15. Cat #2
Max staggers back, catches himself against the wall. Blood streams from his nose. He doesn’t raise a hand.
“That’s for putting my sister in danger.” Enzo shakes out his fist, knuckles already reddening. “And this-” He pulls back for another swing.
“Enzo, stop.” I grab his arm, pull him back. “Stop. You made your point.”
“I’ve barely started making my point.”
“He took it. He didn’t fight back. That’s enough for now.”
Enzo glares at Max over my shoulder. “You think standing there bleeding makes you noble?”
“No.” Max wipes blood from his lip with the back of his hand. “I think it makes me slightly less of a bastard than I was yesterday. That’s all I can offer right now.”
“It’s not enough.”
“I know.”
Enzo turns to me, and suddenly his arms are around me again, tighter this time, almost desperate.
“You stupid, stubborn girl,” he mutters into my hair. “You absolute idiot. Four months, Cat. Four months of carrying this alone. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because telling you meant starting a war.” My voice comes out muffled against his chest. “Because I didn’t know what to believe anymore. Because I thought-” I break off, swallow hard. “I thought if I ran far enough, it would stop hurting.”
“Did it?”
“No.”
He pulls back, holds my face in his hands, and I can see the tears he’s trying not to shed.
“Ti voglio bene, sorellina. You know that, right? Whatever happens, whatever you need, I’m here.”
“I know.”
“And if you ever do something this stupid again-”
“You’ll kill me yourself. I know that too.”
The corner of his mouth lifts despite himself.
Then he turns back to Max, and the softness vanishes.
“Explain the theater. All of it. And if I think you’re lying even once, this conversation is over and you’re leaving in a body bag.”
“Fair enough.” Max settles against the wall, still bleeding, making no effort to clean himself up. “The coup started forming after my father died, about six months into the marriage. The old guard, Sergio’s faction, they never accepted the alliance. They wanted blood, not peace.”
“We knew there were rumblings.”
“It was more than rumblings. They approached me twice with offers to dissolve the marriage. Said they’d back me as don, give me their full support, if I got rid of the Romano wife.”
“Got rid of,” Enzo repeats flatly.
“Their words, not mine. I refused both times.”
“How noble.”
“It wasn’t noble. It was strategic. The alliance benefits both our families. Anyone who can’t see that is too short-sighted to be trusted with power.”
“So you refused the coup. And they, what? Decided to take matters into their own hands?”
“They started moving pieces. Building support. Planting people in my organization.” Max glances at me. “The attack on Cat was part of it. Not officially sanctioned, Sergio’s too smart for that, but his daughter’s fingerprints are all over it.”
“Marcella,” I say. The name tastes like poison.
“She’s been obsessed with Max since she was a teenager,” Enzo says. “Everyone knows that.”
“It’s more than obsession. She’s her father’s daughter, dangerous, strategic, willing to do whatever it takes to get what she wants.” Max’s hands curl at his sides. “I should have seen it sooner. I should have-”
“You should have told your wife what was happening.” Enzo cuts him off. “You should have trusted her to help you fight it instead of leaving her alone in a house full of enemies.”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
Each answer costs him something. I can see it, and Enzo doesn’t let up.
“Because you thought you knew better. Because you thought keeping her in the dark was protecting her.”
“Yes.”
“And how did that work out?”
Max doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to.
Enzo walks to the window, stares out at the courtyard where his men are still on high alert. When he speaks again, his voice is quieter. More controlled.
“The note. You really never saw it?”
“Never.”
“And you have no idea how it ended up on your desk?”
“I have theories. Marcella has access to my study, she’s been in and out for family business since we were teenagers. She could have planted it easily.”
I stay very still by the door, watching Max lay it out, waiting for the tell that means he’s lying. It never comes.
“Why would she plant a note incriminating herself?”
“She gambled that Cat would run quietly rather than bring the paper to either of us. She was right about the running. She was wrong to think that meant the evidence would disappear.”
“That’s a dangerous gamble.”
“And she was getting impatient. I mistook that for harmless jealousy. Another thing I got wrong.”
Enzo turns to face him. “And the affair? The one my sister believed was happening between you two?”
“There is no affair.” Max’s voice is flat, absolute. “There never was. I have never touched Marcella Greco. Not once. Not ever. Whatever she told Cat was designed to make the note believable, to make Cat think I’d chosen Marcella over her.”
