2. 2. Caterina
2. Caterina
I can feel their eyes on me as the tension around us rises, threatens to spill over into something physical as Dante and Domenico face each other, their words carrying.
They’re all watching. Waiting - for something, anything. For me to jump up, to pull them apart, to give them a sharp tongue and sharper wit.
But I don’t give them anything. I can’t .
All I can do is breathe.
Keep breathing.
In, out.
Again.
Again.
And the ice – that cold, numbing sensation that crept over my body as I walked out of the Asante compound for the last time – it steals all of the words that I might have said to them, strangles them in my throat as I lay here with my eyes closed, listening but numb.
So fucking numb.
There is so much to do, so much to say – to all of them. And I don’t know where to start. Where to look first, to try and fix our broken pieces.
So instead, I breathe.
“Cat.” Warm hands are gentle on my cold skin, pushing back my hair. “We’re here.”
The popping in my ears told me that already. We’ve landed in Palermo, the brightness against my closed eyelids telling me that it’s morning, or something close to it.
I need to get up. To unlock my aching muscles and sit up .
Move.
It physically hurts. I’m so tired , the exhaustion weighing me down as I force my eyes to open and meet Stefano’s dark gaze.
Even that requires effort. As if I have to tell my body what to do, or else it will not move at all.
His lips tighten as he scans my face. But his voice is soft. “You ready?”
My head jerks up and down, and he looks as if he’s going to say something. But he hesitates. “I need to get my mother.”
Iliana . I thought of her too, as I was laying here, pretending to be asleep to avoid the conversations I need to have.
I wondered if she felt as I do now, before she decided to block the world out completely. Wondered what the final straw was, that broke her spirit, that took her from a vibrant, happy woman to an empty shell.
I wondered if her straw was the same as mine.
A black canopy.
A bare back.
Cold hands on my skin—
Stefan looks relieved as I nod again, blinking those thoughts away. Plenty more rush in to take their place. I mentally force my limbs to uncurl, sensation rushing back in burning pulses as I push myself upright, the blanket that Dom pulled over me falling away as I look down.
Blood. Dried, flaking blood covers me, covers the pale material I dressed in to please my husband before I ended him.
I can’t leave the plane like this. “I need something to wear.”
They all stop at my words. Even my voice doesn’t feel like mine. Empty, monotone.
Gio steps up beside Stefan with a hooded sweatshirt in his hands and an apology in his eyes. “We don’t have much else until we get there.”
“There?” I take it from him and pull it over my head, dragging it down to cover the tattered remains of my gown.
He purses his lips. “The Morelli estate.”
My fingers clench in the material, so warm against my cold skin that I wonder if he pulled it off himself before giving it to me. Slowly, I nod in understanding.
Luc.
And—
Brushing away those thoughts too, I force a small smile to my face, as if it could possibly fool anyone. Gio watches me steadily. Dom moves past him to take my hand again. Gripping it tightly, as if he’d hold me together by that alone.
They wait for me. “Let’s go, then.”
Gio handles the arrangements as I walk off the plane, going ahead and murmuring to the men waiting for us. The airstrip is small. Private. Probably for the best, considering we all look as though we should be arrested on sight.
The warmth of the Italian dawn kisses my skin as Dom makes his way down the metal flight of stairs in front of me. light breeze dances across my cheeks as I pause at the top and take a deep breath.
And another.
Behind me, fingers brush against my back, and I stiffen. Dom glances over his shoulder at my delay, and I move forward without looking behind.
Not yet.
“Caterina. Please .”
Ignoring the low voice – ignoring the pain there that threatens to crack open the numb shell encasing me - I keep my eyes down, following Dom’s lead as he moves toward one of the two black cars waiting for us.
He pulls the door open, holding it, and I slide inside, into the air-conditioned space.
And I wait.
Listening to the muttering coming from outside the car, low voices raising and falling as I sit silently.
And then a familiar warmth brushes against me, as someone else gets in. I wait, but nobody else joins us. Instead, the door in front of me opens and closes.
Dom’s steel-gray gaze meets mine through the small gap that separates us. He’s not in the back with me, instead choosing the front passenger seat. Dom moves his eyes between my face and the window that would block him out.
Offering us privacy, for this conversation that I can’t escape any longer.
No , I want to say. Leave it open. Please.
I am not ready.
But I nod. Breathe in again as he pushes that window shut, sealing me in.
With Dante.
I have not seen him since that night.
One hundred days without him, and I can’t even look at him.
We’ve been driving for several minutes when he breaks the heavy silence. “ Tentazione .”
I try. Try to reach for something, anything. But the panic curls around my throat, constricts my oxygen, wrapping around my lungs until it’s all I can do to breathe .
And he stiffens as my ragged breathing becomes audible. Rasping, choking breaths fill the space between us with my panic.
I have spent so long refusing to think of the possibility of this moment that I can’t .
