Chapter Fourteen #2
Gio watches, proud and a little dazed. “He gets it from his mother.”
Bianca snorts. “He gets punctuality from me. The devastation’s all Conti.”
I tear a piece of bread from the rack and drag it through the olive oil. “If we’re assigning traits, he gets the appetite from me.”
Caterina kisses Stephano’s cheek and breathes him in like a lifeline. “Five minutes,” she promises Bianca. “Then I’m gone.”
“Take your time,” Bianca says, eyes soft.
Caterina looks over the baby’s head at me. “Walk me out after?”
“Of course,” I say.
“Good,” she says, then returns all her attention to the small king in her arms. “Okay, sir. Tell me everything.”
Caterina and I fall into step the way we always do. Caterina doesn’t rush. She gets there when she gets there, and if she’s late, no, she’s not. Everyone else is just early.
I let the kitchen noise fade behind us and take the corridor that feeds back toward the main hotel. The air changes from the warmth of the kitchen to cooler hallways.
I don’t bother to prompt her. She’ll get to it. We walk for a bit before Caterina speaks.
“How are you?” she asks easily.
She doesn’t start with the thing she wants. She never does.
“Functional,” I say. “Hungry, which Bianca’s leftovers will fix later. Caught up now that these papers are signed.”
She purses her lips. “Okay, now give me the real answer.”
“That is the real answer.”
We take the right that runs you past the framed prints of the old pier. The photos are black and white and full of people taking in the shore.
Caterina hmms. “And your practice?” she asks. “Keeping your head above water?”
I lift a brow. She’s never cared about my practice before. Not any more than family would, anyway.
“I am,” I say. “I signed a stack this morning that would bore you to tears.”
“Try me,” she says.
“Vendor contracts, release language, a landlord who doesn’t know the definition of common area.”
“Ah,” she says. “The classics.”
We pass a pair of electricians kneeling by a junction box. They nod. I nod back. Caterina doesn’t break stride. She lowers her voice a shade, not secret, just softer. “And here? Ownership. The call sheets. The questions. Me.”
“You?” I say, mild.
“I am a full-time job,” she says dryly.
“True,” I say, and she snorts once.
Then she lifts a hand and lets it drop again. “I’m asking how that balance is actually feeling in your body, your head.”
“It keeps me busy,” I say.
She glances at me without turning her head. “Do you want me to dial some of it back?” she asks. “Some of the casino weight.”
“Why would I want that?” I ask carefully.
“Because I have the room for it,” she says, equally as carefully. “I can absorb more of the work if you need me to.”
“I don’t need you to,” I say, still choosing my words.
“I’m offering,” she says. “Don’t slap my hand away.”
“I’m not slapping your hand away, Cat,” I say. “I just don’t need to offload anything to you.”
We walk a few steps in quiet. The elevator lobby appears ahead. The same one. My chest does a neat little clench and release that I ignore like it’s a muscle twitch.
I’ve avoided it in the weeks since, but I can’t exactly explain to Caterina why I don’t want to go in there.
Caterina hits the button, and we wait in silence. The doors open with a soft sigh. We step in. My hand moves on its own, pressing the floor for her office. I focus my mind on the conversation again, effectively shutting out the memories of the elevator.
My eyes drift to the floor, and I see Olivia spread out on the new carpet, a feast for my tongue.
The car starts up. My breath stays even.
“Tio Roberto,” Caterina starts. “I want to say something to you, and I’m going to try to say it without sounding like I’m telling you how to do your job.”
“Try,” I say drily.
“You’ve seemed… off,” she says. “For a little while. Not in a major way. In the small way that only someone who loves you would see.”
“Off how?” I ask stiffly.
“See, and now you’re upset,” Caterina says, exasperated. “I’m just trying to be honest.”
The doors open onto the administrative floor.
We step out into the quieter carpet, the softer hallway lights, the offices with their glass fronts and their blinds at varying angles.
Caterina doesn’t turn toward her office yet.
She takes the long curve past Operations. She’s buying herself time. Or me.
“Define ‘off,’” I say, trying to dial back the sharpness in my voice.
“Distracted,” she says. “Like your mind is somewhere else.”
“I’ve done my job just fine,” I say. this time, my tone bites.
