23. Cat #2
“Or what? You’ll choose her over your own mother? Over your family? Over everything your father built?” Lucia laughs, a brittle sound. “You’ve been doing that since your marriage. Why stop now?”
“How did you know we were coming here?”
“Does it matter? You’re here now. We can finally have the conversation you’ve been avoiding.”
A door opens behind her.
Marcella walks out like she belongs here, unhurried, perfectly composed, wearing a dress that probably costs more than my entire wardrobe from my bar-tending days.
“Max,” she says, smiling. “It’s been too long.”
The room tips sideways.
“Cat.” Max’s voice is tight. “Get behind me.”
“Oh, don’t be dramatic.” Marcella crosses to stand beside Lucia, two predators sharing territory. “We just want to talk.”
“This is a trap.”
“This is an intervention. There’s a difference.”
I step back, my mind racing. The layout of the house, the exits Nico mentioned, the distance to the car. Max is already reaching for his phone, but Lucia clicks her tongue.
“Bruno made that call with a gun against his wife’s head,” Lucia says. “My household pass got Sergio’s men through the gate after the morning check. Nico is being kept in the back room. Your escort has been sent to the wrong entrance.”
“Nico wouldn’t-”
“Nico believed Bruno. So did you. Neither of you thought to ask who was standing beside him.” She waves a hand dismissively. “This is a family matter. It should stay in the family.”
“Cat isn’t family to you?”
“Cat is a mistake your father made in his desperation for peace.” Lucia’s voice turns venomous. “A Romano girl, carrying the next Moretti heir. It’s an abomination. An insult to everything we’ve worked for.”
“Father wanted the alliance.”
“Your father was dying and sentimental. He didn’t understand what he was giving away.
” She steps closer, and I can see the resemblance now, the same sharp cheekbones, the same cold blue eyes.
“The old guard offered you the crown, Massimo. Everything you wanted, everything you’d earned.
All you had to do was set aside the Romano girl. ”
I remember the restaurant, her untouched glass, the pen she refused to take from me. That contempt was here before the wedding. I just never knew how far she would follow it.
“And I refused.”
“Yes. You refused. Again and again and again.” Lucia’s composure cracks. “Even after she ran. Even after she humiliated you in front of both families. You kept refusing, kept searching, kept choosing her over your own blood.”
“She is my blood now. She’s carrying my child.”
“A child that never should have existed!”
The words echo off the high ceilings. I feel Max’s body go rigid beside me.
“Mother-”
“This war is her fault.” Marcella’s voice cuts in, smooth and reasonable.
“All of it. The faction wouldn’t have formed if not for the alliance.
The old guard wouldn’t have turned against you if you’d just married someone appropriate.
Everything that’s happening, the blood, the chaos, the families turning on each other, it all comes back to her. ”
“The note,” I hear myself say.
Marcella’s attention shifts to me. Her smile widens.
“Excuse me?”
“The note I found. In Max’s study. The one about trying something else after the attack failed.” I force my voice steady. “That was you, wasn’t it? He never wanted me dead. It was just you.”
“Obviously it was me.” Marcella says it like she’s admitting to something mundane. “Someone had to do something. You weren’t leaving, he wasn’t sending you away. I had to give you a reason to run.”
“You made me think my husband wanted to kill me.”
“I made you see the truth. That you don’t belong here, that you never belonged here, that the only thing you’ve ever been is an obstacle.
” Marcella steps closer, her eyes bright with triumph.
“And you did exactly what I wanted. You ran. You disappeared. You gave us months without your interference.”
“But he found me.”
“Yes. Inconvenient.” Her smile doesn’t waver. “But not insurmountable. My father has been waiting a long time for this conversation.”
Headlights sweep across the windows.
More cars, three, four, pulling up the drive. Men getting out, spreading across the property, taking positions.
And walking toward the house, lit by the flickering tiki torches, is a man I recognize from a hundred family events. Silver hair, cold eyes, the bearing of someone who’s spent decades wielding power.
Sergio Greco.
“Massimo.” His voice carries through the open door. “At last. We have so much to discuss.”
Max moves, fast and fluid, putting himself fully between me and the approaching threat. His hand goes to his hip, resting on his holstered gun, but he doesn’t draw, not yet, not with this many weapons pointed our way.
“Stay behind me,” he says quietly.
“Max-”
“Whatever happens, stay behind me.”
Sergio enters the house flanked by two armed men. He surveys the scene with the satisfaction of a hunter who’s cornered his prey.
“You’ve led us on quite a chase,” he says to Max. “But it ends here. Tonight, we settle this like men.”
“There’s nothing to settle.”
“There’s everything to settle. The alliance. Your father’s misguided peace. The future of both families.” Sergio’s eyes slide to me. “And what to do with your troublesome wife.”
I’m backing up as they talk, my brain doing what it always does, calculating, planning, looking for angles. The pergola is visible through the glass doors. The bar with its bottles. The tiki torches burning along the pool’s edge.
An open tin of lamp fuel sits behind the bar, its cap beside it. Whoever lit the torches has not finished clearing up.
Fire.
“I have a question,” I say, and everyone turns to look at me.
“Cat, don’t-”