by Bethany-Kris
“Shame,” Cara murmured.
“Sorry my father wasted your time.”
“Dante wasted nothing, Catherine. It’s you who is wasting my time. Never blame others for problems you cause or your own shortcomings; that isn’t any way to fix something that is wrong.”
Ouch.
“Why would my father call you to come here and talk to me? Why not someone from the city?”
Cara smiled. “Would an answer entice you to get up off the floor?”
“Not really.”
“How long have you been down there?”
Catherine had to think about that one. “Last night around ten. My room was too quiet.”
“Have you slept at all?”
“I don’t like the things I dream.”
Wordlessly, Cara moved from the couch, kicked off her heels, and rested down on the rug alongside Catherine. The woman didn’t turn to look at her, but rather, stared at the ceiling, too.
“Your father called me,” Cara said, “because you are a special case, and I am a special woman.”
“How so?”
“I may understand whatever your situation is better than someone else might. I also may have an inside look at what your life has been like up until this moment, given where you come from, and where I came from. You may not feel as though you can talk openly with someone else about your family and the things in your life as you can with me.”
Catherine frowned.
She was doing that a lot lately.
That was … when she did anything at all.
“Why is that?”
“My husband is a lot like your father,” Cara said. “Involved with things that put us women into situations where outsiders are not as welcome, and our life is not up for discussion. I grew up in a famiglia much like yours with my twin sister and older brother. You may know my brother, actually. I know he occasionally has meetings or dinners with your father and his brothers. Does Tommas Rossi ring any bells?”
Catherine stilled.
Tommas Rossi was the boss of the Chicago Outfit. An Italian-based, criminal organization that was much like the one Catherine’s father controlled in New York.
“And your husband is also like my father?” Catherine asked.
“Gian is, although a bit more French, I would say.”
Catherine nodded to herself.
“Now does it make more sense why I would be the one to come?” Cara asked.
“I suppose.”
“You’ve had a rough couple of months, haven’t you?”
Catherine let out a shaky exhale. “You could say that.”
“You told me they have the house on lockdown, and you can’t leave.”
“I would go the beach,” Catherine murmured. “If they let me leave, that’s where I would go.”
“Why?”
“Better memories.”
“I see,” Cara said.
“I like the floor because they don’t ask me questions when I’m like this. They don’t hover, or stay too long. They don’t look at me too hard, or wonder what I’m doing now. They see me here. They don’t know what to do, so they leave. I don’t have to talk, or answer questions, or go back over what happened and why I did it. I don’t have to pretend or lie. The walls have to be built up somehow, right? So I started mine from the ground. Nobody is getting over them now.”
Catherine’s chest had progressively gotten tighter and tighter the longer she spoke. She wasn’t used to doing that lately—talking a lot. Her hands balled into such tight fists that her fingernails dug into the skin of her palms, likely leaving behind crescent shaped marks. She found it was harder to breathe all of the sudden, and despite being on her back on the floor, the room almost tilted.
“Take three breaths,” Cara said softly.
She had a nice voice. Catherine noticed. Soft, caring, and smooth.
Catherine took the breaths.
“Find three things you can see,” Cara said.
The ceiling. A crystal chandelier. The family portrait on the far wall.
“And three things you can smell,” Cara added after a moment.
Cara’s vanilla perfume. The flowery detergent their maid used. Lingering cinnamon and sugar from her mother’s baking.
“Three things you can feel—emotions, not touch, Catherine.”
A black vortex in her heart. Panic. Numbness.
“Three things you can hear, now.”
Cara speaking. A tick-tock of the Grandfather clock. Her own heartbeat.
“Lastly, three things you can touch, please.”
The rug beneath her tickled her neck. Her dress felt a bit too tight around her throat. And her finger swept over the ridged line of a clean scar on her inner, left wrist.
“And how do you feel now?” Cara asked.
Catherine swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. “Better.”
“How often do you get anxiety attacks?”
“Lately? Every day.”
Cara tipped her head to the side, and Catherine met her gaze. “Try that trick when you’re alone and having one. Try it when you’re not alone and having one. It helps to give your mind different things to focus on while reminding your body and brain you are still here.”
“Okay.”
“Would you like to hear my rules for our talks?” Cara asked.
Catherine pursed her lips. “I suppose you won’t care if I say I don’t want to talk, or that you don’t need to come back.”
“Because those are lies, Catherine. You do need to talk, and I will be back.”
“I figured.”
Cara pushed up into a sitting position, and rested into an Indian-style pose. “The rules for me are simple. You can speak about whatever you want, and I expect you to, but you can also trust that nothing you say will ever go beyond you and me.”
“Not even to my mom and dad?”
“Especially not to them,” Cara replied. “That’s up to you to tell them whatever you need or want to, not me. As long as you’re not planning to harm yourself, or someone else, I’ll never say a word. Also, you’ll find no judgement from me. I’m not here to judge you. I’m here to help.”
