by L A Cotton
I watched him answer his cell as he walked toward the window.
“What?” he barked, and I flinched.
It was instinct. An old habit that was hard to break.
Matteo lowered his voice to the point where I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but whatever it was, it didn’t look good. His eyes narrowed, his jaw clenched tight as he listened to whoever was on the other end of the line.
“Yeah, okay.” He hung up and came back over to me.
“Is everything okay?”
“I need to go,” he said, barely meeting my gaze as he loomed over me. A wave of dejection crashed over me.
“Oh, okay.”
“You’ll be okay? Luis is right down the hall. Maybe he can come finish off the puzzle with you.”
“Yeah… I’ll be fine.” Disappointment welled inside me. “I’ll see you out.” I went to get up, but Matteo shook his head.
“Don’t worry about it, I can see myself out.”
By the time I got to my feet he was already at the door. “Matteo,” I called, panic rising inside me. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”
“Yeah, it’s nothing you need to worry about.”
My heart sank at the invisible line he was drawing between us.
It wasn’t supposed to hurt because I was supposed to keep him at arm’s length. But he’d clawed his way inside… and more surprisingly, I’d liked it.
I liked how he made me feel.
Except right now. Now our time together felt tainted, wrong somehow.
It felt like a mistake.
“I’ll see you, Caitlin.”
Not Cait.
Not Tink.
Caitlin.
As if he hadn’t been kissing me only minutes ago.
“Matteo,” I blurted out, but he was already gone, the door slamming closed behind him.
I stood there long after the rumble of his car had faded, wondering what had happened to make him leave in such a hurry.
Without even looking at me.
“Caitlin?” Luis rapped on my door. “I’ve made some minestrone, if you want to join me?”
“Just a second.” I swallowed back the tears burning my eyes and slipped into the bathroom.
It had been hours since Matteo had left, and I’d heard nothing. Not a single text.
It shouldn’t have bothered me half as much as it did. After all, I’d been the one who had acted so coolly with him in the beginning.
But something had changed last night when he came for me. At least, I thought it had.
He’d cracked the fortress around my heart and found a way in. And it hadn’t panicked me or paralyzed me with fear. Instead, I’d wanted it.
I’d wanted him.
I’d kissed him for God’s sake and then he’d gotten that call and left in such a hurry he hadn’t even said goodbye, not properly.
I joined Luis at the breakfast counter, smiling weakly when he pushed a bowl of minestrone toward me. “Eat,” he said. “And then you can tell me what has you moping around like someone kicked your puppy.”
“I am not…” I bit my lip. He was right. I was moping, but with good reason.
“Wouldn’t have to do with the way Matteo hauled ass out of here earlier, would it?”
“You saw him leave?”
“Heard him more like.” Luis shrugged. “You know, he’s a good man, Cait. One of the best people I know. If he left suddenly, he had good reason.”
“I wouldn’t know, he didn’t tell me.” My minestrone became mightily interesting as I avoided Luis's questioning gaze.
“This is good,” I added.
“It is, but I don’t think you’ll find any answers at the bottom of the dish.”
I peeked up at him. “You’re awfully chatty today… and nosey.”
“It’s my job to know what’s going on with my marks.” His lips curved with amusement.
“Somehow I find that hard to believe.” I smiled back. “Thank you, for the meal.”
“You’re not alone, Cait. I know it can’t be easy, being stuck here with me, but Arianne and Nicco mean well—”
“Oh no, I don’t think that at all. What they’ve done for me…” I swallowed over the lump in my throat. It was more than anyone else had ever done for me. But it didn’t change the fact that I couldn’t hide out here forever. Eventually, I would have to go back to my life. Wherever that may be.
“They won’t let you fight your battles alone. Of that you can be sure.”
How could I ask that of them though?
Zander DiMarco was one of their business partners; he wouldn’t go quietly. I didn’t expect—or want—them to go to war with him.
Only I couldn’t see a way out.
Not unless I left…
And never looked back.
Chapter 12
Matteo
“Fuck.” I stared down at the dead body, the face barely recognizable. “It’s definitely him?”
“Shaun Demetri. Twenty-six years old. Cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.”
“Thanks, Doc,” Enzo said, nudging me forward. He waited until we were in the hall to say, “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Zander got fed up with chasing her and decided to try and torture it out of him.” Acid washed in my stomach.
When Enzo had called me with the news, I’d been so overcome with fear and anger, I had to get out of the cabin before I did something stupid. Looking back, I probably didn’t handle it the best way, but I couldn’t tell Caitlin, not yet. Not until we confirmed what we already suspected.
DiMarco wasn’t going to let her go—he was going to exhaust every possible option available to him to find her. And eventually, he’d hit the jackpot, and someone would give him the vital piece of information he needed.
That we had her.
“We need to deal with him, and soon,” I muttered, jamming my fingers into my hair and tugging the ends.
“I know, but it’s not that straightforward.”
“What do you mean, it’s not that straightforward? He’s a woman-beating piece of shit. We don’t need to be associated with—”
“Word on the street is he made a deal with Lombardi.”
