Chapter 5 #2
"So," Marco said, settling back onto the arm of the sofa. "The reception. Walk me through the security setup. I assume we're putting Rosetti's people on the doors?"
"Rosetti and three of our own," I confirmed, holding still as Giuseppe adjusted the jacket's back seam. "No one enters without an invitation. Full guest list vetted by Friday night."
"And the seating?" Marco's eyes glinted with something that might have been mischief. "Please tell me you're not putting Aunt Rosa next to the Colombo cousins. I don't want to spend my brother's wedding playing referee."
"Rosa's at the family table. The Colombos are across the room."
"Thank God." Marco took another sip from the flask. "Remember Lucia's wedding? Rosa threw a bread roll at Uncle Gio's head. A bread roll, Dante. At a Catholic ceremony."
"She said he insulted her sauce recipe."
"He did insult her sauce recipe. But we don't solve insults with bread-based projectiles. That's what I told her afterward." Marco shook his head, grinning. "She said I was too soft for this family."
Santo dropped back into the armchair, his earlier tension replaced by something more tired. "What about the wine? Please tell me we're not serving that garbage the Morettis sent for the engagement announcement."
"Giuseppe Carpano is handling the wine personally."
"Good." Santo stretched his legs out, crossing them at the ankle. "That swill tasted like grape juice someone left in the sun too long."
I made a sound of agreement, but my mind was already drifting.
Gemma.
I couldn't stop thinking of her. The way she'd stood slightly apart from her parents at the funeral, watchful and isolated even in a crowd. The way she'd moved through the reception hall—careful steps, deliberate path, taking up as little space as possible.
What happened to her?
"You're thinking about her."
Marco's voice cut through my spiral. I looked up to find him watching me with that knowing expression I both appreciated and resented.
I didn't bother denying it. "I barely know her."
"And yet." Marco's grin widened. "You looked at her like she was the only person in the room. At our father's funeral, no less. The whole church could have been empty and you wouldn't have noticed."
Damn him and his observational skills.
"That's not—"
"Don't bother." He held up a hand. "I know what I saw.
You couldn't string a sentence together when she talked to you.
You, Dante Caruso, who negotiated a federal investigation down to nothing.
Who talked the Gambettis out of a war over territory they'd been fighting for decades.
Tongue-tied over a woman you'd barely met. "
Heat crept up the back of my neck. I focused on my reflection in the mirror, on Giuseppe's careful adjustments, on anything except Marco's amused scrutiny.
"Not every political alliance has to be misery, you know. Sometimes people actually fit."
I thought about Gemma's honey-colored eyes. The five freckles on her nose. The tremor in her hand when she'd offered condolences.
I thought about the way she'd looked at Enzo Valenti like he was a monster, and the cold fury that had risen in my chest at the sight.
“Donatella liked her,” Santo said.
My ears pricked.
“What do you mean?”
Donatella was waiting at the coffee shop around the corner from Russo's—a deliberate choice, I suspected, positioned to ambush me the moment the fitting ended.
I spotted her through the window before I walked in. She was bent over her phone, thumbs flying, but she looked up the instant I pushed through the door. Some sixth sense for her brothers that she'd had since childhood.
She'd already ordered for me. A cortado sat on the table beside her lavender monstrosity, steam still rising from the cup. The sight of it—the presumption, the knowledge of my habits, the care wrapped in defiance—made something twist in my chest.
I slid into the chair across from her without greeting.
"Before you say anything," she began, holding up one hand like she was stopping traffic, "I was being a good sister-in-law. Future sister-in-law. Whatever. The point is—"
"You met with her."
It wasn't a question.
Donatella's chin lifted. That stubborn Caruso jaw, the one we'd all inherited from our mother, set firm.
"I had coffee with her. There's a difference.
" She wrapped both hands around her lavender latte, met my eyes with an expression that dared me to challenge her.
"She's about to marry into our family, Dante.
She doesn't know anyone in Chicago. Her father treats her like furniture—like a decorative piece he's rearranging to suit his purposes.
I wasn't going to let her walk into Saturday feeling completely alone. "
I opened my mouth to respond. To remind her about protocol, about the delicacy of alliances, about not making contact with the other family's assets without clearing it first.
But the words died in my throat.
Because she was right. Gemma was about to walk into a marriage she hadn't chosen, in a city she didn't know, surrounded by people who saw her as a political instrument rather than a person.
I'd watched her at the funeral—the careful isolation, the performed composure, the way she'd apologized for being bumped by a stranger.
If anyone understood what it felt like to be overlooked and undervalued in a family of powerful men, it was my sister.
"I should be angry," I said finally.
"But you're not."
"No." I picked up the cortado. Took a sip. Let the bitter warmth settle on my tongue. "I'm not."
Donatella's expression shifted—the defiance softening into something more searching.
"You want to know about her," she said. Not a question.
"Yes."
The admission cost me something. I didn't examine what.
"Then ask."
I set down the cortado. Looked at my sister—this fierce, loving woman who had grown up in the shadow of violence and still managed to be kind. Who had watched our mother die and our father crumble and somehow emerged with her heart intact.
"What is she like?"
