Page 138 of Caterina
Night folds over the house in layers.
The halls quiet. The voices thin. Doors close.
Papà catches my eye before I go upstairs.
I know he wants to ask.
What are you thinking?
Why have you been quiet?
Maybe he sees more than I want him to. Maybe he always has, and that is part of the problem.
I am not ready to tell him.
Not yet.
So I say, “Good night, Papà.”
His eyes narrow slightly, but he lets me go.
“Good night,tesoro.”
The word follows me up the stairs.
I return to my room with the unsettling sense that I have spent all day walking around the edge of something without finding the door.
The casino is involved.
I am almost sure of it now.
Not sure enough to say it. Not enough evidence to prove it.
But sure enough that I can't shake the thought.
I quickly shower and change into sleep clothes and sit on my bed with the notebook open again, rereading what I wrote until the words start to blur.
I close the notebook eventually because staring at it longer will not add new information.
I go still.
I know those steps.
Which is absurd. I have known Adrian Donato for a short time. I should not know the way he walks when he is trying to hide pain. I should not be able to distinguish his tread from Vito’s, Nico’s, or any of the other men moving through this house.
But I do.
He comes down the hall quietly, but not silently. He is too smart to move silently in a house full of armed Contis.
He is back from his final check of the grounds.
It annoys me he even did a final check of the grounds. The idea of him out there, wounded and pale and still doing rounds, makes something pull tight in my chest.
The idea of him going into the room beside mine makes something else happen.
Something warmer.
His door opens, then closes softly.
