Caterina (The Conti Family #7)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Adrian

The GPS takes me off the main road and onto a quieter stretch lined with dense trees, high hedges, and estates set far enough back from the street to make privacy its own kind of statement.

I keep one hand on the wheel of the black SUV I had sent ahead and waiting for me when I landed in Atlantic City. I took everything in as I always do when I’m rolling up on unknown ground.

Road conditions. Sight lines. Places a vehicle could hide. Places a shooter could post up.

The address Teresa gave me sits behind a long run of stone wall and black wrought iron. The gate is tall, heavy, and expensive, but not too flashy.

There’s a camera mounted at the left pillar and another higher up, angled down for a better read on plates, faces, and the interior of the vehicle.

I catch the slight glint of another lens farther back in the trees, probably covering the approach from a second angle, so nobody’s relying on a single line of sight.

Good.

Not enough on its own, but good.

I slow at the call box, though I already know they’ve been watching me since I turned onto the road, and see another camera blinking on it.

No one buzzes me through immediately. Also good.

A beat passes. Then another.

Whoever’s running the gate detail isn’t asleep, isn’t sloppy, and doesn’t care that Teresa told them I was coming. They still take the time to confirm. That tells me something useful before I ever set foot out of the car.

The wrought iron gates begin to swing inward.

I ease the SUV ahead and drive through at a measured speed. The gates close behind me, thick metal sliding back into place with the kind of final sound that can sound like security or doom, depending on your intentions.

I glance in the rearview mirror once, then forward again.

Long curving driveway. Tree cover on both sides for the first stretch, then broader open grounds as the property reveals itself.

Whoever designed the approach knew what they were doing.

The bend in the drive keeps strangers from getting a straight line on the house from the gate, which buys time and cuts visibility.

Landscaping is manicured but not so dense that it creates blind pockets right up close to the residence. The trees sit far enough back to limit concealment near the main structure. Low lighting fixtures line the drive, likely on timers, maybe motion-assisted.

I clock cameras along the way, and I’m certain there are other security measures I can’t see with my eyes.

They’ve made the effort.

But effort and competence are not the same thing. Money can buy a lot of hardware, and it wouldn’t matter a bit for someone who doesn’t know how to use it well.

My grip shifts on the steering wheel as I take the final curve.

The house comes into view.

It isn’t a house, not really. Not in the casual sense of the word.

It’s a sprawling stone estate with dark rooflines, broad front steps, and tall windows. The kind of structure that says old money even when the money underneath it comes from blood, vice, and leverage.

The front elevation is balanced and imposing without looking like a fortress, which means they care as much about presentation as they do about security.

There’s a covered portico wide enough for multiple vehicles, trimmed hedges, stone planters, and enough distance from the tree line that anyone approaching the front of the place would be completely exposed.

I scan the roofline. Eaves. Second-floor windows. Corners. The subtle bulge of cameras. Motion sensors worked into the exterior trim.

What I don’t see is staff. Human security.

Typically, something like that would concern me. Even if they were good enough not to be seen, I would be able to feel it. I’m trained for that.

But I suppose it makes sense, given what Teresa told me about the situation.

The reason I’m here is the very reason I suspect there isn’t any human security. A possible rat in the operation. They may be working at a minimum on security, limited only to those they are absolutely certain they can trust. And I know there are quite a few members of the family to cover.

At the moment, I’m the only one coming to work this job, but there’s a possibility for a much bigger job here as well. I may be able to bring more of my men in if they find themselves short on security.

I roll the SUV toward the steps that lead to the front door.

Teresa told me that she and Vito had stayed in his apartment before moving to Pennsylvania for the year, in order for Vito to complete his Master’s degree—something that I can admit had shocked me—but that they would be looking at houses while they were there, and they’d be coming back to Atlantic City as a family of three.

She said it like it was practical. Like it made sense. Like I wasn’t supposed to hear all the implications packed inside that single detail.

You don’t bring a woman into a home like this unless she belongs to you in some way. By blood. By marriage. By necessity. Sometimes all three.