“What?” I balked. “Lombardi? But they’re not in Rhode Island.”
The Lombardi were a crime family operating out of New Haven, Connecticut. Their boss, Massimo Lombardi, was a real nasty piece of work.
“I don’t know all the details, but Lucino said he got wind of Dominic Cabrioles and Jasper Peshie being at DiMarco’s a few days ago.”
Fuck. Dominic Cabrioles was Massimo Lombardi’s right-hand man. If he was in Providence sniffing around DiMarco’s club, this was bad news.
Bad fucking news.
“When did you find this out?” My teeth ground together.
“Last night.”
“And you didn’t think to call me? Fuck, E, I went there and you—”
“Whoa, cous. Don’t turn this into something it’s not. I didn’t tell you because I knew you were heading there and I thought… no, I knew, you needed time with her without this shitshow hanging over your heads. This is bigger than just Caitlin, Matt. If the Lombardi are involved… it changes everything.”
“What does Nicco say?”
“Nicco’s mind is elsewhere right now.”
Of course it was. Uncle Toni was still in the hospital.
“Does my old man know they’re sniffing around?”
“Lucino told him, yeah.”
I went rigid.
“Relax. He doesn’t know about Caitlin yet.” He released a steady breath. “Uncle Michele is cautious. He doesn’t want to start anything that might cause waves. Besides, he doesn’t know who she is to you. If you told—”
“No, I’m not ready. I don’t even know if she is anything to me.”
Enzo gave me a pointed look. “That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“I don’t mean…” I released a heavy sigh. “I like her, E. More
than like her, but she’s dealing with a lot of stuff, and she still won’t talk about what happened.”
“Does it matter?”
We exited the county morgue and headed for Enzo’s GTO.
“Of course it fucking matters. I don’t want to take advantage of her.” Just like I didn’t want to be her rebound.
When she’d kissed me earlier… fuck, it was like all my dreams come true. It was all I wanted. But then Enzo called, and it was like being doused with a bucket of ice-cold water. A harsh reminder of everything we still had to deal with—things I wasn’t sure Caitlin was ready to face. How could I even think about being with her until she came to terms with everything.
And now her co-worker—her friend—was dead.
It would kill her, knowing DiMarco had hurt him.
I climbed inside the car and buckled up. Enzo slid in a second later, running a hand through his hair. “It would be so fucking easy to go settle this right now,” he said quietly, a deadly edge to his voice. His hands gripped the steering wheel, the blood draining from his knuckles. “I’ve never liked that piece of shit… but we have to be smart. Especially if he’s in bed with the Lombardi.”
“This is a total clusterfuck,” I seethed.
Enzo glanced over at me. “We’ll figure it out. We need to get out of town before DiMarco gets word that we’re sniffing around.” He stepped on the gas.
The coroner had agreed to be discreet for a fee, but his silence wouldn’t withstand torture.
“DiMarco isn’t ballsy enough to start picking off people in positions of authority.”
“No?” My brow lifted. I had a feeling we didn’t know what he was capable of.
“Any word from Nicco?” Enzo asked as I checked my cell.
“Nothing.”
“I keep thinking about what will happen if Uncle T doesn’t pull through…”
“Same,” I confessed. “Nicco is strong.” One of the strongest guys I knew. But losing your father and becoming boss was no easy burden to shoulder.
“I used to dream about the day Nicco stepped up and we became his capos. But I didn’t ever want it to happen like this,” Enzo said.
I relaxed as we sped out of Providence and hit the highway leading back to Verona County.
“You doing okay?”
“Yeah.” I inhaled a deep breath.
“You know why we couldn’t go—”
“I know.” I snapped, the anger I’d fought so hard to contain spilling over.
We were so close to him… so fucking close, and yet, I had to push my need for vengeance away and focus on the task at hand.
All in the name of the Family.
“I think you should talk to your old man,” Enzo said. “If the worst happens and Uncle T… Nicco won’t be in any fit state to lead, not straightaway. Which means all decisions will defer to Uncle Michele. He needs to know about her, Matt. About your relationship with her. This is personal and it affects all of us.”
I scoffed at that. We didn’t have a relationship… did we?
Memories of how good it had felt kissing her invaded my mind, making my body stir to life. She’d been so bold in that moment. I’d caught a glimpse of the girl from last summer. The girl who wasn’t afraid to take what she wanted.
When I didn’t answer, he added, “You know I’m right.”
“Yeah.” I dropped my head back against the headrest.
I could already imagine how that conversation would go. My father was a reasonable man. A good man. A family man. But when he found out we had given safe haven to Caitlin, I had no doubt he would have a thing or two to say about the fallout if DiMarco found out. It wasn’t that he agreed with hurting women—he didn’t, at all—but he would put the Family ahead of emotion. Always.
And when he found out who she was to me—who I wanted her to be—I had no doubt he’d remind me of the Omertà, our code of silence, and what it meant for outsiders.
