Of Princes and Promises

by Sandhya Menon

  Grey grunted cryptically, but then Jaya nudged him and raised her eyebrows. After a moment, he cleared his throat. “What I mean to say is, it’s all right. We all misstep sometimes.”

  Jaya smiled. “And it’s nice when people forgive us for our missteps.” She laid her head on Grey’s chest.

  DE stuck her tongue out at Rahul. “Fine. I’ll forgive you too. But only because RC is so hot.”

  Leo laughed. “He was, that.” Sam nodded her agreement. There were dark circles under her eyes; obviously, she’d been worried sick about Leo.

  Rahul felt a wave of regret again, at his selfishness. Lychee-guava cake. Rahul would never have missed that, but RC’s head was too full of thoughts about his own life to make space for anyone else’s.

  DE tore open a packet of lurid green hospital Jell-O, which somehow made her bright red hair stand out even more in the sterile hospital room. “So how did you even make such a complete transformation? Was it all makeup? Because you could totally have your own YouTube channel if that’s the case.”

  “I don’t know. It’s all so weird,” Rahul said, frowning. “There’s a shop in Rosetta that Caterina visits a lot, and the owner gave me this gel that was supposed to have magical properties. But the guy, he’s… I don’t know, there’s definitely something weird going on with him. I’m actually really worried about Caterina.” He filled them in on everything he knew, how Oliver had asked him all those invasive questions about Caterina, how he’d seen her disappearing with Mia and how he’d found out Mia was dating Oliver, and how Rahul couldn’t track Caterina down. “I don’t know what else—”

  His phone rang, interrupting him. Caterina’s name popped up on the display. “Oh shit, it’s her.” He swiped to answer the call and held the phone up to his ear. “Hello?”

  Rahul frowned; he couldn’t hear Caterina. But he could hear a familiar female voice in the background speaking intensely, almost on the verge of shouting but not quite. Looking around at his friends, he motioned for them to be quiet and hit the speakerphone button.

  CATERINA

  She hoped Rahul understood what she was trying to do. She’d inched her pinkie toward her phone as Mia paced and talked, her words vicious and angry as a welt. Very carefully, Caterina had swiped to her contacts and pressed “call” on Rahul’s name. That was all she had.

  “You’ve got your head so far up your own ass,” Mia was saying, “that you didn’t even think twice when I sent Pietro away. You just expected me to do your bidding. Let loyal Mia tell him to go get Ava and Heather from the party. Let loyal Mia go tell Harper we’re leaving. Let loyal Mia speak to my boyfriend. And yet I barely told you anything about myself. I barely shared a word about who I was or what was important to me. Did you notice?” She threw up her hands. “Of course not. Why would you? You’re Caterina LaValle.” She said Caterina’s name like it was the vilest, most disgusting thing she could think of. “It’s always about the LaValles. No one else exists. Well, I exist. And you have no choice but to acknowledge me now. You have no choice but to accept that the LaValles are not as powerful or as perfect as they want the world to think they are. Soon your entire social circle will know that.”

  And she ranted on.

  RAHUL

  Rahul hit “mute” on his phone and stood. “I’m getting Caterina out of there.”

  DE raised an eyebrow while she ate the last of her—Leo’s—Jell-O. “How are you going to do that, exactly? You said you didn’t know where she was.”

  Rahul gestured to his phone, trying to tamp down on impatience while he answered her question. But every moment he spent here was a moment he wasn’t at Caterina’s side. She was obviously in trouble, and he needed to get to her. Right now. “That’s Mia speaking. She said Pietro took them somewhere, so I just need to find Pietro and he’ll tell me where to go.”

  “How will you know where Pietro is?” Leo asked, looking concerned.

  “He lives in an apartment near school. I’ve heard Caterina talk about it before.”

  Grey stood. “I’ll go with you.”

  “As will I,” Jaya said, standing too.

