Chapter 34 Caterina
Caterina
We’ve been staying in Frankie’s room, but Valdo comes around early asking us to go swimming with him.
Armando agrees, saying he’ll watch over us and that the exercise will do us some good.
“If you’re guarding us all the time, when do you sleep?
” I ask him after Valdo hurries off toward his room to change.
I’ve never seen my bodyguard looking this exhausted.
He gives me a wry smile and doesn’t bother with an answer. “I was told to fetch this for you earlier.”
From under his jacket, he passes me Mr. Whiskers.
My heart constricts painfully. Only Alessio would’ve told him to do this.
“When did you speak to him? Where is he? Is he alright? Has he…” Has he asked about me?
Do you know what he’s been doing? And with who?
I don’t ask those particular questions. Armando is Alessio’s friend and soldier, not mine.
“I spoke to him about six hours ago. He’s safe and he’s in Calabria.
He…” Armando scrubs at his stubbled jaw before quietly admitting, “He’s concerned about you.
” He wouldn’t have asked Armando to fetch my stuffed animal to comfort me if he wasn’t.
It doesn't lay all my heartache from the past week to rest but it’s something.
“Get changed, and I’ll escort you both to the pool. ”
“I’ll have to go to my room to fetch my bikini. I’ll be right back,” I promise, seeing the torn look in his tired eyes.
“No, I’ll go with you. Stay in your room until we return,” he tells Frankie, locking the door and refusing to let me wander alone.
It’s a chilling sensation, knowing my bodyguard doesn’t believe I’m safe even for a few minutes in my own home.
It settles a decision for me. When we reach my bedroom, I will put Mr. Whiskers back where he belongs, and I’ll fetch my little knife.
Then, I decide to fetch something else for protection.
As we walk down the hall, it occurs to me this is the first time we’ve been alone together since New York. My stomach twists with nerves, but it must be addressed. “Armando, about last week…”
“I’m sorry I frightened you, Caterina.”
I give him a quick nod, knowing from experience how rarely Made Men make apologies. “I didn’t intend to betray anyone. I only want my sisters to be happy. I know they are not my blood but-”
“They are still like sisters to you, I know. Your husband knows it, too. I mean to be a good friend and a good soldier. Sometimes, it’s hard to be both in our world. The darker half is always there, always pushing me further, but I never intended for you to see that side of me.”
His admittance is unsettling, but I trust that his words are sincere. “Then, we go back to how things were between us?”
He shrugs, giving me that familiar smirk of his. I suppose that settles it.
We walk further down the hall in silence until we reach my bedroom door. “If Alessio had really told you to hurt me to get information, would you have done that?”
“He will never ask that of me. Not with you. Not ever. Hurry and change.”
I decide against pushing for more of an answer than that.
***
Pop music blares from the nearby speaker as my eyes struggle to adjust to the brightness after days spent indoors.
Frankie has fallen asleep in the lounge chair beside me, probably inevitable with the sun’s warming rays coaxing many days of tension from her bones.
Her pale Irish complexion will be turning painfully pink if I don’t wake her to apply more sunscreen soon.
Meanwhile, Valdo demonstrates his diving skills for me, again and again.
I clap on cue, wanting him to have as many positive childhood memories untainted by death and torture as possible.
If the girls are my sisters, he is the little brother I never had.
A wave of protectiveness sweeps through me at the thought.
Armando is seated by the deep end of the pool.
His back is to the grotto-like sculpture behind him so he can watch the house and us this way.
He’s wearing sunglasses, but his posture is the opposite of relaxed.
Rocco was lurking around Frankie’s door after we returned from my room, like a fox trying to find his way into the hencoop.
He slunk off seeing Armando, but it gave me yet another bad feeling about the day, and Armando said we should keep our guard up.
Speaking of guards, there are more of them loitering about than usual, watching us and watching Armando.
Most of them are the ones Alessio named as his father’s favorites with evident disdain.
Is this how a deer feels when it's being stalked?
