Page 66 of Caterina
Adrian is standing a few feet away on the deck, dark against the spill of kitchen light behind him, hands at his sides, posture easy in that impossible way of his that never actually means ease.
The night air is cool against my damp hair and hot face. Somewhere beyond the yard, something rustles softly in the dark. The sound makes me think of movement where I can’t see it.
I hate that too.
His expression doesn’t change, but I can feel the shift in him. He knows this is new information, but he wasn't expecting it to be. It’s subtle, but I can tell from the stillness, the way he holds for a moment before speaking.
“Two weeks ago, on their way back from a doctor’s appointment,” he says finally. "They were rerouted at the last minute."
I stare at him.
“Rerouted?”
He nods once. “Last minute. Something changed, and the driver took a different route than planned.”
“And?”
His pause is brief, but I feel it like a hand tightening around the back of my neck.
"And there was a vehicle positioned on the new route that forced them to a stop."
For a second, I just look at him.
I hear the words. I understand the words. But my mind does not want to understand them.
“A stop,” I repeat, and even to my own ears my voice sounds strange. Thin.
“Yes.”
My stomach drops.
“Were they hurt?”
“No.”
The answer comes fast enough that I know he anticipated the question before I asked it.
I get one shaky breath in.
“No. Their driver managed to get out of it before anything could happen,” he continues.
The deck railing is cool under my hand when I grip it.
I didn’t know this.
Not just that something happened. I didn’t know anything at all.
No one told me.
Not Papà. Not Vito. Not Nico. Not Teresa.
No one.
Anger flashes up so hot it almost scorches the fear away for one blessed second.
“They didn’t tell me.”
Adrian says nothing. He doesn’t need to.