The question felt like a confession. Like I was admitting something I wasn't ready to name.
Donatella's face did something complicated. Surprise, maybe. Or recognition of something she'd suspected but hadn't confirmed until now.
"You really want to know," she said quietly. "Not just because of the alliance. Not just because she'll be useful or convenient or good for the family's image. You actually want to know who she is."
I didn't answer. I didn't have to.
Donatella leaned forward, her lavender latte forgotten on the table between us.
"We walked through Lincoln Park," she began.
"Talked for hours. About everything and nothing—art history and pizza preferences and which Renaissance painters were overrated.
" A small smile crossed her face. "She studied art history at Columbia, did you know that?
She's smart, Dante. Really smart. The kind of smart that doesn't need to prove itself because it's confident in what it knows. "
I hadn't known. I'd seen her photographs, read the basic dossier on the Moretti family, but nothing about art history or Columbia or the workings of her mind.
"She's lovely," Dona said quietly. "Not just beautiful—though she is, obviously, you've got eyes—but genuinely lovely.
Kind. Thoughtful." She stirred her latte absently, the spoon making slow circles in the lavender foam.
"We walked through Lincoln Park and she stopped to give money to a homeless man.
Not just a dollar or some spare change—she gave him forty bucks and told him to get something hot.
Like it was the most natural thing in the world. "
I thought about the woman I'd seen at the funeral. The perfect composure. The careful distance she maintained from everyone, including her own parents.
And beneath that armor—someone who stopped for strangers in doorways.
"She didn't do it for show," Donatella continued. "Didn't look around to see if anyone was watching. Just saw someone who needed help and helped. That's who she is underneath all those walls."
She paused. Set down her spoon.
"And she's sad, Dante. I don't know what happened to her, but something did.
Something bad." Her dark eyes met mine, and I saw the fierce protectiveness that had always defined my sister—the same protectiveness she'd turned on anyone who threatened her brothers, now extended to a woman she'd known for one afternoon.
"She's got walls up that make yours look like a picket fence.
And she's so used to holding everything together that she doesn't even seem to realize she's exhausted. "
I'd seen it. At the funeral, in the brief moment our eyes had met—the weariness beneath her composure. The bone-deep tiredness of someone who had been performing survival for so long they'd forgotten what rest felt like.
What happened to you?
Donatella reached across the table and gripped my wrist. Her hand was small but her grip was strong, demanding my attention.
"She asked about you," she said. "What you're like. What she should expect."
My heart did something uncomfortable in my chest. "What did you tell her?"
"The truth." Donatella's eyes bore into mine. "I told her you're not easy to know. That you're private and controlled and intense in ways that can be overwhelming. That you have certain expectations, certain ways of showing you care that aren't always obvious."
I waited. There was more. I could see it in her face.
"I told her you're the best man I've ever met.
" Her voice softened on the words. "That when Mama died and Papa fell apart, you were the one who held us together.
That you take care of people in ways they don't expect, ways they don't even realize they need until you're doing it.
" Her grip tightened on my wrist. "I told her you would take care of her too, if she let you. "
Something cracked inside my chest. A small fissure in the walls I'd spent years building.
"Don't make me a liar." Donatella's voice was fierce now, her Caruso stubbornness blazing through.
"She's been through something, Dante. Something that made her this scared, this careful, this convinced that she has to handle everything alone.
She deserves someone who's going to treat her like she matters.
Not like an asset. Not like a political alliance. Like a person."
I stared at my sister. At this woman who had grown up in the shadow of violence and chosen to be kind anyway. Who saw the best in people even when they couldn't see it in themselves.
She believed in me. Still. After everything.
The cold knot of duty that had been sitting in my chest since my father's death loosened. Not entirely—the weight was still there, would always be there—but something warmer was threading through it now. Something more complicated than obligation.
I thought about Gemma's white face when Enzo Valenti had looked at her. The way her hands had trembled. The naked fear I'd seen before her composure had slammed back into place.
Whatever had happened to her, he was part of it. I was certain of it now.
And when I found out what it was, I was going to burn something down.
"Thank you," I said finally. My voice came out rougher than I intended, scraped over emotions I wasn't ready to examine. "For reaching out to her. For telling me."
Donatella's face split into a smile—radiant, warm, the smile that had always made everything feel less impossible.
"You're welcome." She released my wrist and picked up her latte again, the serious moment passing as quickly as it had arrived.
"Now drink your cortado and stop looking so terrified.
You're Dante Caruso. You've faced down federal prosecutors and rival families.
One beautiful, sad woman shouldn't be this scary. "
I lifted the cortado to my lips. Drank. Let the bitterness ground me in the present moment.
"You told her I would take care of her."
"I did." Donatella's eyes met mine over the rim of her cup. "Are you going to prove me right or wrong?"
The question hung in the air between us. Simple on the surface. Complicated underneath.
“I’ll do my duty to her. Nothing more, nothing less.”
She sighed.
“Can’t you just . . . not be the don for a while?”
This marriage was just for business, nothing more. I had to fulfill my duty to the family and to the city.
It was my turn to sigh.
“Sadly, sorellina, I can't.”