehind her eyes in a vault, checks her father’s profile, returns to me and sets her chin a half-degree higher—as if we’ve both been hiding in plain sight and I’m the one who owes her the courtesy of admitting it.
I give her a small tip of my chin, feel for the ring box in my pocket, and leave it there. Not yet. Not before business.
Don Marco’s gaze dips to my hand in my pocket, returns to my eyes, and then shifts to the man at his right. “My nephew Nico,” he says by way of introduction.
“We’re acquainted,” I say. I don’t look at Caterina yet. The air shifts when you look at something you want; best to let the room adjust and settle first.
“We’re here for more than optics,” Don Marco goes on. “There is the matter of the Southie storage lots. A priest with a noisy conscience. Two vendors who developed amnesia when the Church coughed.”
Rafferty picks up the thread. “Your man at the docks pulled a container out of rotation without a call,” he says, calm as an invoice. “We’ll need that habit corrected.”
“Your man on Dorchester called on my parish priest,” Don Marco returns, equally calm. “We’ll needthathabit corrected.”
It’s an old dance. You point at your own toe and call it theirs. I let them trade small, sharp politeness, anchor the night in business—two lots designated neutral with cameras we both install and both pretend we don’t; the priest moved to a parish with fewer eyes and more plumbing; the vendors reminded that invoices are a sacrament too. We stack the bricks that make the façade. Brick by brick, the wall stands.
Only then do I pull the ring box from my pocket and slide it a half inch toward the center of the table. Not to Caterina. To the table. To the room as witness for what is about to happen, and the deal that’s going to be struck.
“That,” Don Marco says, the word flat and heavy, “looks like more than conversation.”
“I intend to take responsibility for what was seen,” I say, steady. “And to turn the spectacle into something the city understands. I intend to claim Miss Moretti publicly.”
A breath moves around the table like the weather changed. Rafferty doesn’t quite sigh. Don Marco looks bewildered. Tiernan’s reflection in the window tips his head, amused and unamused. Roisin watches Caterina instead of me, collecting micro-tells like a magpie hoards spoons.
But Nico. Nico is the one with the most surprising reaction.
His face turns almost puce with rage.
I meet his eyes and then—finally—let mine rest where they’ve wanted to rest since she walked in. Onher. On the small hitch of breath she doesn’t let anyone hear. On the controlled set of her mouth—and the flicker at the corner that says curiosity is fighting discipline, and she’s about to bolt.
Her gaze locks on mine, and I’m shaken by what I see in her eyes. A flare. Not fear. Not quite anger. A reckoning. And buriedunder it—recognition that tastes like smoke and wintergreen and mesh.
“Claim,” Don Marco echoes. “Was seen? What was seen?Whowas seen?”
It seems like he’s the only one around the table that doesn’t have a clue what happened between Caterina and me in that confessional, and there’s only one explanation for that.
Nico.The man has obviously suppressed the story that all of Boston is talking about to keep Caterina’s father from hearing about it.
“This is ridiculous.” The man in question begins to sputter. “You’re Irish. No chance in hell you’re going to marry Caterina.” He turns to Don Marco and holds out both hands in supplication. “Caterina was seen entering a confessional with the Irish heir. It was caught on camera. I handled it.”
“No.” I correct him. “You didn’t. You ran and told the dean of St. Brigid’s. You didn’t handle it.”
Like a bad repeat, I watch as Nico pulls a small silver ring from his pocket. “I was going to ask you tonight, uncle. If she marries me, she’ll be protected and?—”
“OUT!” Don Marco shouts at the man who thinks he’ll steal what’s mine from me. “My Caterina will not be marrying you, Nico. She’s not marrying anyone, let alone family.”
“I’m not family, though.” Nico’s voice drops, and I swear it’s trembling. “Your family took me in, yes. You’re my uncle in every way that counts. Except one.” He slides the ring he brought across the short distance to his uncle and I’m too busy grinding my teeth to notice much else. “Blood.”
“No.” Don Marco shakes his head. “That’s not happening. I’ll not discuss this with you. Leave, Nico. You can wait at the bar. We’ll discuss the insubordination and hiding something in regards to Caterina from me later.”
Nico practically flees from the room, and all I can think is that this little pussy thought he could handle Caterina?
She may be innocent, but she’s not a pushover.
And the daggers she’s glaring at all of us is proof of that.
I can’t wait to get a moment alone with my Hellcat.