Can’t speak.
This is my reckoning. The moment where I face him, where I lose him, for the lies I told over and over again.
He gave me his love, his passion, his loyalty, everything that makes Dante V’Arezzo who he is. And what I gave him in return… it was only ever a smokescreen, and now we both know it.
I made a choice, and it wasn’t him. It was her, always her.
Alessia.
Our daughter.
The closed window in front of me wavers, blocked by Dante’s face as he rips off his belt and slides to his knees on front of me. He cups my face, his breathing almost as ragged as mine.
“ Tentatzione ,” he breathes. And his voice – it threatens to break, as he stares at me. “Talk to me. Please .”
It does break on that final plea, and the liquid swimming in my eyes spills over, trickling down my cheeks as I inhale. “I…,”
I’m sorry.
I’m so sorry.
But nothing comes out as he scans me with those green eyes. He has always seen me. But now, he looks at me as if he’s trying to see past the Caterina he thought he knew. As if he has realized that maybe he never knew me at all.
As if we are strangers, he and I.
And that thought hurts.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
But my lips don’t move as I stare at him blindly. My tears soak into his hands as he cradles my face, his dark brows drawing down in agony.
He rips his hands away, and I brace for it. For the judgement. The anger – all of it, deserved, for the truth I kept from him, all this time.
You kept her from me.
You lied to me.
I deserve his censure. Because I didn’t tell him. Didn’t tell him when I found out, didn’t trust him. Instead, I ran to my father rather than trust the man who should have been my enemy, and that single decision has cost us both more than I can ever voice.
His harsh breathing fills the car as he grabs my hand. Dante untangles my clenched fingers and pushes something into them.
I blink away the moisture blurring my vision as I look down, smoothing the image with trembling fingers.
And I stare at it for long minutes. As my shaking increases, as drops of liquid land on the picture of the little girl grinning at me.
His voice is thick, as his hand returns to my face. He traces my cheek with the tips of his fingers, smoothing away the tears.
“Look,” he whispers finally. His voice is low. Emotional, as Dante V’Arezzo and I face the truth together at last. As he forces me to face the truth of us, and of her. “Look what we made, tentazione . Look how beautiful she is.”
My sob breaks out, and he keeps talking. Keeps breaking me, ripping down all of the defences that I spent months building against him, one by one as they collapse like dominos.
All that time, always fighting to keep them up, even when he wouldn’t let me go.
“Look at our daughter,” he whispers. “She has your curls, and my eyes, Caterina Corvo. She’s perfect .”
My throat is burning with the force of my tears as I grip that photograph.
“And she’s safe .” Fierce words as he grips me. “ You did that, Cat. You kept her safe. You did everything you could, and now she’s safe. Luc got her out, but you kept her safe.”
My whole body crumples, but Dante catches me. His arms wrap around me as I bury my face in his neck. His hand slides into my hair, holding me tightly as I let it all out.
The words tear from my throat, rasping and hoarse. “I should have told you.”
“Yes.” He knows what I mean. “You stubborn, infuriating woman.”
I suck in a breath – possibly of agreement – but he’s not done.
“I understand, Cat.” I don’t argue when he reaches to undo my belt, when he pulls me down and twists us so I’m positioned on his lap on the floor, his arms tight around me.
My fingers dig into his wrists where he holds me as I listen, let him say everything he needs to.
“I know why you wouldn’t have told me at first. But after , Cat, after you came back – when we were building this, you should have told me . We should have faced it together, you and I. You chose to do it alone rather than trust me to stand by you. I didn’t understand why you always kept me at a distance, always pushed me away, always kept that damn wall up , and now I know. And I’m furious with you.”
There’s hurt there. Hurt that I caused.
“I didn’t know how.” I study the floor of the car as I admit it, staring at the dark plastic mats with evidence of boot marks stamped into them as I search for the words. “I kept it in for so long, Dante, and then – I didn’t know how to tell you, where to even begin. It was easier to keep fighting, keep arguing. And my father, he was watching .”
Always watching. Always, I had to walk that line.
“She was a hostage,” I say hoarsely. “To keep me in line, and I didn’t have a choice because I would never have risked her safety. For so long, I wouldn’t even let myself think of her. Even now, it’s hard.”
Even now, my mind slips away from thoughts of her name.
Our daughter has been a hostage since the day she was born.
First, to my father.
Then, to Matteo.
But no longer.
Dante takes a breath. There’s fury on his face, twisting his features into something savage. “ Never again .”
And my own voice is hard as I stare back at him. Soaking in the determination there, the fierce protectiveness in those green eyes that threatens to break my heart all over again, because I denied him this. “No. Never again.”
Never again will she be used against us. I can read it in his face, feel it in the fire that flickers to life in my own chest, when I wondered if it would ever burn again.
No more secrets between us.
And our daughter will never be a pawn in the games of the Cosa Nostra again.
