Caterina
I wake up before my alarm, and that alone puts me in a bad mood.
Not just because it’s early. I’m usually up early. I like the quiet before the day starts pressing in from all sides. I like getting coffee before my phone starts lighting up, before the casino starts demanding things from me, before there are people outside my office asking questions they should already know the answers to. Early is normal for me.
This is not normal.
This is too early.
The room is still dim, the first gray-blue wash of morning barely pushing through the edges of the curtains, and for one stupid second, I lie there staring at the ceiling, disoriented enough to think maybe I can still go back to sleep.
Then I remember why I’m awake.
And irritation flares hot under my skin all over again.
Of course.
Of course this is what does it. Not quarter-end reporting. Not audits. Not investor meetings. Not the hundred things that actually matter in my day-to-day life. No.
What drags me awake before dawn is the knowledge that at some point this morning, I am expected to meet the stranger my family has apparently selected to insert into my life.
I shut my eyes for a second and exhale through my nose.
Nerves. That’s all it is.
That annoys me even more.
I roll onto my back again and stare up at the ceiling, willing myself not to care. It doesn’t work. The tension is already there, settled low in my body, irritating and restless and impossible toignore. It makes me want to get up and move, which is exactly what I do a few seconds later, throwing back the covers and swinging my legs over the side of the bed.
The hardwood is cool under my feet. The house is silent. For a moment, I stand there in my sleep shirt, hair half in my face, and let the quiet wrap around me.
My house.
Mine.
Not the family compound. Not one of Luca’s properties where there are always too many people coming and going and too many eyes on everything.
My place is closer to the city, closer to the casino, closer to the life I actually live every day, and I like it that way. I chose it that way.
I chose this house because it gave me some measure of distance, some illusion of control, some chance to wake up in my own space without stepping immediately into the full force of my family.
Apparently, that was too much freedom for the family to tolerate.
I push my hair back and head for the bathroom.
The mirror catches me the second I flick on the light. Dark hair tangled from sleep, wispy bangs a mess, eyes sharper than I want them to be this early. Too awake. Too keyed up. Too aware.
I hate it.
I turn on the shower hotter than necessary and strip out of my shirt while it warms. By the time I step under the spray, my jaw is already tight.
It’s not like I’ve never had protection before.
That’s the thing that makes this all so infuriating. I am not naïve. I did not grow up in some fantasy world where I thought the Conti name came without consequences.
There have always been men nearby. Security at events. Cars following at a distance. Quiet changes in routine that happened without explanation because someone somewhere had decided it was safer that way. I know how this life works. I know what precautions are necessary. I know better than most people why they matter.
But this is different.
