Page 45 of Captivated

The wind picks up and Cassie’s chin starts to quiver. “Come on. Let’s get back to the warmth of the car and we’ll talk. You’re freezing.”

I take her hand and lead her back off the rocks and across the strip of sand until we’re once again enveloped in warmth.

We both reach for our coffees, but they’re lukewarm now.

“We can get fresh ones if you’d like.”

“No, it’s okay. Maybe later. You mentioned breakfast, though?”

“Yes.” I reach back and grab the insulated bag the hotel kitchen gave me and pull out two wrapped sandwiches. “Bacon, egg, and cheese on a sesame bagel?”

“Can you read minds?”

“I wish. Then I’d get to hear all the dirty things you think about doing with me.” I watch her cheeks heat and her eyes twinkle like I just caught her thinking dirty thoughts. “Are you right now?”

“No,” she says too quickly. “Maybe,” she corrects. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” I ask, lowering my voice to an octave I know makes her pussy wet.

“Like you are now,” she huffs, stealing the sandwich from my hand and ripping it open. She takes a big bite from one half and her eyes close. “So good,” she mumbles after swallowing. “Do you have any ketchup in there?”

“I do.” I hold the bag out for her and she reaches in for a ramekin of ketchup to dip her sandwich in.

I start in on mine and stare out at the water, letting Cassie gather her thoughts. I know not to push her. She’ll talk when she’s ready.

“My dad was high-up in the McLaughlin family in Boston. I don’t know the details of his position because I was still sort of young when he was killed, but I know he was important. We were never without what we needed and people seemed to both fear and respect my father wherever we went. I thought it was cool.” She scoffs, shaking her head.

“He wasn’t a great dad,” she continues. “He had a short temper, drank a lot, and wasn’t around to help with homework or show up for Sean and I when we had something that wasremotely important to us. Like my dance recitals or even a single soccer game of mine or Sean’s.” Cassie takes another bite of her bagel. “But he tried to be more of a dad in the end, which is why he was killed. The three of us were under FBI protection at some motel outside of Boston, and when my dad and two of the agents were on their way to the FBI offices, they were all killed.”

“I’m sorry, Cassie. You shouldn’t have had to go through that.”

“He was going to flip on the family and we were going into witness protection. It was either that or prison. He told me not to trust anyone in the McLaughlin family from that moment forward, and to never open my mouth about them either. He told me everyone knew the feds were close to making a case on the boss for one thing or another, so they planted evidence on my dad that would make him the fall guy.”

Cassie wraps the other half of her sandwich up and tosses it onto the dashboard. She tucks her feet up onto the seat and covers her face with her delicate hands, then runs her fingers through her hair.

I don’t dare say anything.

I don’t dare correct her, either.

She has it so incredibly wrong. Her dad lied to her.

“He was just trying to keep us together,” she says. “He knew we’d be alone if he went to prison and didn’t want anyone else raising us. It was nice to feel like he was putting his own family first for once, and not the McLaughlins.”

“I can understand that.”

“I grew up surrounded by people I considered family. People who turned their backs on us without a second thought. How can that be? You can trust people with your life one day, but then cut off, kill, and abandon in the blink of an eye the next.”

“Cassie.” I want to say something comforting, but that’s how it goes. If the boss gives an order, you follow it. Of course, Leowould never give an order like that. I don’t even think his dad would’ve. Leo would never use someone else to save his own ass if he was caught doing something.

I don’t even want to get into the fact that he would never be doing any of the dirty work himself that would cause him to have a case made on him anyhow.

“I know,” she says, nodding her head, as if she heard my unspoken thoughts. “I know that’s just how things are. My world was going to crumble around me no matter what, I guess. It’s why I’ve tried to stay away from you. Not very successfully, but I tried.” Cassie finally looks at me. “I know your world, Nico. I grew up in it, and I was cast out of it.”

“Cassie,” I say carefully. “I say this with all due respect to your late father, but me and my family aren’t like the McLaughlins. Wearea family. We have an oath. We have an understanding. We have trust. We don’t plant evidence on family members so they take the fall, and we don’t turn our backs on each other unless we’re given an indisputable reason to.”

“Nico, it’s all the same. You’re all the same. Money, family, loyalty, respect, blah, blah, blah. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Irish mob or the Italian mafia. Hell, even the Bratva or Yakuza. You’re all the same.”

“From the outside, it may be that simple, but it isn’t. And you choosing to lump me in with people who you used to know…” I rub the bridge of my nose, needing to keep my words under control. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. I know we’re not all the same. Angela Cicariello, Luca’s girl, could tell Cassie not every family is the same, because we’re nothing like the animals she used to be related to. “Do you trust me? Even a little bit?”

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