Caitlin knew who we were. No doubt she had a pretty good idea what we did and how we did it. My father wouldn’t look too kindly on a woman who now had valuable information about the Marchetti and at least one of their residences.
Shit.
Maybe I should have told him sooner.
“What?” Enzo broke the thick silence.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have brought her back to Verona.”
“Do you really believe that? Because I’m not buying it for a second.”
“My old man isn’t going to like it.”
“Then you’d better convince him that you’re serious about her.”
“What?” My brows pinched.
“If he thinks you’re… together, then he can’t exactly toss her to the wolves, can he?”
“I can’t ask her to play pretend just to pacify my old man.” Besides, it would be torture when I wanted the real thing.
“I’ll come clean, but I’m not going to ask her to pretend… DiMarco will kill her if she goes back. We had no choice but to offer her a safe haven.”
My father wasn’t a monster. He would understand, even if he didn’t like it.
“Are you going to text her or just stare at your phone the whole ride back?”
“Honestly, I don’t know what to say.” Her friend was dead. Tortured at the hands of DiMarco or his men.
“He already knew about the hospital, so there isn’t much else Shaun could have told him.”
“Somehow I don’t think she’ll see that as any kind of silver lining.”
“She deserves to know,” he said.
“And I’ll tell her, I will.” I just didn’t know how. I already had to fix things after the way I hightailed it out of there this morning. Now I had to figure out how to tell her about Shaun.
“She was just starting to warm up to me,” I said wearily. “But this… this will ruin her.”
“You don’t know that. She’s stronger than she looks, Matt.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“It’s in her eyes, cous. She’s a fighter.”
I didn’t like to think about what had made her that way, but I couldn’t deny the merit in his words. Caitlin had hinted at something similar herself.
“I still can’t believe you left Bella and Alessia with Jay last night. I bet he loved that.”
“He had it handled.”
“Like you gave him any choice.” Enzo chuckled.
A pang of guilt went through me. He had a point—I’d just up and left them with Jay. Anything could have happened. But all I’d been able to think about was getting to Caitlin.
She blinded me to everything else, and that was a dangerous thing. Because when you were distracted—as I had been since she appeared in my life again—you dropped your guard.
The scenery turned familiar and the ache in my chest abated slightly. Caitlin was safe here. Not even someone as arrogant as DiMarco would be stupid enough to come into the heart of Marchetti territory and try to take her from us.
From me.
I left Enzo to go check in on Nicco and Arianne, and I headed to my parents’ house. He was right—I needed to talk to my father. And then, when I’d ironed things out with him, I needed to go to the cabin and break the news to Caitlin about Shaun.
“Ah, Matteo,” Dad said as I entered the kitchen. “I was wondering when you’d show up. Your sister said some interesting things this morning.”
“She did?” My chest tightened.
“Something about you leaving late last night to go see a woman.” His brow lifted as he shook out his newspaper.
“I… we need to talk.”
“Sit,” he commanded. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“There’s something you should know.”
He lowered the newspaper. “Go on.”
“When we drove out to see DiMarco, we got… intercepted.”
“Yes, Nora was sick, was she not?”
“That’s not entirely what happened.”
His brows bunched together. “I’m listening.�
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“Enzo got a call from the hospital down in Pawtucket. He’d given his number to one of DiMarco’s girls, he was concerned that DiMarco was hurting her.”
“I see. And you went to check in on her?”
I nodded, growing hot all over. “I… I recognized her. She and I… we had a thing last summer.”
“A thing—” Realization dawned in his eyes. “And how serious was this thing?”
“It was one night.” I rubbed a hand over my face. “But I wanted it to be more.”
“And she’s one of DiMarco’s dancers you say?”
“We suspect she’s more than that to him. He… he hurt her, badly, and her friend—a guy that works at the club—got her out. But she said she couldn’t go back for fear of what DiMarco would do.”
My old man went as stiff as a board. “What did you do, figlio mio?”
“We… fuck.” I expelled a long breath. “We brought her back to Verona County with us. She’s at the family cabin with Luis.”
“Sei proprio un coglione! What the hell were you thinking?” he seethed, palm flat against the table.
“You didn’t see her lying there, broken and bruised at the hands of that… that fucker.”
“But bringing her here? Do you have any idea what you might have started? And Enzo went along with this?”
“We agreed—”
“Matteo,” he tsked. “Did either of you stop to consider what happens if DiMarco finds out we’re harboring his—”
“Don’t.” The word rumbled in my chest. “She is not his.”
His eyes flashed with understanding. “You feel for the woman?”
“I do.” I lifted my chin in defiance. “And sending her back to DiMarco is not an option.”
Tension radiated between us and then I added, “He killed the bartender who helped her.”
“Che diavolo!”
“It’s where we went earlier. We got a heads up from Lucino that the bartender had been reported missing. He turned up dead.”
“You saw the body?”
I nodded. “He was pretty messed up. The official report says he slipped down his stairwell and sustained blunt force trauma to his head.”
“Merda!” My father’s usual composed façade cracked slightly. “This is the last thing we need right now.”