Chapter Two
Caterina
"I don't see why I need a bodyguard."
My father does not even look up right away.
He sits behind the heavy mahogany desk in his office with a file open in front of him, one hand resting beside it, the other loosely holding a pen he is no longer using.
Late afternoon light cuts across the room through the tall windows behind me, laying warm stripes over the dark rug and the bookshelves and the polished wood that always smells faintly of tobacco, leather, and whatever expensive cologne my father has worn for the last twenty years.
The office has always felt like him. Quiet. Imposing. Ordered down to the inch.
And at the moment, it feels like a trap.
I stand in front of his desk in a cream silk blouse and black trousers, my laptop bag still hanging from my shoulder because I came straight here from my office at the casino.
Straight from a meeting about quarterly forecasts, a staffing headache in the high-limit lounge, and an argument with one of our beverage vendors about a delivery discrepancy that’s my problem because anything involving numbers is always my problem.
I should be headed home. I should be reviewing the weekend count reports and answering the emails Olivia flagged for me earlier.
Instead, I am here.
Being informed, apparently, that I am about to lose the last scraps of privacy and freedom I have left.
My father finally lifts his eyes to mine.
“You need one because I said so.”
I let out a short laugh that holds no amusement at all.
“Right. Great. Good talk.”
I shift my bag off my shoulder and set it down hard in one of the leather chairs across from him, then fold my arms over my chest.
He watches me do it with the kind of patience that only makes my temper sharpen.
Luca Conti in one of his quieter moods is almost worse than when he is angry. When he gets angry, at least he shows his hand.
When he stays calm, it means he has already decided how this is going to end.
His gaze does not move from mine. “There was another threat.”
The words register, of course, but not the way he probably expects them to.
There have been threats before. Anonymous calls. Notes. Rumors passed along through channels that are never as secure as the men using them like to pretend. The family is always dealing with threats, direct or implied.
That is what happens when your last name is Conti and your father sits at the head of an empire built on fear, loyalty, money, and blood. Men always want something. A weakness. An opening. A score to settle. A piece of what belongs to us.
Still, something cold slides through me anyway.
“Against who?”
“All of you.”
My jaw tightens.
He closes the file in front of him. “My children.”
For one second, neither of us speaks.
I hate that. I hate the tiny break in my anger. I hate the way my body reacts to those words before my pride can catch up. Because whatever else my father is, whatever else this family is, I know what that means.
Threats against Luca Conti’s children are not vague. They are a message. They are leverage. They are a promise of escalation.
But I am still not giving him this.
“So increase the security detail on the house,” I say. “On all the houses. Increase surveillance. Double the men at the casino. I don’t know why that means I need some stranger attached to me every second of the day.”
“It means exactly that.”
“No.”
His expression does not change.
I stare at him, waiting for some sign that this is negotiable. There is none.
I drag in a breath. “Papà.”
That word still works on him sometimes. Not often. But sometimes.
Not today, apparently.
He leans back in his chair. “There are concerns about loyalty among our own people.”
There it is.
The part no one has wanted to acknowledge quite yet.
The thing moving like poison under the surface these past few weeks, turning every conversation into something slightly more acidic than it has been. I have heard enough in fragments to piece it together.
Voices lowering when I walk into a room. Vito looking wound tighter than usual. Roberto spending more time away from the casino and in closed-door meetings that go on too long.
Rumors of a traitor.
Someone inside aligning with an enemy.
Someone feeding out information.
I uncross my arms and plant both palms on the edge of his desk, leaning in.
“So that’s what this is? You think one of our own men is giving someone access, so now I’m supposed to what? Have a babysitter?”
His mouth flattens. “Don’t be childish.”
My temper flashes hot.
“Childish? I’m twenty-five years old. I run the financial side of a multimillion-dollar business.
I deal with regulators and auditors and investors and department heads and enough bullshit every day to keep three people busy.
I am not a child, and I am not going to have some man trailing behind me like I can’t cross a room without supervision. ”
“You are not being assigned a babysitter.”
“Oh, that’s good. I was worried about the title.”
He ignores the sarcasm.
“He’s private security.”
I blink. “What?”
I straighten slowly.
