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Gia’s laughter is as loud as a hyena in my ear.
“What did you say?” I growl.
Calm, collected, Caterina blinks at me. “A tantrum. Luna just threw one. And so did you. So do you always get your way when you throw a tantrum?”
“He does!” Gia snort laughs, practically wiping tears from her eyes. “Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph, he always does!”
“I do not throw tantrums!” I snap at her, folding my arms.
This does nothing except make Gia laugh harder. “They even look alike!”
I glance back at my child, whose arms are folded…
Exactly like mine.
I put my hands by my sides. “She can swim however she wants,” I growl.
Caterina sighs. “Elio, life is hard. Sometimes, things will happen that won’t go her way. She needs to have the skills to handle it when that happens. Which means that she should not get everything she wants. Especially if, in the long run, it’s something that would be better for her.
“Learning to swim is a better life skill than learning to rely on a hundred bodyguards to keep you from drowning.”
“She is my child,” I hiss. “She will never encounter a situation that won’t go her way.”
“It doesn’t matter how much you coddle her. How much you treat her like a princess, Elio,” Caterina says softly. “There will be something that doesn’t go her way. Trust me,” she adds in an even lower voice.
She turns. “When you’re ready to talk, I’m ready to listen,” Caterina calls to Luna.
Luna, who is more my daughter than I realized, huffs.
There’s a long silence on the plane. It’s long enough for me to realize three things.
One, I was nowhere close to being a parent. My mind did not work the way that Caterina’s did.
Two, Caterina’s words felt personal. Like she was talking from experience. I guess with three brothers, it’s always possible that she herself had been a little coddled growing up.
And three, which felt most important of all, Caterina had used my name.
And I liked it.
11
CATERINA
I shouldn’t have been surprisedthat, instead of going back to Florida, Elio was flying us to Italy.
If I were him, I would do the same thing.
For one, the Rossi business and mafia empire is based out of Italy. He has more soldiers there, more lieutenants, more capos, and generally more capability to batten down the hatches against whoever came after Luna and Nonna Mia.
Second, I told Marco on the phone that I had been held in Naples, Florida, prior to this. I had no doubt that Elio had many such properties squirreled away in the States, but with the addition of Luna, I had gone from being a hostage to…
Something else.
Broodmare, maybe?
I nearly barked out a harsh laugh at the thought. I hadn’t risen much in Elio’s estimation, and he clearly didn’t trust me still (hence why we were flying into his home turf) but I could see that he had designated some tasks to me.
Such as handling tantrums.
