“I disagree,” Luc quips. He scoops up Alessia, bopping her nose. “Naturally. I’m going to be her favorite uncle, of course. Sorry, Fusco.”
I look between the four of them, my eyebrows raising. Not something I’d particularly thought about, aside from getting her out of Matteo’s reach. But my eyes narrow on Luc’s smug expression, the competitiveness inside me rising. “We’ll see.”
Beside me, Cat shifts. I glance down at see her watching Alessia with a soft expression. But it shutters as she gets to her feet and jumps up the stairs.
Dante frowns, but I shake my head. “Give her some time to adjust.”
He turns his scowl onto me instead. “I’m not pushing her. When did you turn into theconsigliere?”
The reference to our most senior advisors within the Cosa Nostra makes me snort. “Perhaps we’re all growing up, no?”
I don’t wait for him to respond before I turn to follow Cat up the stairs. Luc is already there, pushing the door open to a bedroom a few doors down from mine. She ducks under his outstretched arm, and I slip into my own room.
I wait for a few moments, until footsteps echo outside my door as he heads back downstairs before slipping out again.
I don’t knock.
Cat spins as I walk in, clutching the bloody remains of her dress to her chest. My sweatshirt is crumpled on the double bed beside her, the sound of the shower echoing out from the en-suite next to us. “FuckingChrist, Gio. Heard of knocking?”
My mouth feels dry as I stare at her, the words I hastily prepared locking up in my throat and refusing to come out.
She shifts, still covering herself even as she cocks an eyebrow at me. “Well?”
But her fingers tremble against the material.
I stay where I am. “I… missed you.”
Brown eyes meet mine, creasing in the middle.
“Every single day,” I continue. I start moving, small, steady movements toward her. “Every day that you were gone, Imissedyou, Caterina Corvo.”
“Gio.” She whispers it, but I shake my head, holding my hand up in a silent plea.
“It was not so long ago that I thought I detested the sight of you. You were everywhere I looked, and it made my blood burn just tolookat you.”
The frown deepens, but I cut her off before she can speak.
“And then,” I say softly, “I spent three months without you. Looking for you in every room, listening for your voice without even thinking about it, and I realised.”
I’m close now. Close enough to pick out the tiny flecks of gold in her eyes as she looks up at me. “What did you realize?”
My voice lowers further. “That life without you iscold. Cold, and lonely, and hopeless. You took every bit of warmth in my life with you when you left, Corvo. I learned what it was to be without you, and I realized that I have no desire to exist in a world without you in it.”
She inhales, and I glance down. To where she covers herself. And I brace.
“When you went back in…,” I say quietly. Assessing the expression on her face. “He hurt you.”
It’s not a question. BecausethisCaterina – this Caterina is not the woman that walked away from me outside of the Asante compound.
There’s a fragility to her now that threatens to undo me. And she confirms it as her eyes shutter. “I don’t want to talk about it, Gio. Please.”
Slowly, I nod, forcing that fury down until later. “Then I will not ask, not until you’re ready. But I’ve been waiting for you for one hundred days, Caterina Corvo. And I don’t want to goanother day without holding you, but I will wait - unless you tell me I can.”
The tense lines around her eyes smooth away, and she swallows. Her voice is barely audible when she speaks.
“Yes. Please.”
It’s all I need.
