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I had automatically assumed drugs.
“Does Dino have a wife? A lover?” Or a child, is the question I don’t ask.
The way he reacted makes me wonder if either possibility could exist.
Caterina frowns. “Not that I’m aware of.”
“Could he?”
She blinks, as though the information is something she had never considered. “I mean. He would have hidden it from all of us. And Dino’s not exactly great with secrets.”
“How so?”
She sighs. “When he was fifteen, Marco got caught sneaking out to go to parties at a house in Jersey. Some girl he met online, and he was obsessed with her.
“He got caught because Dino found him, and he made Dino swear that he would never tell a soul.
“But even though Dino didn’t want to tell, he’s not exactly subtle. His face does this thing when he’s trying to keep a secret, and it’s really easy to tell when he’s got something he wants to say.
“Then, it only takes one good push to get him to spill. As soon as my mom saw Dino that morning, she asked him one question, not even related to the night before, and he cracked instantly.”
I nod, considering her story. The Dino currently suffering in my downstairs room is not, by any means, easy to crack.
I kind of see what she’s saying about the face, though. Through Dino’s pain, it’s clear to me that he does have something he wants to say. “And he was how old at that time?”
Caterina scrunches her face up. “Thirteen?”
“Is it possible that, in the years since, Dino has changed?”
She blinks. “Well. Yeah. I guess.”
It’s my turn to sigh. “Gia and I do not experience this as much since we are twins, and we talk more amongst ourselves than others, but I have noticed that with siblings, sometimes people have a difficult time letting go of the person they once were in favor of the person they are now.
“It is possible that Dino relied on this concept of himself as the ‘one who can’t keep a secret’ to, in fact, keep secrets.”
“So you think he had someone important to us? That he didn’t want to share?” her face darkens. “Why wouldn’t he want to tell us about someone, especially if he cared about them?”
I glance at him. “Do you think Marco would have accepted the fact that one of his brothers was, for all intents and purposes, going rogue?”
“They’re brothers. It’s not like Marco is a dictator,” she snorts.
My eyebrows arch. “Caterina. I am under no delusions that I am viewed as a dictator. I am certain that Marco is seen the same.” I know this because it’s something our fathers prepared us for.
Marco and I used to be friends, once. We used to be people who felt the same way about the world.
Because the world had put us in the same position.
She opens her mouth to speak again, then shuts it. She glares at me. “Okay. That’s fair, I guess. But I still don’t know why Dino would have kept someone from us. The whole point of being a family is that you can keep each other safe. We could have kept whoever it is safe.”
I still.
“Maybe they did not know of Dino’s true profession,” I offer.
Caterina blinks. “Oh.”
The explanation has merit. One of the reasons that Caterina was so easily able to hide from me was that she knew of the lifestyle. She knew its ins and outs, and while she may not have liked hiding as she did, she knew how to hide.
She knew who she was hiding from.
