Chapter Seventeen
Caterina
HE’S LOUNGING BACK in his chair with a casual arrogance that’s both incredibly sexy and incredibly infuriating at the same time. Anger burns in his silver eyes, the hurricane force of his will howling against me from across the table.
But anger is burning a hole inside me too, along with a sliver of pain I can’t identify. It’s as if a splinter of glass has caught inside me, cutting me, putting holes in me, and it hurts.
The past two days have been so wonderful, nothing but lying in bed and making love, and talking with the Wolf about everything and nothing.
He’s a fascinating man, if opinionated, and we’ve had fun arguing with each other about little things that don’t matter.
And arguing is fun when you can make up afterwards in the most pleasurable way possible.
But it was the tenderness he gave me that changed everything.
I asked for it and he gave it to me, making me feel better than I have for years and years.
After I’d woken up this morning, I’d come downstairs to find him, wanting nothing more than to kiss him and lure him back to bed, only to walk onto a beautifully prepared terrace, with breakfast on the table, and a gift on my plate.
I didn’t think anything of it initially, only a tight squeeze of pleasure that he’d bought something for me. Then I’d opened it and looked at what was inside and the happy little bubble I’d been inhabiting for the past two days abruptly popped.
I’m his wife and how could I have forgotten that? I’m married to a notorious man, whose only goal in life is to build empires and who’ll let nothing stop him from doing that. And I can’t ever leave, because no one leaves the cosa nostra, no one ever.
Being his wife means I’ll never be free, and looking down at those rings, I could see that life stretching out before me, hemmed in by guards everywhere I go.
I’ll never be alone, never have a little flat with maybe a garden, never have a job or career of my own.
I’ll be relegated to being his trophy, kept safe and secure in that glass cabinet.
Taken out to play with on occasion, but mainly being left there.
And if we have children… Their lives would be forever at risk.
It’s about more than that though, isn’t it? None of this is about you.
I shove that thought away though, because why should I care?
It doesn’t matter what this is really about.
I should have considered what he’d told me a couple of days earlier, about how I’d be his wife and rule the families at his side, or some such nonsense, and I’d let him distract me. I’d let myself be distracted by him.
But I can’t do that any longer. I’m not staying here. I’m not going back to the life I had as a child, with all the expectations that were placed on me. All the boxes I was forced into or made to fit. I’m not going back to being punished for who I am either, not certainly not for him.
I stare into Vincenzo Argenti’s eyes and hold his gaze with mine. ‘Everything, except the one thing I actually want,’ I say. ‘My freedom.’
His anger flickers, the stark planes and angles of his face hardening.
‘Freedom,’ he echoes, saying the word like it’s made of poison.
‘What does it even mean? Who is ever free? There’ll always be demands on you, always be other people you have to think about.
Always things you have to do. No one is ever truly free, Caterina. ’
‘That’s not what I’m talking about.’ I’m frustrated now.
‘I want to be free of the families. I want to have my own life, a normal life. One where I don’t have to worry about being kidnapped or murdered, where I don’t have to keep looking over my shoulder.
Where I can make my own choices and decisions without someone else making them for me. ’
His expression is like granite, the beautiful smile he gave me when I kissed him just before, vanishing as if it never was, and my heart aches at the change.
This mask he wears as the head of his family, as the Wolf of Sicily, it’s not him.
It’s not the tender, caring man who stroked me and kissed me as if I was made of glass, who argued with me passionately about something as ridiculous as whether chocolate was better than ice cream, who washed my hair in the shower last night, treating it like it was the most important task he’d ever done.
It’s not him and I don’t like that. I want that other man back.
‘That is not possible,’ he says. ‘And you know why it isn’t. I’ve just told you why.’
My throat is tight but I don’t want to cry, so I swallow it back. ‘Of course it’s possible,’ I say sharply. ‘You can give me a new identity. But you won’t, will you? Because you can’t bear to let what’s yours go, isn’t that right?’
He shifts in his chair as if I’ve said something uncomfortable, which is strange. He’s possessive, all the men in the families are, and I know why. They value respect and honour, and the trophies they earn, not actual people.
‘I can give you some freedom,’ he says as if I’ve forced the words out of him. ‘I can make sure any bodyguards give you space, and I’ll—’
‘No.’ I don’t care that I’ve interrupted him.
‘That’s not what I want and you know it.
All my life I’ve been a thing, a pawn for my father, not a person, and I’m tired of it.
I was told that if I wanted the deaths of Mama and Alessio to not be in vain, I had to do what he said.
He made me responsible for fixing our entire family, and I’m tired of it, Vincenzo.
I’m tired of having to do what everyone else wants me to do. ’
‘You’re not a thing or a pawn, Caterina,’ he says fiercely, leaning forward all of a sudden. ‘And you don’t have to fix anything here. You don’t have to do anything but what you want here. That freedom I can certainly give you.’
My throat closes entirely, because I can see he wants to give that to me. But while it’s something, it’s not everything, and that’s just not enough for me.