Fingers brush my skin as he takes a deep breath, swallows. “I’m still pissed at Rossi.”
At the lie that cleaved apart the friendship they were tentatively building.
“He did it for me. And for her. You cannot forgive me and not him.” Then, I pause, that fear tightening my chest again. “Unless—,”
“Yes,” he says simply, answering my unspoken fears without hesitation. “Yes.”
I have to close my eyes. His forgiveness, given so easily without question or reservation.
Fuck, but I never stood a chance against this man. All those months of pushing him away, keeping him at arm’s length even as he slotted into my life and my bed. As much as I pushed, he always pushed back .
Dante V’Arezzo was never going to walk away from me.
And I’m done with walking away from him.
He squeezes my wrist in acknowledgement, or admonishment. “I’ll work it out with Dom. But no more lies, tentazione. We’re starting again, you and I. No more hiding from me. Please .”
Slowly, I nod. “No more lies.”
No more hiding.
Dante’s fingers dip beneath my chin then, lifting it as he examines my face. “I’ll only ask once. Is there anything else?”
I watch him. Take in the creases in the corners of his eyes, the faint lines on his forehead that weren’t there a few months ago. The deep circles beneath, the stubble that he hasn’t bothered to shave away.
He’s not a boy anymore. We age young in the Cosa Nostra, age through violence and death, and the evidence of it is there for me to see on Dante’s face.
As it is on all of us.
His eyes threaten to shutter as he reads my expression. “Tell me.”
This truth.
This last, final truth.
I wet my lips, force myself to voice the words I kept hidden, even from Dom. The final truth of those hours and days after my daughter was taken from me.
The truth that remained voiceless, even through my time at the Asante compound. Through the horrific, invasive hours I spent with Reed and Salvatore as they investigated my body, assessing it, discussing it as I lay there, trapped and tied and holding onto that thought with everything I had.
Because there was one thing they did not check. One test that would have changed everything, if they had thought of it.
But they did not. And I held that thought, held it even as I woke up to fractured memories of a black canopy and bare skin.
My breathing starts to speed up.
Warm fingers, then, on my face, tracing my skin. Infinitely gentle. “Come back to me.”
I blink, clearing those thoughts away as Dante’s face replaces them. And I keep my eyes on his as I let those words free.
“My father… after I had Alessia. He had my tubes tied, Dante.”
A precaution , he had said. To prevent any future issues.
But we both knew it was another punishment.
There will be no siblings for Alessia. Not from my body, at least. None of them, these men that have given so much for me, none of them will ever see me that way, never see my body change and develop as it did in those months, before .
That choice has been stolen from me, from all of us.
There will be no more heirs from the Corvo line, if we win against Matteo.
And in the Cosa Nostra, where family is everything ... maybe that changes things.
Dante sucks in a harsh breath, his face paling. “ Cat .”
I try to drop my eyes from his, but he grips my face, holding me in place as he examines my expression, his brows knotting. “Do you think I care about that? About any of it?”
“It matters,” I say numbly. “There will be no heirs, Dante.”
None, except for Alessia. And it only puts more of a target on her head.
He pulls me closer, and I let my head rest against his chest. He traces the flecks of blood that still speckle my skin, traces the space beneath my eyes, space that I know is dark with evidence of my own nightmares. Of these past few months without him.
“I hate that he did that to you,” he says finally. His voice is dark, threaded with anger. “I would kill Joseph for it, Cat, if he were here. For him to take that choice from you is unforgivable. But it changes nothing of how I feel about you, tentazione . And the others will feel the same. There are options we can explore, if and when you want them. And if that day never comes, then it does not matter.”
My eyes squeeze closed, the relief soaking into my bones at the absolute honesty in his voice. “One less thing to worry about, at least.”
And he freezes, as I realize what foolish words I have let free about the time we spent apart. Both of us still, tension threading around us. And I listen as his breathing turns ragged beneath my cheek, as his heartbeat thunders.
Whatever he might have expected, I have just confirmed it.
“ Cat .”
Dante’s eyes are darker than I have ever seen them when I look up. His skin is bunched tight around those eyes, those eyes that are glimmering with something darker than I’ve ever seen them. His hands tighten on me, then loosen immediately. “ Quel figlio di puttana .”
And his voice breaks on those words. His mouth opens—
“Don’t,” I force out, my voice thickening as my heart thumps heavily inside my chest. “Don’t ask me anymore. Not yet. Prego , Dante. Don’t make me lie to you when I’ve just promised not to. I’m here . It doesn’t matter.”
There I go, already breaking my promise not to lie to him again. Because it does matter, and we both know it. But he doesn’t call me out.
He closes his eyes instead, pain in every crease of his face, and I do the same as he lowers his forehead, pressing it against mine. Our breathing mingles together.
“It matters. Ti amo .” His lips move up, press against my head. “ Ti amo , Cat. No matter what.”