Alessio will be Capo someday, but his father is Capo, and these men have all swore their loyalty to him.
Once Frankie marries Carlo, perhaps she’ll be safe. Despite her worries of retribution from New York for her father’s sins, it’s the best solution I can see whether Frankie agrees or not.
When Valdo grows tired of diving and asks me to join him in the pool, I agree.
Lying here wishing for my husband to return won’t make it happen any faster.
My worries start to slip away in the refreshing water.
We splash each other, tell silly jokes and play games with the diving rings.
I behave like the child he is, full of high spirits. It’s so freeing after days of turmoil.
“My dad is coming home today.”
All the joy inside me dies in an instant. “He is?”
“Uh-huh. Let’s play Marco Polo next,” Valdo says, his attention darting to a new game.
“Later. I think I need to…”
My words trail off as I look toward the far side of the pool where Armando was sitting just moments ago.
He’s not there. Panicked, I turn toward Frankie.
She’s not where she was either. Two guards are still out here, talking together with their eyes fixed on us.
There were seven of them when I got in. Five have disappeared along with Armando and Frankie.
A sick feeling washes over me. Silvio is coming home today, my guard is missing, and my husband is out of the country.
“Let’s get a snack,” I tell Valdo.
He makes a face. “You like healthy snacks.”
“Not always. How about a candy bar? I need some quick energy if I’m to have any hope of catching you when we play Marco Polo.” I force myself to get out and dry off as if nothing is wrong. Valdo decides he’s up for some junk food before our game and mimics my movements.
Taking a calming breath, I touch the gold-dipped tooth hanging from my necklace, remembering my husband’s words - My kitten has teeth.
I grab the pool bag I brought outside with me and stroll toward the guards.
They stiffen as I approach them so I plaster on my friendliest, most carefree smile.
“We’re getting a snack. Want me to bring either of you anything? ”
The courteous offer must confound them - or just ogling me in my bikini is working - because they shake their heads and don’t follow us into the house.
“Go to your room,” I tell Valdo the second we’re inside.
His blue eyes remind me so much of Alessio’s as they narrow. “Tell me why,” he says, slowly. I don’t have time to explain my suspicions to the boy. The guards may decide at any moment to follow us, and I need to find Frankie and Armando.
“Please, just go. I think we’re in danger.”
He shakes his head. “If there’s danger, I’ll defend you.” God, I love this kid no matter how frustrated by his stubbornness I am.
I reach into my pool bag. The little knife my brothers gave me is all well and good, but it wasn’t just knives they taught me to use upon my betrothal. Valdo’s eyes grow wide as saucers when I show him the loaded gun I took from Alessio’s dresser. “I can defend myself. Now, go to your room.”
The next second, we hear a muffled scream – Frankie. It sounds like it came from Silvio’s office.
“I’ll go get my gun, too. Stay here,” Valdo tells me. Of course, a De Luca son would have a gun even at the age of nine. Good God.
Not listening to Valdo or the saner instincts telling me to obey, to stay put, to go hide, my bare feet silently pad across the marbled floor as soon as he’s running in the opposite direction.
I catch my reflection in one of the hall mirrors, a frightened girl in a bikini with damp hair holding a gun.
This is madness but nothing can stop me from trying to help her.
“If you must bleed, make them bleed, too,” I whisper to myself.
The door isn’t fully closed, and I see one of the guards from the pool avidly watching whatever is happening within. The others must’ve been ordered to subdue Armando. I pray he’s still alive.
My stomach drops sickeningly seeing Frankie on the office floor with Rocco straddling her hips and hissing vile threats.
He holds his knife under her chin. “I’ve waited a long time for this, little cousin,” he says, pinning her down.
“I’ve been waiting for the day they’d stop protecting you since you came to live with us. ”
Frankie’s eyes are wide with fear but the defiance hasn’t left them. “You can’t have me and you know it. Uncle Silvio would kill you if-”
“Not anymore. Our uncle has decided he’d rather have war again than allow you to be the future Don’s wife.