For a second, I just look at him, because that is somehow worse. Worse than the demand. Worse than the argument. Worse than the threat, almost. Because it means this has gone beyond discussion. He brought me in here to tell me, not ask me.
“You already hired someone already.”
“The arrangement has been made.”
I laugh again, sharper this time. “Unbelievable.”
“He comes highly recommended.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should.”
“I do not.”
He folds his hands on the desk. “Teresa recommended him.”
I stare.
“Teresa.”
“Yes.”
My mind jumps ahead before I can stop it. Teresa’s family. I love her. I do. She is smart and steady and one of the few people in this family who can say difficult things without turning the room into a war zone.
She’s my sister-in-law and the mother of my new baby nephew, Cristiano.
But right now, I could cheerfully strangle her.
“Who is he?” I ask.
“Her cousin.”
I blink again, slower this time. “Her cousin.”
“Yes.”
“Teresa’s cousin is my babysitter?”
My father lets out a slow breath, and I know he’s exasperated with me, but has immense control.
I push back from the desk and start pacing, because if I stay still, I am going to say something that will have consequences that even being his youngest won’t get me out of.
“So let me get this straight. There’s a threat against your children, there are rumors of a traitor somewhere in the ranks, our own men can’t fully be trusted right now, and your solution is to bring in Teresa’s cousin from Texas to follow me around?”
“He owns a successful private security firm.”
“I’m thrilled for him.”
“He is former military.”
I turn on him. “That does not make me feel better.”
“It should.”
“It doesn’t.”
My father’s eyes narrow just slightly, not in anger yet, but in warning.
I know I am pushing. I know it.
But this is my life he is rearranging. My schedule. My movement. My goddamn breathing room.
I have spent years fighting for every inch of professional credibility I have, every bit of independence, every sign that people at the casino answer to me because I know what I’m doing and not just because I’m Luca Conti’s daughter.
And now I am supposed to walk into meetings with a stranger looming two feet behind me?
Absolutely not.
“I know how to defend myself,” I say. “I carry my own weapon. I’m trained. My house has security. The casino has security. The floor has cameras. The entrances are monitored. The entire property is covered. What exactly is this man supposed to do that isn’t already being done?”
“Stay closer.”
I throw up a hand. “That is not an answer.”
“I don’t owe you one,” he says calmly.
I stop pacing and look at him in disbelief. “You cannot honestly think this is practical.”
“I’m not thinking about practicalities. I’m thinking about keeping you alive.”
The air in the room goes still. The words are blunt enough to cut straight through the noise.
I hate that too.
I swallow and hold his gaze. “You don’t get to throw that at me like I’m being dramatic for not wanting my life turned upside down.”
His expression hardens. “You think I enjoy this?”
“I think you enjoy making decisions for me and expecting me to fall in line.”
His jaw ticks.
There it is. A crack in the calm.
Good.
“Everything I do is to protect this family,” he says.
“And everything I do is to hold up my end of it. I work, Papà. I work all the time. I built a role for myself that matters. Do you have any idea what it will look like if I start showing up everywhere with a bodyguard? Do you know what kind of message that sends?”
“Yes,” he says. “That you’re protected.”
“No. It says I’m vulnerable. It says I’m being watched. It says there’s something wrong. People notice these things.”
“Let them notice.”
Of course he says that. He does not spend his days trying to earn authority in rooms full of men who smile at me like I am decorative until I start talking numbers and make them realize I know exactly where every dollar is buried.
He does not know what it costs to be taken seriously as the youngest child. The daughter. The one people assume got handed a title, a nice office, and a seat at the table because of blood.
He built the table. He never had to fight to prove he belonged at it.
I shake my head. “You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it.”
My laugh comes out flatter now, exhausted around the edges.
“Fine. I have a job I’m good at, that I’m respected for.
I have responsibilities that matter. I am trying to build a reputation that belongs to me, not just to this family name.
And I cannot do that while some giant ex-military stranger shadows me from the minute I wake up until the minute I go to bed. It undermines me.”
My father says nothing for a moment.
Then, quietly, “This family name is exactly why you need him.”
I look away.
That one is true, maybe more than anything else.