My jaw tightens.

Last spring, Teresa vanished.

Just like that. It took a while for anyone to realize something was wrong because her professional contingency plan had been activated, so all her patients were covered.

But then time passed, weeks without a word. Calls unreturned. Messages delayed.

I was out of the country on a covert op, so I didn’t find out until I arrived back in the US, and she’d already been gone for weeks at that point.

I hit the ground running and was going to fly out to New Jersey the next day when she suddenly showed up again. Back in Atlantic City, she’d called me.

She said she’d had a professional emergency. She said she’d been pulled away unexpectedly. She said everything was fine.

I didn’t buy a second of it.

Somehow, on her ‘professional emergency’, she’d come back pregnant and in love. She tried to play it off like they were two separate things.

Like, she was back from her work emergency, but she also happened to be in love and getting married soon. She spoke about him as if he hung the moon.

That didn’t reassure me.

I started digging.

Teresa was always the one in the family who could soothe people with a calm voice and logic. It worked on a lot of people. It’s never worked that well on me.

I found enough.

Enough to know her emergency hadn’t been professional. Enough to know she’d been taken. Enough to put a name to the man responsible.

Vito Conti.

Future Don of the Conti crime family. Luca Conti’s heir. Violent reputation. Short fuse. Smart enough to be more dangerous than hotheaded men usually are.

The kind of man who could smile at a dinner table and then break the jaw of the man sitting across from him if he said something wrong.

I checked everything I could from where I was in Texas. Financial records where I could get them. Property transfers. Marriage license after their quick jump into it. Public appearances. Photos. Snippets. Names. Threads that didn’t tie off neatly.

I found nothing that proved she was being held or threatened. Nothing that suggested she’d been forced into the marriage after the initial abduction.

I never found enough to justify getting on a plane and forcing the issue.

We’re cousins in a not-so-big family, so we’ve always kept up a relationship with each other, but not the type where I can drop by any time without raising suspicion.

Especially from all the way across the country.

Especially at the house of a crime boss.

To say I wouldn’t be well-received is an understatement.

So I did the next best thing. I called in favors and had contacts on the East Coast check in on her for me.

All good, the reports said. Well, other than her marrying into the Conti family. All of our phone calls since then have sounded normal. She sounded like Teresa.

Dry wit. Steady and sane. Smarter than everyone else in the room.

Just a woman newly married and excited about the baby on the way.

Totally normal.

But I still didn’t trust it.

So when she called again recently and said she had a proposal for me, I listened.

Protecting Luca Conti’s youngest daughter is not the kind of assignment I usually take just because a family member asks.

In my line of work, mob money spends the same as anyone else’s, but it buys complications I prefer to avoid.

Hidden agendas. Competing chains of command. Men with egos bigger than their discipline.

Too many guns and not enough training. Everyone assuming they know what’s what because they grew up around violence.

But Teresa asked.

And more than that, Teresa handed me a reason to get inside the perimeter and see for myself what the hell her life actually looks like now.

The SUV rolls to a stop at the base of the front steps.

Before I can shut off the engine, the front door opens, and Teresa’s shape fills the doorway.

I know her on sight even after a couple of years.

She’s taller than most women, curvy, her dark brown hair pulled back from her face, a few soft pieces loose around it. Her eyes find mine through the windshield, and then she smiles.

It’s not polite, or careful, or practiced. It’s a real, full-blown smile.

Something in my chest loosens despite myself.

Then tightens back up at the shadow that appears behind her.

A man built like trouble. Tall, dark hair, dark eyes. Broad through the shoulders. He doesn’t move much, but he doesn’t need to.

Violence hangs on him in a way I know on sight. Not posturing or loud. Worse than that.

Completely natural.

This is a man who doesn’t have to prove he’s dangerous. It’s all over him.

My back goes tight, and my spine straightens.

Vito Conti.

He stands half a step behind Teresa without crowding her, watchful in a dark T-shirt and dark pants that do nothing to hide his size.

He looks relaxed in the way dangerous men sometimes do when they’re in their own territory and know they have every advantage.