‘That might be enough for a while,’ I say. ‘But what about in a year? Two years? What about in ten years?’
‘What about it?’ His gaze searches mine. ‘What is scaring you so much, gattina? Is it only that this wasn’t your choice? Or is there something more to it than that?’
I blink and take a breath. Having choices is very important to me since I’ve been deprived of them for so long, but I know he’s right, that it’s not only the lack of choices that bothers me.
I have to face that thought now, the one I wanted to ignore, about how being his wife and being in his bed isn’t really about me.
Because what will happen as time goes on?
When our physical hunger for each other fades?
When we have children? When the march of his crusade goes on and on and on?
What will our marriage end up being like then?
I take another shaky breath. ‘I meant what I said, Vincenzo. Where will we be in five years? In ten? What about this crusade of yours? And if we have children, what about them?’
He frowns, not understanding me. ‘The crusade will end eventually and I’ll keep our children safe. I’ll keep all of us safe, believe me.’
‘I’m not talking about safety.’ I don’t want to have this discussion, but I need to. We need to. My feelings are confused because all of this has happened so quickly. He’s so much more than I ever imagined he’d be.
You’re not falling for him already, are you?
No. No, definitely not. Again, he’s not what I want in a man. There’s too much death around him, too much violence, no matter how kind and caring he’s been to me. I have to make him see reason about this marriage of ours, because I don’t want to be tied to him forever.
‘I’m talking about a relationship. About us being together.
’ I swallow, my mouth dry as I remember something else he told me.
‘You said that love can never have any part in our relationship, and I… I don’t want that.
I don’t want our children looking at us and seeing that we don’t love each other.
’ My eyes prickle. ‘I don’t want a child of mine to ever look into their father’s face and see only anger and resentment staring back. ’
Shock crosses his face—he clearly didn’t expect that—but just as quickly, his expression is wiped clean. ‘Our children will survive,’ he says in a hard, flat tone. ‘Children can be remarkably resilient.’
‘The same way you were resilient when your father laid his belt across your back?’ I snap before I can think better of it.
Fury ignites in his gaze. ‘I will never be like him.’
‘No, but children being resilient sounds exactly like the kind of thing he’d say.’ As soon as the words leave my mouth, I know I’ve gone too far.
Vincenzo shoves his chair back violently, the legs scraping on the stone, then rises, his eyes gone molten with anger.
He puts his hands on the table and leans in on them, the force of his will battering at me.
‘I put a bullet between that man’s eyes for what he did to my mother and I. Did you know that?’
I heave in a breath, shock flickering through me. Not that I hadn’t heard the rumours about him, and he’s alluded to it before. But it’s different to hear the truth he’s flinging at me now.
My mouth goes even drier. ‘I’ve heard rumours. But what did he do to your mother?’
‘He beat her down.’ The Wolf’s voice is sharp as a knife, his gaze stony. ‘She loved him and he cut that love out of her heart and ground it into the dust. She was a beautiful, fiery, amazing woman and by the time she died, she was a broken shell. Because of him.’
I go cold. The only thing I knew about Stefano’s wife as I grew up was that she’d died in a car bombing that my father had engineered. Yet it’s clear from the look in Vincenzo’s eyes that she was so much more than that. She was his mother and he loved her very much, and he loves her still.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say huskily, another little piece of my heart turning into glass and cutting me.
‘Don’t be sorry.’ The bitterness in his voice is painful.
‘It wasn’t your fault, Caterina. Her death can be laid at Giovanni’s door, it’s true.
But she died long before that. And that’s no one’s fault but my father’s.
That’s why he had to die.’ His mouth twists.
‘Can you see the irony? I killed my father while you spared the life of yours.’
Oh, I can see it. Just as I see the shadows of grief and guilt and pain in his eyes. It cost him. It cost him to end his father’s life and I suspect it costs him to end every life.
‘Again, I’m sorry,’ I say, my heart hurting for him though I’m not sure why. He shouldn’t matter to me, not at all, yet somehow he’s become more important to me than I ever thought possible. ‘Not that he’s dead. I’m sorry that there wasn’t another way for you.’
Vincenzo’s eyes widen slightly, as if he’s not expecting the comment, then I see flashes of other emotions.
But they’re gone too fast for me to understand.
‘Are you worried for my soul, gattina?’ His voice has fallen back into that dark, cynical amusement again.
‘If so, don’t be. That’s why I have a family priest, after all. ’
He shoves himself upright, then rounds the table, pausing by my chair. I’m tense, my heart racing. I want to touch him, tell him it’s okay, comfort him in some way. Anything to coax out the man behind that silver-eyed mask.
‘Vincenzo,’ I say softly. ‘Please…’
He ignores me. Instead he reaches down and carefully, with a certain deliberateness, picks up the ring box with the beautiful rings in it. ‘If you don’t want these, that’s fine. Annika might like them instead. She always was very fond of emeralds.’
Then he puts it in his pocket and strides back into the villa.