Chapter 9 #2
Her gaze drops to the island again. She’s breathing harder than she was a minute ago.
“They trusted us,” she whispers. “When they married into this family, they trusted us to keep them safe. Not to turn their children into targets for every rival with a grudge and a lack of scruples.”
And now I understand a little bit better. She's not just angry on behalf of the children. She's guilty. She feels responsible.
Not for the threat, but for the lives that have been caught up in it because of their connection to her name. The Conti name.
I lean a hip against the counter, keeping my posture relaxed even as my words sharpen.
“There was never a promise of perfect safety,” I say. “Not in this world. You know that.”
She sets the plates down with a clatter that is too loud in the quiet kitchen.
“They aren’t from this world,” she says, her voice cracking.
“Elena was a prosecutor, Bianca was a chef who inherited a debt that was never hers. I brought Olivia into this world when I hired her. Erica took a job as Nico’s secretary when her dad got sick.
Elsa was some financial advisor on a deal Antonio was working on.
Hell, the only one you could reasonably say stepped into this world with her eyes wide open is Teresa. And only because she already worked with violent offenders. Vito still literally dragged her into this world."
She looks at me, and her expression is so raw, so exposed.
"They got married. They had children. They didn't sign up for this."
“No,” I agree. “They didn’t. But they knew the world they were marrying into.”
“No one ever thought it would come to this,” she says. “Not even Papà. The great Luca Conti couldn't predict something like this." The bitterness is back, but this time, not aimed at me.
And I'm going to have to break her heart. Because it is my job to break it now, to shatter whatever illusions she might still have so that she can accept reality.
I cross my arms.
“Your father is a formidable man,” I say.
“He’s built an empire. He’s survived wars that would have destroyed lesser men.
But, and I know this is hard to believe, he's just a man, Caterina.
He's not infallible. He's made mistakes, and so has everyone else. And this is a direct result of one of them.”
I can see her mind racing, trying to connect the dots of what I'm not saying.
"What mistake?" she demands. "He's more careful than anyone I know."
"Is he?" I challenge. "Or is he careful about the things he's always been careful about, and less so about the things that have become commonplace in his life?
Things like the people who have been around for decades, the people he's learned to trust implicitly.
Things like the routines that have become so second nature they've become invisible. "
I can see her starting to understand. And I can see her hating that she's starting to understand.
"He's always been careful," she repeats, but her voice is weaker now.
"Yes," I say. "But he's been careful about the same things for so long, he's forgotten to look at them with fresh eyes. And someone has taken advantage of that. Someone who knows him, knows his family, knows the routines, knows the vulnerabilities."
She picks up the serving spoon for the pasta and just holds it, her knuckles white. For a long moment, I think she’s going to put the lid back on everything and walk away without eating.
Then she scoops a portion onto one of the plates. Then another. Her movements are stiff, but she’s doing it.
When she’s done, she puts the lid back on the container and sets the spoon down with a sharp click.
“You make it sound like he’s been careless.”
“He’s been comfortable,” I counter. “And comfort is the enemy of awareness.”
She slides one of the plates across the island toward me without looking at me.
“Eat.”
I pick up a fork. I recognize this gesture for what it is. An attempt to reclaim a piece of the normalcy she feels I’ve stolen. A truce of sorts. An enforced civilian moment.
I accept it.
For a few minutes, there’s only the sound of forks scraping against ceramic. The food is excellent; the kind of meal that could make a man forget his own name if he let it.
"Do you know the details of the threat?" she finally asks after a few minutes of silence.
I pause with a forkful of pasta halfway to my mouth and look at her. Her face is no longer the same careful mask of indifference. There's a desperate hunger for knowledge there, for details.
She wants to understand what she's up against. She's not just a victim anymore. She's a soldier who needs to know the battlefield.
"Yes, I do," I say, then I set my fork down, my food suddenly forgotten. "I've been asked to help there as well."
"By Papà?" she asks, her fork freezing halfway to her own lips.
"Yes," I say. "And by Teresa."
"Teresa," she repeats, her expression unreadable. "Seems Teresa has her hand in everything, doesn't she? What does she know about it?"
"She's the one who found the note," I say. "It was delivered to her office."
"Her office?" Caterina asks quietly. "I didn't know that."
"Yes," I confirm. "It was addressed to her on the envelope, but it was a message for Luca. And it wasn't a subtle threat. It was specific, and it was designed to cause maximum fear. And it did."
"What did it say?" she asks, her voice barely a whisper.
I hesitate for a moment. I know this information could cause her more pain, more fear. But I also know that she deserves the truth. And I know that the more she knows, the better she'll be able to protect herself and her family.
"It said," I say, my voice low and steady, "that a tree is nothing without its branches. And that the Conti tree is about to be pruned."
I watch as the color drains from her face. The fork clatters onto her plate, the sound unnaturally loud in the sudden silence.
She stares at me, her eyes wide with a horror that's so profound it's almost palpable. The anger, the resentment, the irritation—it all falls away, leaving only the raw, naked fear.
"Pruned," she whispers, the word a blasphemy in the warm, quiet kitchen. "My God."
I wait. I let the words sink in. I let her feel the full weight of them.
"It wasn't just a threat, Caterina," I say gently. "It was a promise. And it was a declaration of war. They're not just coming after your father. Your father understood the threat to mean his children."
She doesn't say anything. She just sits there, her hands clenched into fists on the counter, her knuckles white. She's looking at something far away, something I can't see.
"I..." she starts, then she stops. She takes a shaky breath. "I need some air."
She pushes her chair back, the legs scraping against the floor with a grating sound. She doesn't look at me as she turns and walks toward the back door, her movements stiff, almost robotic.
I follow her out to the back deck. The night air is cool, a welcome contrast to the warmth of the kitchen.
The yard is dark, the only light coming from the house and the stars overhead.
A gentle breeze rustles the leaves of the trees, a sound that's usually so peaceful, but tonight it sounds like a warning.
Caterina leans against the railing, her back to me, her shoulders hunched as if she's trying to protect herself from some unseen attacker. I can see the tension in her posture, the strain in the line of her neck.
"I don't understand," she says, her voice barely audible. "Who would do this? Who would threaten children? Wait—"
She turns back to me.
"If it was delivered to Teresa's office, wouldn't that mean it was one of her patients or former patients?
She doesn't actually see patients at her office anymore, but she still owns it and has other therapists working there.
What about one of the patients there? They're violent offenders, aren't they?
" Her mind is racing now, trying to find a rational explanation, a way to contain the threat, to make it understandable.
"That was the first thing we considered," I say. "But it doesn't fit. The letter and the situation with Erica and Emma indicate that—"
Caterina whirls around completely. "What situation with Erica and Emma?" she demands.