Page 115 of Forced Vows

Change my name for my cousins to Rosy.

Sunday

Ares: How is our cat? I want proof of life.

I take a picture of Pusheen stretched across the chair in the boathouse. Yes, that chair.

Fiona says the water is soothing for Rambo, so we're in the boathouse with the bay doors open.

My cousin is cuddling her cat in the hammock while I finish a paper on my laptop at the table. Kara and Fitz are building Legos at the other end.

"Who put that smile on your face?" Kara asks, sounding bemused. Then she frowns. "You're not dating someone at college are you?"

"What? No! If I was willing to date someone local, I wouldn't have planned that whole fiasco in Portland."

"Was it a fiasco?" Kara asks, sounding wistful.

Fitz jumps up and runs toward the main coon. "Let's play, Pusheen."

My cat lifts her head and surveys my nephew regally. And then without warning, she springs, landing two feet beyond him. He turns and tears after her, yelling like the exuberant five-year-old he is.

"He's happy," I say.

"Mick wants to send him to a military academy next year for school. I told him no."

"Good."

"I don't think Portland was the fiasco you believe it was." There's a far off look in Kara's hazel eyes. "I was terrified the day of my wedding."

"I would have been too. You were only eighteen."

"I'd never been kissed, or had a climax that didn't come from my own fingers."

"The nuns would be scandalized," I tease.

She attended the Catholic private school with all the other mob children. So did Fiona until the shooting.

"You know it." Kara grins at me, but then her pretty face turns serious again. "You've had sex with Miceli and now you know he won't hurt you in bed."

Horror grips my insides. "Has Mick hurt you?"

"No. That's one area I have no complaints, but I didn't know what it would be like beforehand. I was so scared. Mamo offered to get rid of him if he hurt me." She shrugs. "But no one could stop my wedding night happening."

"Except your dad."

Mamo had offered to kill Kara's husband if he abused her? I'm not surprised. Our grandmother has more steel in her than my uncle's weapons store.

Kara sighs. "Dad has always put the mob first, you know that."

We share a commiserating look and then both our gazes go to Fiona, talking in low tones with her rescue cat.

"Thank you for making him promise to give her the freedom your dad would have given you."

---