  “Me too.” DE set down the empty Jell-O container and hopped off the other side of the bed.

  “Well, I will have to stay here,” Leo said mournfully, gesturing to his IV. “But take my keys and use my SUV.”

  “I’m staying with you,” Sam said, gently patting his arm. She walked to his coat, which was draped on a chair in the corner, pulled out his keys, and handed them to Rahul.

  “I am sorry to miss out on the action, but you go kick that Mia’s le cul if you need to,” Leo said.

  Rahul nodded. “Thanks, Leo. I owe you.” Then, followed by most of his friends, he headed out of the room and down the hall at a run.

  * * *

  Generally, Rahul had a healthy respect for the road and for the three-ton tubes of metal that sped along it, piloted by deeply flawed, easily distracted, illogical, overly emotional humans. But tonight he was fully embracing that deeply flawed, easily distracted, illogical, overly emotional side of him as he sped down the interstate toward Rosetta. Tonight Caterina needed him.

  “Whoa there, buddy,” DE said, leaning over from the passenger seat to check the speedometer of Leo’s black Range Rover. “You wanna slow down a bit?”

  “I’m only going eighty-five, and the speed limit’s seventy-five,” Rahul answered, keeping his eyes on the road. He still wanted to get there alive. “Don’t worry. I have excellent focus.”

  He thought he heard Grey chuckle from the roomy back seat. Then he said, “Mia’s still just raving. Caterina seems to be asking questions to keep her talking. Nothing new.”

  Rahul clenched his teeth. He’d given his cell phone to Grey to monitor, so that he wouldn’t be even more distracted than he already was. Mia raving might be the status quo, but he’d still prefer Caterina not to be in the same room as that freak. At least, not without him there to protect her.

  * * *

  It was obvious that Pietro had been asleep, though he tried to assure the group of teenagers at his doorstep that that was not the case. “I was watching TV,” he insisted, his voice husky and his hair sticking up in twenty-eight different directions. As if to underscore his point, a laugh track from a TV in the small living room behind him reached their ears. “What is happening?” He squinted around at them all. “Where is Caterina?”

  Rahul took a breath. “That’s what I want to know. I think she’s in trouble, Pietro.”

  * * *

  After Rahul had given him a quick rundown on what was going on, Pietro threw on a coat and some boots and insisted on coming along. “I will not let that stronza hurt little Miss Caterina,” he kept saying firmly, closing the door behind him with a final click and brushing past them all and into the parking lot. “I am coming.”

  He got into Caterina’s SUV and drove in front of Rahul, who was secretly seething at the residential speed limits in town. But he’d listened in on Caterina’s conversation with Mia, and it appeared they were still talking. Mia hadn’t hurt her, as far as he could tell.

  Please let Caterina be unhurt.

  Finally, finally, when Rahul thought he’d go mad, Pietro pulled the SUV over at the side of a small street lined with even smaller apartment buildings, and Rahul followed suit. The balconies, when the apartments had them, were empty, and the windows were mostly bereft of any decorations except institutional blinds. Rahul got the sense that this was a place where people came when they were passing through to something else—a place of transition, of ghosts.

  Pietro got out of Caterina’s SUV, and, putting the Range Rover into park, Rahul flung his door open and rushed over to him.

  “It’s this one.” Pietro lumbered toward the ground floor apartment on the left, its outside painted a sickly green color. The blinds were drawn, but Rahul thought he could see movement beyond them.

  “Thanks, Pietro. I got this.” Without waiting for a response, Rahul raced past him, up the driv
e.

  CHAPTER 23

  CATERINA

  “All I wanted, my entire life, was to know where I came from,” Mia was saying, her eyes burning with anger and hatred. “I wanted to know who I was. That’s not too much to ask. Every child should know that. And instead, I got lies and evasions and a father who refused to acknowledge my existence. Do you know what that felt like?”