“She told me you did.” I hear myself speak before I’ve decided to. “The day before the christening. She told me you call her at 2 a.m., that you have dinner together when you’re in Chicago, that you tell her everything-”
“Everything meaning what?” Enzo asks.
“Exit conditions,” I say, the memory still bitter. “Failure to produce an heir within two years. Conduct unbecoming of a donna. Evidence of divided loyalties. She said Max told her everything, that they discussed dissolving the marriage over dinner in Chicago.”
“The grounds for requesting a hearing are real,” Max says quietly. “But I never discussed them with Marcella. I never discussed them with anyone outside the original signatories.”
“Sergio was Aldo’s second,” Enzo says. “He had access to the original alliance papers.”
“And he’d have every reason to feed them to his daughter.” Max’s jaw tightens. “To make her lies believable. To make Cat think I’d chosen Marcella as a confidante.”
“She left out the part where both families have to agree,” Enzo says. “And I let the alliance meetings keep being postponed while she scared you with half a document. That stops now.”
Max meets my eyes, and I see something there that might be desperation. “Cat, I swear to you. I’ve never wanted anyone but you.”
“Then why did it feel true?” The words come out raw, wounded. “Why did it feel like she knew things about you that I didn’t? Why did it feel like she had a piece of you I could never reach?”
“Because that’s what she wanted you to feel.
Because she’s been studying us since the engagement, looking for cracks, figuring out exactly how to break us apart.
And she succeeded.” His voice cracks. “She succeeded, Cat. She found the weakness and she exploited it, and I didn’t see it coming because I was too busy fighting a war to notice my own marriage crumbling. ”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
“I know.”
“I’m not-” I stop, take a breath, try again. “I can’t just forgive you because you say the right words now. You made me feel worthless. Shitty. Disposable. For months, Max. Months of feeling like I was nothing to you.”
“I know.”
“That doesn’t just go away because you explained your reasons. That doesn’t just disappear because I understand the strategy now.”
“I’m not asking it to.”
“Then what are you asking?”
He’s quiet for a moment. Then: “I’m asking for time. To prove that I can be different. To show you that I meant what I said, no more secrets, no more theater, no more deciding what you can handle without asking first.”
“And if I can’t forgive you? Even with time?”
“Then at least you’ll know the truth. At least you won’t spend the rest of your life believing you weren’t loved.”
Enzo is watching us with an expression I can’t read, something between pity and calculation, the look of a don assessing the strategic landscape.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he says finally. “The coup needs to be dealt with. Sergio and his faction can’t be allowed to keep building power.”
“Agreed,” Max says.
“Nico’s already inside. He can feed us information, help us identify the key players.”
“Agreed.”
“And we’ll need Romano muscle backing you up. Your own people are compromised; you can’t trust them until the coup is crushed.”
“Also agreed.”
“Good.” Enzo crosses his arms. “Now, for the two of you.”
“Enzo-” I start.
“Neither of you goes near the fire.”
“What?”
“You heard me. You’re pregnant, Cat. And you-” He jabs a finger at Max. “You’re compromised. Half your own family wants you dead. Neither of you can be anywhere near the actual fighting.”
“This is my war,” Max says. “I can’t just-”
“You can and you will.” Enzo’s voice leaves no room for argument.
“My niece or nephew will not open its eyes to a graveyard. Do you understand me? That baby is the first child of the alliance, the symbol of everything we’ve been building.
If something happens to either of you before it’s born, everything we’ve sacrificed will have been for nothing. ”
“Where are we supposed to go?” I ask. “Every property either family owns is a known address. If Sergio’s people are looking for us-”
“They won’t find you.” Max’s voice is quiet, thoughtful. “I know a place.”
“What place?”
“Nonna Vittoria’s farm.”
My heart stops.
“What?”
“The farm. Upstate, in the hills. It’s held through a company with no family name on it. Finding the address isn’t impossible, but nobody should know we’re going there. Enzo, I want your own men watching the road.”
“Max, that place is a ruin.” My voice comes out strangled. “It’s been rotting since Nonna died. I haven’t been there since I was twelve. There’s nothing left but ghosts and falling-down walls.”
“It isn’t.”
“What do you mean, it isn’t?”
He looks at me, and something in his expression makes my chest tighten.
“It isn’t a ruin, Cat. Not anymore.”