“You haven’t dropped a ball,” she says quickly, like she’s waving a flag. “You haven’t missed a meeting you shouldn’t miss. You haven’t been late. Nothing like that.”
“Has someone complained?” I ask. “If they did, tell me the name and the room. I’ll make it right.”
“No one complained,” she says. “You’re not in trouble. Jesus, Tio.”
“Then what did I do,” I ask, holding onto my patience, “to trip your alarms?”
She sighs. “You do this thing with your face sometimes. You set your jaw, and your eyes go far. I don’t know how to describe it. I just know it.”
I swallow around a laugh that isn’t funny. “That’s specific.”
“I know you,” she says. “I’ve known you my whole life. I know your face.”
We take another turn. Her office is up ahead, door ajar.
“You haven’t done anything unsatisfactory,” she says. She pulls a face at her own formality. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Then why the speech?” I ask, and keep my tone mild and even, so it doesn’t sound like a demand.
“Because I don’t like when people carry things alone when they don’t have to,” she says.
We stop just outside her door and don’t go in yet. She turns to face me in the hallway.
“You seem distracted,” she says, and her voice lowers again. “Personally.”
Personally.
I know what she means. I also know I don’t want to put any part of it in her hands. Not because I don’t trust her. Because I don’t trust myself with the way the truth would come out if it left my mouth right now.
I look at the wall over her shoulder—one of those quiet corporate prints of the bay at dawn—and give myself two seconds to choose the exact words of my next sentence.
“Have I failed you,” I ask, “in a way that hurts the project?”
“No,” she says at once. Relief fast and full. She shakes her head. “No. That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Have I failed the family?” I ask, because that’s the other measure that matters.
“No,” she says again. Then she exhales like I had been holding her breath for her. “You know I would tell you if you had.”
“I do,” I say. “So, what are you saying?”
I look directly at her because she is my niece and my partner in this and the bravest person I know, and I don’t want to hurt her by making her feel like she overstepped when all she did was care.
A manager turns the corner, sees us, and does an immediate polite detour. People do that around Caterina. They don’t want to break her flow. She keeps her eyes on me.
“I know you don’t like to lie to family,” she says softly. “And I would never ask you to. So, I’ll talk, and you can choose not to answer. Deal?”
I nod once.
“I see you look at Olivia like a man who doesn’t want to look and can’t help it,” she says. “I’m not blind. I’m also not a child.”
I hold her gaze. I do not confirm it. I don’t raise a hand to wave the conversation away. I don’t ask what she thinks she saw.
“She’s good at her job,” I say.
“She is,” Caterina says. “She’s also my friend.”
“I know that too,” I say.
We stand there a second longer. I can smell something faint and floral wafting over from someone’s office, and I hear the printer somewhere down the hall. I pick my next words carefully.
“I won’t hurt your project,” I say first, because that’s the part that touches all of us.
“I didn’t think you would,” she says, softening.
“I won’t hurt your friend,” I add. Anymore.
She studies my face for a beat. She nods once. “Good,” she says. Then softer, “Thank you.”
“I have rules,” I say.
“I know,” she says.
Finally, we step into her office. It’s finally been finished and furnished. It gives off an air of professional warmth, which is Caterina down to a T.
Deep green walls in matte, brass hardware that warms the room. A long walnut desk calls attention to the center of the room. One wall is covered in floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over the water.
Another wall has built-ins, already decorated with a mix of personal and professional items. Classy black-and-white photos of family and friends dot the shelves and her desk.
Opposite the desk, two low armchairs in a textured oatmeal fabric face a round table big enough for laptops and coffee, small enough to keep conversations intimate.
A waist-high credenza runs along the side wall with an espresso machine and all the fixings, plus a small built-in fridge, filled with drinks to offer.
Every item is set precisely and deliberately. No coats thrown over chairs or scattered papers. It screams Caterina but doesn’t intimidate.
She closes the door behind us and heads to her desk. She picks up a pen and flips it between her fingers.
“On the other hand, Tio, you’re allowed to be human,” she says softly.
“I prefer being useful,” I say.
“You can be both,” she answers. “Useful and human aren’t opposites.”
“I’ve noticed they complicate each other.”
She tips the pen at me. “Only if you pretend one doesn’t exist.”
I exhale through my nose. “Duly noted.”
She drops the pen onto a legal pad and averts her eyes. I know Caterina as well as she claims to know me, so I know she’s working up to saying something.