  Caterina thought about it. She thought about all the presents her father bought her to show her he was thinking about her when she was away at school. She thought about the vacations they’d taken together. The care he’d used when he’d first told her that her mother had died when Caterina was very young. The way he’d promised he’d never let her feel the loss of a mother because he would be both parents to her.

  He’d fulfilled that promise. Never once had Caterina missed having a mother; never once had she questioned her identity or who she was. She was Donati LaValle’s daughter, Caterina LaValle: That was the quintessential truth she’d known since she was old enough to form an identity. It was inscribed in indelible gold ink on her bones. It was part of her marrow.

  What might it have been like if she’d been raised in shadow, in doubt? Without her father telling her to be proud of who she was, that she was meant to rule the world? What might she have twisted and broken into? Someone like Mia, perhaps?

  She opened her mouth to say something—she wasn’t sure what yet—when there was a tremendous bang and the front door flew open. Caterina jumped, her hand flying to her throat.

  Mia spun around, her eyes narrowed, her cheeks still pink with emotion. There, on the other side, with his foot up in the air, was Rahul.

  “What are you doing?” Mia spat.

  “Move.” Rahul brushed past her and ran to Caterina, who felt a swell of relief so sharp, it made her eyes water. He knelt before her, looking her over, his eyes wide in fear and concern. “Are you okay?” He put his hands to her cheeks and looked into her eyes. “Did she hurt you?”

  Not trusting her voice, Caterina just shook her head. He had come. He had come for her. And then there was a trail of people rushing into Mia’s tiny apartment: Grey and Jaya and DE and even Pietro. They all regarded her with anxious eyes.

  Rahul put his arm around Caterina’s shoulder as she stood, shaky and unsteady on her feet as the adrenaline receded. She was safe now. “We’re leaving now,” he said to Mia, his voice authoritative and firm, so reminiscent of RC. “And I’m calling the police.”

  Mia smirked at him. “I didn’t do anything criminal.”

  “I’m pretty sure we can make a case for kidnapping,” Rahul retorted, a muscle jumping in his jaw. He was angry like Caterina had never seen him, angry on her behalf. The thought made her heart squeeze in her chest. “And a case for extortion with your boyfriend, Oliver.”

  “I am calling the police right now.” Pietro fished his cell phone from the pocket of what looked like his pajamas.

  “Wait.” Caterina held up a hand, and Pietro looked at her, confused. “Don’t do that.”

  Rahul frowned. “Caterina, we need to make sure she’s put away.”

  Caterina looked at Mia, at the anger in her eyes, in the set of her jaw, the way she held herself, like a feral, cornered cat, coiled to strike. “No,” she said softly, gazing into her sister’s eyes and seeing shades of herself and her father there. “No, we don’t.”

  Mia looked a little unsettled, as if any smidgen of kindness was reason for suspicion. “Why? What do you want?”

  Caterina walked forward, toward Mia, and felt Rahul’s arm slipping off her shoulder. She wanted it back, desperately. But she had things to say. “When you first began talking about who you were and how you’d tracked me down, I felt nothing but a sense of violation… and anger. A lot of anger. I don’t think either of those feelings is misplaced. What you’ve done is… reprehensible.” Mia’s face hardened at her words. “But the more I listened to you,” Caterina continued, “the more I realized how much pain you were carrying around with you everywhere you went. What my father did to you—that’s also reprehensible. That’s also a violation, of the sacred pact between parent and child.” She sighed, running a hand through her hair. “At first I didn’t want to believe you. Maybe you were lying. Maybe this was all some big scam. But even in my heart, I knew what you were saying was true. The pictures of you as a kid—you look exactly like me, except for a slightly different nose and hair a slightly lighter shade of brown. And I could tell from the force of your anger that you weren’t lying. You didn’t want money, like you said. You say you want to expose me as pathetic and sad and deceitful to the magazines. You want to tell them about my father and what he did to you. But I think deep down? All you want is to be seen.

