Dante (37 page)

“I can’t believe you had three girls,” Dante said, shaking his head.

“Me either,” his brother replied. “I’m done trying for the second boy. So done. Clearly that fifty-fifty chance crap is all bullshit. That, or God has a sick sense of fucking humor. He knows how possessive and protective I am, and instead of giving me another son, I get three females to bust my balls on a daily basis
and
keep me up at night worrying about them.”

“Bad words,” Lucia whispered, patting Lucian’s mouth with her palm.

“Sorry,
dolcezza
. Kisses for Daddy?”

Lucia kissed her father’s cheek before Lucian put her back to the floor. Lucia immediately went running for her grandfather at the head of the family table. Antony let his youngest, and likely last, grandchild climb up on his lap to pick off the plate Cecelia had placed in front of her husband.

Lucian watched with a glimmer of pride in his eyes.

“You love them,” Dante repeated.

“Yeah, I do.”

Cecelia shouted for the remaining guests to come and take their seats for dinner, but Lucian and Dante didn’t move from the far wall.

Dante watched as people flooded into the large dining room, taking whatever chair was available. As usual, Johnathan and Andino were two of the final ones to saunter in. Andino took a seat beside Giovanni, stealing a piece of cheese bread off his father’s plate. Giovanni barked at his only son, taking the cheese bread back. That caused Kim to reach over her son and smack her husband’s hand in rebuttal.

Lucian’s smile faded into a frown at the sight of his seventeen-year-old’s cocky smirk as it landed on a pretty girl about his age across the table from him. She was the daughter of one of the Marcello capos who was always invited to the Sunday meal. Johnathan knew better than to mess with daughters of made men, but he didn’t follow rules very well.

“Sweet Jesus, he’s just like Giovanni,” Lucian said, more to himself than his brother. “And he came from me!”

“That isn’t a bad thing,” Dante responded. “Not if you consider how Gio settled down after finding Kim.”

“Yeah, but how long is that going to take? Already he wants to be done with school and onto things that don’t bore the fuck out of him.”

“His words?”

“They certainly weren’t mine.”

“Give him time,” Dante said. 

“Your influence on him helps a great deal.”

Well, technically Johnathan was Dante’s heir to the Marcello throne. There was no way in hell he would let that kid stumble through life.

“I’m grateful he has you when he won’t come to me,” Lucian admitted. “But the things he sometimes does still scares the shit out of me. Jordyn, too.”

“I know. Ready to eat?”

“Sure. You ready for tomorrow?”

Dante felt a weight press down on his shoulders. He repeated what he told his wife in the car. “Let’s not talk about it right now.”

• • •

“I just checked, they’re both asleep.” Catrina closed the bedroom door behind her quietly. “Every light left on, all their electronics still running, and they’re snoring in bed, dead to the world. A goddamn hurricane wouldn’t wake them up.”

“Nothing new,” Dante noted.

“I like them better when they sleep. Less arguing.”

Dante had to agree. He would be so happy once these teenage years were past for his two kids. No doubt when they did pass, he would wish for them back.

“Don’t you think it’s funny how they won’t wake up for an alarm clock, but if their phone even vibrates with a text, it’s like someone poured ice water all over them?”

Dante laughed. “I was the same way.”

“I suppose I never had time to act much like a normal teenager.”

Something in the lilt of his wife’s tone caught Dante’s attention. When he turned to face her, Catrina was already inside the walk-in closet and busying herself with picking out clothes for the next day. Dante made his way to the closet and leaned against the doorjamb, crossing his arms.

Catrina went from one garment bag to the next, unzipping the items to peer inside each time. “Black suit for tomorrow?”

“Sure,” Dante answered. Catrina pulled out three suits, holding them out for Dante to inspect. “The third, I think.”

Catrina tossed the item over the top of a leather covered stool and replaced the others back in place. “Black shirt underneath, too,
hmm
?”

“No, let’s go with white.”

A white dress shirt was pulled from a hanger and laid over the suit. Catrina pulled open a dresser drawer, exposing rows of silk ties inside. “White tie?”

“No, a black one.”

Dante wasn’t going for a wedding look. Apparently his wife went in the opposite direction.

“Are you trying to look like you’re going to a funeral?” Catrina asked.

Maybe tomorrow would be like a funeral; who knew? Dante sure felt an impending sense of doom about what was yet to come the next day. Dante trusted those around him, and at the same time, he worried for those closest to him like his wife and children. The past year had not been easy on them. Tomorrow was the last piece of the puzzle. It would determine the next four years of his life and theirs.

Honestly, it was the exact reason why Dante had fought against marriage and love for as long as he had. His family was
suffering
for his choices because of Cosa Nostra, and he didn’t like that at all.

“You’re the one who gave me the choice of a black shirt underneath,” Dante replied. “What’s the difference?”

“All black is like making a statement. When you start mixing black with white, it doesn’t.”

“Fine, a navy shirt and a black tie.”

Catrina grinned. “Much better.”

“Are you okay?” Dante asked.

His wife didn’t even turn around as she said, “Perfect,
bello
.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. Why wouldn’t I be okay?” Catrina pulled a black tie from the drawer before grabbing a matching shirt off a hanger. She replaced the white shirt with the rest, grabbed Dante’s clothes, and hung it all off a hook on the wall. She did it all like it was business as usual and tomorrow was not the possible major overhaul it could be in their lives. “I know you wanted me here with the kids since we’re keeping them from school tomorrow, but I want to go with you, Dante.”

