Page 201 of Mafia Kings: Valentino

“It’s me.”

“Hey!”she said, her voice suddenly full of joy.

I remembered Isabella’s remark about Cat being my girlfriend but quickly brushed it off.

“So, ready to see me again?”

“Of course!”

“Good. But there’s something we need to talk about first.”

Caterina sounded worried.“…oh?”

“Don Vicari found out I didn’t work with his son yesterday.”

“Does he know about us?”she asked fearfully.

“No – I told him I went out drinking, and he bought it. But in order to get out of the house to see you, I had to come up with another excuse.”

“…which is…?”

“I have to take Isabella with me and show her around the city.”

There was a long pause.

“Is that her name?”Cat finally asked.“Your wife?”

“Future wife,” I said in annoyance. “Yes, that’s her name.”

Another long pause.

“How are you going to keep her from finding out about us if you’ve got to show her around?”

“She already knows.”

“SHE ALREADY KNOWS?!”

I’d never heard Cat scream before. It took me by surprise.

“It’s cool, it’s cool,” I said quickly. “She’s fine with it. She doesn’t want to get married tome,either, but she wants to go out and see Sicily.”

“And you believe her?!”

“Yes. You wouldn’t believe how much her father has her on lockdown. She’s only left her house a couple times in her life.”

I could hear the bewilderment in Cat’s voice.“And she’s HOW old?!”

“Twenty-four, I think. Look, that’s not the important part – ”

“Oh, the part where you told your future wife about us isn’t the important part,”Cat said sarcastically.“What’s the important part, then?”

“The important part is her father’s a fucking psychopath, and yesterday I saw what he did to somebody who crossed him,” I said angrily. “It wasn’t pretty. In fact, it was pretty fucking horrible.”

Silence.

“Look,” I said, trying to bring it down a notch, “I called you to warn you. If you don’t want to run the risk, I’d understand – ”

“If I don’t want to run the risk,”she repeated in disbelief.

---