It would be an insult to see you rise so high after what you did and after what your father did.
They’ve let you be until now because of your mother but, with your Irish blood, I knew you were always going to betray us.
Your coward brother’s days are numbered, too.
But, don’t worry. I won’t kill you today. We’re going to have some fun instead.”
Trembling, I think of Alessio’s mother and how Silvio dealt with her. I can’t let anything like that happen to Frankie. I won’t. I am a Morelli and I am stronger than I know. I am a De Luca and I have teeth.
Rocco’s hand tugs at the tie of Frankie’s bikini top as she struggles. The guard watching is too caught up in the action to notice me stepping into the room behind him. “Every man gets a turn… but I get her first,” Rocco promises him.
A cold anger I’ve never known takes hold of me as I take aim and everything happens very quickly.
The gun goes off and the guard by the door collapses.
Rocco spins and prepares to hurl the knife at me.
I fire the gun again and his weapon clatters uselessly by his side as my bullet strikes him in the throat, the three-headed wolf my target.
He gurgles and gasps, his eyes filled with rage and shock.
I aim higher for the second shot and finish him.
Frankie shoves his body off of her and his eyes stare up at the ceiling, unseeing. I just killed two men. I hear several pairs of feet thundering our way. “Fix your top,” I tell Frankie in a strangely detached voice. “Where’s Armando?”
She hurries to cover herself, her voice shaking. “They carried him off in another direction. He was unconscious when I last saw him. I don’t know. Caterina...”
The darkness that carried me the past few minutes evaporates like mist, and I sink to the floor.
My strength is wavering under crippling fear and the heavy weight of consequences.
I killed two men. I killed Alessio’s cousin.
Frankie wraps her arms around me, holding me close.
I can’t tell who’s shaking harder, me or her.
Running at this point is impossible and we both know it.
The first person who enters the room isn’t a guard though. It’s Valdo, holding his own gun and staring wide-eyed at the carnage. Should I apologize for killing his cousin? Did he like Rocco? I can’t remember. I can barely remember where I was ten minutes ago. Everything feels like a dream.
Guards soon surround us. “Another De Luca killed by a Morelli,” one of them says, spitting on the floor beside me.
Maybe our families are forever destined to fight, I think to myself. Maybe me falling in love with Alessio and trying to get him to fall in love with me was never going to fix everything anyway. Maybe another war within the Trio is inevitable.
Because I know without a doubt that if I die today, my brothers will burn Las Vegas to the ground in retribution. The cycle of violent revenge never ends in the mafia.
Another man steps forward, grasping me roughly by the arms and yanking me to my feet. “I say we handle things now before the Capo returns.”
The murmurs of agreement are interrupted by a boy’s shout.
“I am your Capo’s son, and I order you not to touch my sister-in-law or my cousin!
” I could weep with relief and anguish both seeing Valdo standing as tall as he can, pointing his gun at six grown men.
His hand trembles ever so slightly, and I know he’s afraid.
Of course, he is. But he is brave, and he’s a De Luca, and they all know they’d be skinned alive if they dared harm him.
“Very well, little man,” the first one says, his bow only slightly mocking. “But our Capo will be here soon, and he will see to it that these whores are punished for what they’ve done today.”
We’re locked back in the room we’ve occupied the past few days, both of us too shaken to speak. We’ve seen no sign of Armando. He’s probably dead, and Alessio is in Italy, thousands of miles away. There’s no hope for us, is there?
What seems like an eternity passes until loud voices fill the hall outside our door. Silvio. He’s here. We’re about to die. No, he’ll do worse than that first.
The door opens, and it’s not just my father-in-law who strides into the room with murder in his eyes.
My husband is with him. Alessio is here, but there is no warmth in his gaze when our eyes meet.
I can't breathe. He’s standing beside his Capo and ready to obey his commands.
I think of his mother and how he was ordered to watch his brother kill her. What will his orders be today?