Dante’s heartbeat thuds against my ear. “You don’t think you can be a good mother?”
I suck in a shuddering breath. “I think that the Cosa Nostra isn’t a world that I would ever want to raise a child in. I always expected to have children eventually… I suppose. One day, in the future, once I had done everything I needed to.”
When I was the Corvo capo, perhaps. When I had built the empire I wanted, the empire that would keep our family strong for generations to come with me at the helm. I would have married a man who suited the needs of the family, no doubt nudged by my father, if not outright bargained away. Would have matched with someone for the power they could give me and given him children to bind the agreement in full.
How stupid I was.
And how blind, to think I could behappywith that, when these men exist.
“But not yet,” I force the thought away and focus on Dante’s face. “Not now, when there is so much to do.”
His nod is slow.
“These things rarely happen as we plan them,” he says quietly. “Sometimes too soon, sometimes too late, and sometimes never. None of us are perfect,tentazione.Youdo not have to be perfect.We will all need to adjust, to learn what life will look like with Alessia in it.”
He strokes his thumb across my face. “She deserves a mother who loves her, Cat. No more, no less.”
I can’t stop the flinch.
His voice gentles. “And she has that. She hasalwayshad it, from two strong, brave women, and everything else does notmatterin the face of that.”
I stare at him, drinking in those words that warm up the ice still gripping my heart even as he shifts, lifting me back onto the seat as the engine cuts out. I’m still silent as the car door swings open and he climbs out.
A tanned, tattooed hand appears. An offering.
“Together,” Dante says quietly as his face appears. “We will face thistogether, Caterina Corvo. And I will be with you, as I should have been from the beginning.”
Together.
Another breath.
And then I reach out, and take his hand.
Dante wraps his fingers around mine, solid and warm as I step out of the car and look around. “Where did the others go?”
“Stefano and Gio got here before us. They went ahead, and Dom followed.”
Dante’s eyes are already on the large set of carved wooden doors, open to reveal a shadowed entrance hall. I catch a glimpse of brightly colored rugs covering gray flagstones before a silhouette fills them, blocking out the view.
Afamiliarsilhouette, shadowed from the sun.
And as my breath catches in my lungs, he steps out into the bright morning light and holds up his hand to get a better look.
Luciano Morelli grins at me. There are shadows there, shadows behind his eyes and evident in the purple beneath them, but he raises one eyebrow at me as if we’re nothing morethan the mocking rivals he pretended we were - pretended so well, for so long.
But his eyes are bright, suspiciously so.
“Little crow. You’re late.”
And if his voice breaks, none of us mention it.
Because I’m already running.
5 – Luciano
“Aiiieeeee!”
“Fu—,”