She clears her throat. “I know it’s been a while since…” She looks down at the desk and clears her throat before meeting my gaze again. “Since Tia Maria.”
“Caterina—” I start, wanting out. Out of this room, out of this conversation.
“Let me finish,” she says. “Please.”
I don’t want her to, but she’s family. I gesture for her to continue.
She folds her hands. “I loved her. We all did. You know that.”
“I do.”
“I also know you built rules after,” she says. “Good ones. The kind that kept you standing.” She pauses. “But rules can calcify. Sometimes they start protecting you from the wrong things.”
“My rules are not the problem.”
“I didn’t say they were,” she answers, steady. “I’m saying, if you ever find yourself choosing loneliness because it feels safer than risk, that’s not a rule. That’s a scar that’s gotten too big.”
I look at the edge of her desk blotter. “Scars keep the skin together.”
“They do,” she says. “Until they start limiting your range of motion.”
“Why this speech? Why now?”
“Because you’re my uncle,” she says. “Because I want you whole. Before, I could ignore it. I understood that you couldn’t… try again. That Tia Maria was it for you.”
“She was,” I say stiffly.
“But now, I see that it’s not that you can’t move on,” she says, ignoring my words. “It’s that you won’t.”
I hold her stare. “That’s a bold conclusion.”
“It’s an observation,” she says. “From someone who’s watched you choose the safest version of every fork in the road for years.”
“Safety keeps people alive.”
“Sometimes it just keeps them alone,” she says quietly. “Look at Papà and Elena.”
“I’m not—”
“They didn’t get where they are by playing it safe,” she says. “They chose each other anyway. Mess and all.”
I rub a thumb along the seam of my pocket. “You’re asking me to be careless.”
“No,” she says. “Look, I’m not telling you to fall in love. I’m just saying, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if you took some of that wall down.”
“I don’t owe anyone more than I have,” I say.
“You don’t,” she agrees. “But it’s only you who thinks this is all you have.”
A muscle jumps in my jaw. “We done?”
Her shoulders drop, and her breath puffs out.
“Yeah, Tio, I’m done,” she says quietly.
“Good,” I say. I look at the forgotten paperwork still in my hand. “I’ll file this by end of day.”
“Thanks,” she says, a bit dejected.
I feel a horrible kind of shame for dismissing her like that.
I walk over to her and tilt her chin up with my hands.
“I don’t like that you can see me as well as you do, stellina.”
She smiles at the old nickname. Little star.
“Tough luck,” she says softly.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “For brushing you off.”
“You didn’t brush me off,” she says. “You bristled. Different beast.”
“Then I’m sorry for that.”
Some of the tension leaves her shoulders. “Okay.”
“I’m not built for these talks,” I admit. “You know that.”
“I do,” she agrees. “Neither am I.”
“I hear you anyway,” I say. “More than you think.”
“I was hoping,” she says.
I let my hand fall from her chin. “You’re right about one thing.”
“Only one?” she asks, mouth tilting into a small smile.
“For now,” I say. “The wall. I don’t know if I can take it down.”
“At the very least, stop adding bricks,” she says. “Start there.”
“I can do that.”
She exhales, letting the weight fall out of her. “Good. And eat something.”
“I will.”
“And sleep.”
“I’ll try.”
“Don’t try,” she says. “Do.”
I huff a laugh. “Bossy.”
“A learned trait,” she shoots back.
I pull her into a quick, tight hug.
“Learned from the best,” I say into her hair. “Thank you.”
“For what?” she asks against my shoulder.
“For caring enough to annoy me.”
She laughs once, low. “Anytime.”
I release her and straighten my jacket.
“Call if you need me.”
“I always do,” she says.
I take the door. “Ciao, Cat.”
“Ciao, Tio.”
The latch clicks behind me. I stand for a beat in the quiet hall, shame cooling into the warmth of love for my family. Even when they annoy me the only way they know how.
I look down at the papers in my hand and start moving. Where am I going? I don’t know.
And it scares the hell out of me.
It’s not a feeling I’m used to. Though I don’t take an active role in the more illegal parts of the family business—as the family attorney, I have to keep my hands mostly clean—I’m still a Conti. We don’t let fear rule us. We don’t let it make decisions for us.
So why have I been letting it rule my life for years?