If Dante was a stupid man and he didn’t know his wife as well as he did, he would have argued with her to stay home. Catrina wasn’t the kind of woman to be told what she could or couldn’t do, so he chose to let her do what she wanted.

“No comment, always,” Dante said.

“Yeah, I know.”

“No, listen. No matter what, Cat, it’s always no comment.”

“I said I know,” she said quietly. “Have you heard anything from Giovanni about the deals he put out?”

“Not a thing.”

Dante tried to keep his tone calm and the anxiety out of it. It wasn’t like Catrina to ask about the more private accesses of Dante’s business, especially concerning this sort of thing. For him, it was a huge sign of her worry, even if she wasn’t outright voicing it.

“I’ll call him later. But you know the rules, no business on Sundays,” he added, humor coloring his words.

Catrina turned on her heel, lifting a single brow in a way that felt like she was scolding him. “I sincerely hope you’re not making a joke of this.”

Guilt ate at Dante. “I’m sorry, Cat, I was only trying to ward off whatever nonsense you’ve got going on in your head right now.”

“You’re my husband, Dante.”

“Well, for the last sixteen years, yes.”

“And for the next fifty, or so,” Catrina responded, smiling.

“I don’t know if my Italian genes are going to let me live that long.”

“Sex is good for the heart, and we have lots of that.”

Dante couldn’t have held back his laughter if he tried. It felt damn good to laugh and honestly enjoy it. Once he sobered, he eyed his wife curiously. Catrina was grinning like a kitten who had eaten the cream. “Who’s making light of this now,
Amore
?”

“It’s different when I do it, you know.”

“How so?”

“Because we’re always serious and you never hide things from me. I know you’re hiding how you feel, so instead of being sharp like I usually would, I did something out of character.”

“You make me laugh,” Dante argued.

“Mostly when I’m not very nice to other people.”

Dante considered that for a moment. Catrina still hated women unless they were family. She was still his best friend with very few of her own. “All right, true enough. And yes, I’m worried, but it’s too late to do much about it. Everything that could be done has been, believe me.”

“You can’t leave me here alone, Dante,” Catrina said, pointing at him with the same attitude as she always sported. “Two or three months is one thing, but four years is something entirely different. You just … you can’t leave me here without you for that long. I said so.”

If Dante didn’t know how much his wife was hurting on the inside, even if she wasn’t showing it on the outside, he would have been amused by her indignant order. Catrina also wouldn’t want him to make a big deal out of her concerns because, like him, the image she gave off was her strongest defense next to her take-no-bullshit personality.

This was how they had always been together. Neither liked for one to see them in any state that might hurt the other. Even when they were alone in the privacy of their own home, the couple never broke those unspoken rules. Well, most times. There were moments in their life when it couldn’t be helped and really, those were the moments Dante cherished the most between him and his wife.

Because Catrina was strong—relentlessly so. But when she wasn’t, he was the only person she needed. Kind of like now.

Catrina went back to surveying the garment bags on her side of the closet in silence. She picked a navy blue silk dress that would fall just below her knees to match her husband’s shirt. The dress was hung up with the rest of the clothing for tomorrow before Catrina pressed a button on the wall and rows of shoes slid out from the wall.

“I don’t need your input for this,” Catrina said, plucking up a pair of black Italian leather shoes for Dante. She knew his tastes well. “For me, however … What do you think, heels or flats?”

“Heels, of course.”

Catrina shot him with a look. “Why?”

Because even in her forties, Catrina still sported the best goddamn legs he had ever seen. When she wore a pair of heels, she just about killed any control he had left. Just like the ones she was wearing right now.

“Just because,” Dante said huskily.

“Might give you something to look at while they’re hauling you away, huh?”

Dante felt his entire body slump into the wall. “Cat …”

Catrina walked the shoes she’d chosen over to the stool and set both pairs down side by side. She wouldn’t look at him, and instead, kept her gaze zoned in on the leather stool. “You can’t leave me here alone. Not for that long.”

Dante crossed the few feet of space between him and his wife in a blink and two long strides. He caught her hands in his own, pushing her back across the walk-in closet until her shoulders met the ceiling-high mirror. She gasped sharply when he kissed her painfully hard, drawing her bottom lip between his teeth to bite down. Dante didn’t speak his wants, he simply took from his wife because that was exactly how Catrina liked it. Her dress pooled to the floor with his pants, heels dug into his thighs when he lifted her against the mirror …

And then she begged him to stay.

• • •

“Fucking teenagers,” Dante growled, stumbling over a pair of pink Nikes in the middle of his kitchen floor. “They leave shit everywhere!”

Antony laughed on the other end of the phone. “How often do you say that in a day?”

“More than I want to admit.” Dante kicked the fucking shoes under the table so they wouldn’t be in the way. “They’re worse than toddlers, Dad.”

“
Mmm
, I know. I had three of my own, remember.”

“We weren’t that bad,” Lucian said on his side of the call.

“Well, I was,” Gio mumbled, still half-asleep.

“You were,” Antony agreed with his youngest.

Dante laughed quietly. His worry had led him to call his father, who had three-way called Lucian, who had then added Gio to the conversation to see if any new information had come in over the last few hours. None had.

“It could be worse,” Lucian said.

“Oh, how?” Dante asked.

“You could be wondering where your son is tonight.”

The line fell silent.

“Give him time,” Antony finally said after a good thirty seconds. “Johnathan will come out of this difficult stage eventually. He’s just making his own path, son.”

“My bet is he’s with that cute brunette he met at dinner,” Gio said quietly.