Cato
Iwipe the blood from my hands as the last soldier is dragged from my office. All day I’ve spent interrogating and torturing. My men are as loyal as they ever were. None of them broke. Not a single one. And when I was finished with them, each one dropped to his knees, even if it was into a pool of his own blood, and swore fealty to me.
“Have Dr. Constantine make a house call and patch up the ones that need it.” I clean my blade and replace it, though one is conspicuously absent from my kit. The one I gave to my lioness. Her new claws.
“I thought Otto might cry, but he handled himself.” Santino smirks.
“Do I need to work you over?” I ask.
“If you feel like it.” He approaches, and I hear when his knees hit the floor.
Turning around, I find him with his arms spread, no fear in his eyes as he looks up at me.
“Cut me if you need to. If you doubt me at all.” He lifts his chin and offers his neck.
“Get up, asshole.” I turn back to my cabinet and close the doors. Santino and I grew up together. He was our gardener’s son. Friends since before we could talk, we’ve always walked this world together. If he were to betray me, my empire wouldn’t be worth the dirt it’s built on.
“I thought you might want to get a free hit in or something.” There’s a grin in his voice.
“I can get that whenever I want.”
“You want to go a few rounds?”
“Not tonight.”
“Mm-hmm.” He strides to the door. “I think you do want to go a few rounds, but not with me. With Carter’s little sister.”
“And if I do?” I turn to him.
He shrugs. “Look, I like the easy life. I pay my women, and they always deliver. That little wild thing? She’s just as likely to bleed you as bed you.” He shakes his head. “And of course you gave her a knife.”
“My best knife,” I correct him. “The one I used to do Don Lantino all those years ago.”
He sighs heavily. “I still think about that night almost every day.”
“As do I.” I can still see Carter and Apollonia’s parents, both of their throats slit from ear to ear. I was still so young, just a teenager. I don’t think Apollonia even remembers me, but I’m the one who pulled her from where she’d hid under her bed. She was still so small, those big brown eyes full of terrified tears. I cradled her close, and she clung to me so tightly that I didn’t think she’d ever let go.
It was all a coincidence--I wasn’t supposed to be there. My father had instructed me to remain in our compound because of rising violence between our men and Don Lantino’s. But I broke his rules--a habit of mine--and went with Santino into the nearby town of Cardillo. We stopped by the Simonetti house to drop off some wine. And what we found inside changed me forever.
It changed Santino, too. He became hard, focused, and he wouldn’t leave my side.
When I went to my father about the killings, he remained calm even though I saw the pain in his eyes.
“We can’t strike back. Not now. We must wait,” he’d counseled.
I’d left in a rage that only abated when I saw the girl again. She reached for me. I took her in my arms and held her all night. In the morning, she and her brother were gone, taken to a neighboring family to be raised away from the growing violence.
But I didn’t forget, and I never forgave. When I got the chance, I killed Don Lantino with my own hands, cutting the life out of him piece by piece. By then, I was too wrapped up in taking over my father’s empire to think about the girl I’d found hiding under the bed. When Carter came to me to join my organization, I accepted him, no questions asked. I assumed that little girl had grown and married and lived happily somewhere in the Tuscan countryside. But she hadn’t. She’d run from here. From me.
I won’t let her run again.
“Cato?” Santino asks.
I fear he’s been calling my name for a while now. I clear my throat. “Yes?”
“I remember.” He pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “It’s why I was happy to take Carter in when he came calling. But she’s another matter. She’s been gone too long. Forgotten our ways. Flavia has been bitching about her Italian accent for the last 24 hours.”
“Do you have a point?”