  “I’ve spent my entire life being seen. I had to grow up under the pressure of an audience who appeared to love me, but who, I knew, would turn on me in an instant if I made a mistake. It made me grow a thick outer shell. I learned—from my father, from my own life experience, from the media—to never trust anyone. To never show anyone how I truly feel.” She glanced at Rahul and then back to Mia. “But every moment of my life that has been hard or has broken my heart has come because of my inability and unwillingness to share myself with other people.” She took a breath. “So I’m trying something new. My first reaction was to think, ‘I can’t wait to get out of here so I can utterly obliterate this woman.’ But you’re not just some woman. You’re my sister.”

  There was a gasp from DE and a rustling among Rahul, Grey, Jaya, and Pietro, all of whom were finding this out for the first time. Caterina smiled at them all before turning back to Mia and extending her hands. “What you’ve done, following me, lying to me, getting close to me to chop everyone else out of my life, agreeing to tell a reporter lies about me—that’s all still wrong. You were wrong to do it. But I’m not going to add to the pain, to the distress, of this situation by calling the police on you or anything else that won’t bring more light and air and love into this. I want to make this right, Mia. And we’re going to make this right, together, by doing what makes us most vulnerable. For me, that means taking your hand and inviting you into this family. You’re a LaValle by blood, and it’s about time someone acknowledged that.”

  Mia looked down at Caterina’s extended hands, palms up in the air, midway between them. Then she looked back up at Caterina. “This is some kind of trick. You’re just afraid of my interview tomorrow.” Her voice was flat, unemotional, but Caterina saw a flash of something very much like hope in her eyes.

  “It’s not and I’m not. You can still go to that interview, if you want,” Caterina replied, her heart hurting for this girl who was just a product of her upbringing, like Caterina was, like all people were. “But whatever you do, Mia, my life has been changed forever because I know of you now. I have a sister.” She paused. “I’m sorry it’s been so hard for you. You deserve a lot more than what you’ve gotten from life so far.”

  Slowly, slowly, expecting Mia to pull away or slap her hands at any moment, Caterina reached forward and laid her hands in Mia’s.

  Mia looked shocked, as if she couldn’t believe any of this was happening. “So…,” she asked. “What now?”

  Caterina had expected the question. “If you’re okay with it, I’d like to set up a meeting with our father. I won’t tell him you’re coming; you can do that or we can do it together in person, whatever you want. But I think it’s about time he acknowledged you. Don’t you?”

  “Our—our father.” Mia shook her head, her voice bitter. “He’ll never agree to see me. If he didn’t want me when I was a precious baby, why would he want me now?”

  “People change,” Caterina said simply. “I don’t know how he feels about you now. I don’t know if he lies awake thinking about the mistakes he made. But we won’t know unless we try. And no matter what, however he handles meeting you, that’s on him. It says nothing about you.”

  Mia stared into her eyes for a long moment. And then she nodded, takin
g her hands away from Caterina, but not before Caterina noticed they were beginning to sweat. “Whatever. I’m not sure he even deserves it, but I’ll think about it.”

  Caterina smiled. “Okay.” Then, getting serious, she added, “You have a lot of pain inside you that you haven’t been able to talk to anyone about. I would too, if I was in your place.”

  Mia shrugged but didn’t say anything. That was okay; Caterina knew she would need time to be able to be vulnerable.

  “We have a really good therapist at the school,” Caterina continued. “Her name’s Ari. She’s excellent with family issues, especially. If you want, I could set you up with an appointment. You’re not a student, but these are extenuating circumstances. And she might know another therapist in the area you could see long-term.”

  “Ari’s really good,” Rahul put in, and Caterina could tell he was making a monumental effort to be polite because it was important to Caterina. “I’ve seen her a lot.”

  “I’m not like you,” Mia said to the both of them, her voice hard. “I don’t do the touchy-feely, therapist-in-a-cardigan, talking-about-your-feelings stuff.”