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Ifeel Caterina’s gaze on my profile, and I take a deep breath, calming my overwhelming need to tell her to fucking stop. My fingers tighten against the soft leather feel of the steering wheel resting against my palm. My knuckles whiten, and I release the wheel before Caterina can see the open show of irritation. She’d probably cry, and I do not have the coping mechanisms for an event that uncomfortable.
I shouldn’t have volunteered for this job. Any soldier could’ve run this fucking errand for Lorenzo. But he’s been understandably stressed. He lost a capo and two soldiers in the aftermath of his wife’s maternity becoming common knowledge. Not that any of them were anything but leeches and snakes. The family is better off without them. I know it, and Lorenzo knows it, but it doesn’t ease the shitstorm that circles the organization when an event like this happens in-house. He’s doing damage control, and delivering Caterina Rossi to Chicago was a headache I could take off his hands.
It was entirely selfish. I have my reasons for wanting to be in Chicago, none of which Lorenzo needs to be aware of. They’re recreational, after all.
Caterina sighs.
“Stop it.”
I should have forced the issue and made her sit in the back seat when we picked up the car at the airport. That way, I could ignore her incessant staring and the exaggerated sighs she threw out for attention.
“Stop what?”
My eyes close in irritation. “Cat,” I warn.
I tolerate Caterina, and I tolerate very few people in this world. She’s sweet, and I’d likely feel bad for her current situation if I had any emotional intelligence. Not adult enough to buy a beer in a bar but old enough to be delivered to Chicago like a fucking present for an incarcerated man who won’t likely be released for another six months. She’s leaving her family and friends behind, so she’ll have no one.
“I can’t believe Lorenzo agreed to this.”
Before I can stop myself, I say, “It was Vincent’s idea.”
“What?” she screeches.
Annoyance claws its way up my spine.
“The family is business, Caterina.” My tone turns harsh. “You know that. Bianchi is in prison, so you’ll be able to find your feet before he’s released. This is a good situation.”
“A good situation?”
She doesn’t expect a response, so I don’t give her one. I’ve spoken more words in this fifteen-minute car trip than I did the entirety of last week. I’m exhausted. I don’t do drama. I do my job, and I do it well. The stray threads of strained relationships, hurt feelings, and perceived wrongdoings are too much for my mind to handle.
“Wait until Bianca finds out her husband orchestrated this nightmare.”
“What difference does it make if you’re in Chicago now or in six months?”
“My friends, my family.”
“You’ll make new friends, and you can talk to your family on this invention called the telephone.”
She pulls out a book from her handbag and pretends to read for all of three seconds before slamming it shut again. “It’s all well and good for you because you’re a man. You couldn’t possibly understand.”
“Did you not witness Leonardo’s fall into despair when Lorenzo and Vincent pushed him to marry Gabriella? We’re the same, Caterina.”
She crosses her arms over her chest.
“How do you plan on avoiding a situation like this for yourself, then?”
“I aim to be indispensable enough in my work that forcing me into marriage would only disadvantage Lorenzo. I want to save myself the fucking headache of the whole affair.”
“That is why we arenotthe same and will never be the same. You have that luxury, Diego. The only thing I have to offer the family is my virginity.”
I laugh, enjoying this side of her. She usually stands quietly with her sister. She has naivety painted on her rosy cheeks and in her doe eyes. But the soft-spoken Rossi sister has a fiery side, and I hope like fuck Salvatore Bianchi cares enough to discover it.
“You don’t want to be married, ever?” she asks after a beat of silence.
This is what baffles me about human nature. The constant need to fill treasured moments of quiet with noise, with the sound of one’s own voice, with questions I don’t care to answer.
But as much as I could ignore her, knowing she’d eventually give up, I find myself answering. “I would despise the idea that the woman charged with marrying me would be sitting in a car, like you are, on the verge of tears and blaming the world for the family she was born into.”