“And what about the rules for me?”
“No lying. No wasting my time. Simple enough.”
Catherine glanced away when Cara shot a look over her shoulder. “I do that a lot.”
“Hmm?”
“Lie.”
“Not to me, you won’t.”
“You think you can tell the difference?” Catherine asked.
“I think you should not test me where that is concerned,” Cara said frankly. “You see, I sincerely do not want my time wasted, especially when I know there are a dozen more young women just like you that I could be helping in one way or another. Women who are in desperate need, yet, I chose to get on a plane today, and come to you. I chose, out of the dozens of files on my desk, that you would be the young woman I needed to sit with and talk to. But I do have others. So if you plan to make this difficult simply because you can, then maybe my first instinct to come here was wrong. Right now, however, I know you are the one in need of my help. I would like to give that to you.
“Tell me, Catherine,” Cara continued, still calm and soothing in her tone, “about what you might like to get from me being here with you. Say you do decide to talk, and that perhaps I can help. What would you like to walk out of here having gained from this?”
Catherine didn’t even have to think about it.
Not really.
She wanted him—Cross Donati.
That meant she had to … get up off the fucking floor, get better, and figure her goddamn life out. She had to do it alone.
She was a mess.
“I want to be healthy,” Catherine said, “in my head. I’m so tired of it being dark there—it’s always dark. I want to like who I am, and not depend on others to stand me up on my feet when I crash and burn. I want to be okay again. It’s been a long time since I was okay.”
I
have so many people who pushed for this book to be written—rather, Cross and Catherine. It seemed like with every message asking when these two would get their books, the more people piled on the Legacy train. I suppose I can say now they came at their own time, on their own speed. But thank you to every reader who messaged, commented, tweeted and more for these two kids, and their story. You were their biggest champion. Sincerely.
To my editor, Eli … or Elizabeth, depending on who you ask. *winks* I love you, Eli. You are one of my best friends, and I am so lucky to have met you. Thank you for being a part of my journey, and for letting me be a part of yours. And shout out to Mark for all the things he’s helped Eli with in regards to me—see: my pretty gift I still look at every day for The Russian Guns series.
Tracy, Julia, and Elizarey … thank you ladies so much for helping to proof this monster. Your support is everything beautiful and wonderful.
Sasha and Kazy … the first two ladies to get eyes on this book before anyone else. Ladies who got chapters out of order just to let me tease them, who read snippets of what I was writing every single day while I was writing … you are everything that is good and great in my writing world. Every author needs fans and friends like you ladies. Hugs.
Jay Aheer … thank you for the beautiful covers on Always and Revere. I rarely forget how talented you are, but it is still a wonderful thing to be reminded when a cover for me slides into my email with your name on it. You make my words live in art, and thank you for that.
To my sons and my own wild boy—I don’t even know what number novel we are at right now but this has been by far the best, and the toughest, nearly four years of my life. I could not do this without you.
Hugs, and all my love.
Bethany-Kris is a Canadian author, lover of much, and mother to four young sons, one cat, and three dogs. A small town in Eastern Canada where she was born and raised is where she has always called home. With her boys under her feet, a snuggling cat, barking dogs, and a spouse calling over his shoulder, she is nearly always writing something ... when she can find the time.
Find Bethany-Kris at:
Her website www.bethanykris.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bethanykriswrites on her blog at http://www.bethanykris.com/blog or on Twitter - @BethanyKris.
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Guzzi Duet
Unraveled, Book One
Entangled, Book Two
DeLuca Duet
Waste of Worth: Part One
Worth of Waste: Part Two
Standalone Titles
Inflict
Donati Bloodlines
Thin Lies
Thin Lines
Thin Lives
Behind the Bloodlines
The Complete Trilogy
Filthy Marcellos
Antony
Lucian
Giovanni
Dante
Legacy
The Complete Collection
Seasons of Betrayal
Where the Sun Hides
Where the Snow Falls
Where the Wind Whispers
Gun Moll Trilogy
Gun Moll
Gangster Moll
The Chicago War
Deathless & Divided
Reckless & Ruined
Scarless & Sacred
Breathless & Bloodstained
The Complete Series
The Russian Guns
The Arrangement
The Life
The Score
Demyan & Ana
Shattered
The Jersey Vignettes
Find more on Bethany-Kris’s website at www.bethanykris.com.
Copyright © 2017 by Bethany-Kris. All Rights Reserved.
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted material is illegal and punishable by law. No parts of this work may be reproduced, copied, used, or printed without expressed written consent from the publisher/author. Exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in reviews.
eISBN 13: 978-1-988197-38-8
Editor: Elizabeth Peters
Proofreaders: Tracy A., Elizarey, & Julia L.
Cover Design © Jay Aheer from Simply Defined Art
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organizations, corporations, locales and so forth are a product of the author’s imagination, or if real, used fictitiously. Any resemblance to a person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.