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And the blood of a De Luca is the blood of a traitor.
“Elio,” my sister says gently from where she sits at my right. “Your hands.”
I unclench them.
My scars ache today. Burn scars often do. But today they serve as a reminder and a warning.
When I tried to pull my parents out of their burning home, because of the treachery Marco had organized, I had little use for hands that could not survive the flames.
They are even stronger now.
“They’re late,” I whisper to Gia. “The disrespect.”
“They will be late in two minutes,” she says with a disapproving smile.
My eyes fixate on the door.
Caterina will walk through that door. Any minute now.
Caterina.
Not Cat.
She was Cat when she was mine.
Now, she is Caterina De Luca.
And I can never forget that.
Dark shapes cloud the window and the door creaks open.
It is strange, seeing someone you once knew so well, after many years apart. My instinct is to wonder.
When Marco steps inside, I wonder what it is about his face that makes it look so much more severe than my friend’s. I wonder about the way his hair looks like it’s graying slightly at the sides, where mine is not yet to that point.
I wonder about the look his ice-blue eyes shoot me, in such a contrast to his dark face.
I resist the urge to care about what put that darkness in him. We work in the same business; I can imagine any number of horrors that might have befallen him to give him such a look.
I hope they all did. And I hope he suffered.
There are more brothers who arrive. One taller, more angled. He must be Dino, the one who runs the dock portion of their sad and shriveled empire.
He has the look of a caged wolf; his beard is rough and his eyes are golden as he glares at me. I welcome the challenge he offers, and I stare back, refusing to acknowledge him and the way he shifts on his feet in the corner of the room.
Another brother, this one who looks the most thoroughly Italian, comes in next. I hear my sister Gia breathe in slightly, so I know this is Sal, the one she called handsome.
I will destroy his face if he so much as looks Gia’s way.
Handsome he will no longer be.
He lingers, and there’s an emotion in his eyes that feels different than the other brothers. Protective, definitely. It appears that he has a stronger protest to this union than Marco or Dino, which would make sense.
By all accounts, he is the closest to Caterina, and will be the biggest challenge because of that investment.
I stare back. His dark eyes are almost black in the light, and he has a reptilian stare that makes the skin on the back of my neck prickle.
He will be one to watch for. I make the note to myself, that Sal is the brother who would come for me first, when they figure out what I have done with their sister.
