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But for my sister, I will pretend. “I won’t fuck it up.”
“Seriously. Don’t even think about being the absolute asshole I know you want to be right now.”
“Gia. I am calm. I am collected. Let me through.”
She raises her eyebrows but moves aside.
Caterina is sitting on the couch near my window. She’s calmer, but her face is still stained with tears. She is beautiful still, but her beauty is less elegant now, and more haunting.
Her grief and fear are plain on her face, and she looks at Gia like she’s been given a lifeline in an ocean, one that is circling with sharks.
I am definitely the shark. This is even more evident when Caterina looks at me and her eyes widen with fear.
I do not acknowledge the twinge of guilt that tugs at my chest.
“Caterina,” I say as calm as I can.
Still, she flinches.
Less of an asshole,Gia had said.
“May I sit?”
She regards me warily for a moment, then nods.
I pull up the office chair and sit next to her. For a minute, we’re quiet.
Then, I speak.
“I will not ask you why you hid this child from me. I will not ask for a relationship that I have not been given. But Caterina, this betrayal… it is deep. It is personal.”
“I don’t need you to be part of her life,” she whispers. “I just want to find out if she’s okay.”
I turn to look at her. “Did you think that I would not try to be part of her life?”
Caterina shrugs. “I don’t know. Men don’t typically want to be fathers, and given the fact that we’re… us… I didn’t think that you would be particularly excited about this.”
My mouth opens, then closes.
“I just want to be left alone,” Caterina whispers.
The words sting.
I move to business. “Why is she in Shamong?”
“She’s staying with a relative while I… am here with you.”
I frown. “Was the arrangement meant to be permanent?”
Caterina shrugs. “It was meant to work for now.”
I snort. Well, at least she’s being honest. “The jet is being fueled. Nico, my second, is driving to Shamong right now. He will investigate the fire, and then he will come to meet us at the airport, and if it is her…”
My voice trails off.
Will I be able to comfort Caterina if the bodies in the rubble include her daughter?
Will I grieve the child I never knew, the possibility of a future that was ripped away from me right as I discovered it?
