Page 105 of Fake Dark Vows

Marco is the oldest of the four of us. Unfortunately, he’s not my only brother. There are two more, Dino and Sal, born close enough that anyone who can count would be a little suspicious, and then me.

The baby.

A title that Marco, at least, has taken seriously.

Sal, who is closest to me in age, at least treats me like a human being. I haven’t seen him in months; Marco has him on some kind of overseas connection for us since he speaks the best Italian.

Marco is also fluent, of course, and Dino can get by.

I can order ice cream and ask to see the beach, and that’s about it. Mostly I just make vowel sounds and look angry if people are using Italian around me, and it seems to work pretty effectively. Then again, I’ve never been to Italy, so I could be wrong.

But it hasn’t failed me yet.

Marco blinks at me. “Caterina.”

“Marco,” I respond. It’s not fair that he doesn’t have a longer name I can make him angry about. He knows that I hate being called Caterina, but he insists that Cat is too American.

As though we haven’t been American for at least four generations.

I fold my arms. “Do you really think that he is going to honor this stupid contract anyway?”

“He has to.” Marco’s face grows dark and shadowed as the specter of who we’re referring to enters the conversation.

Him. Elio Rossi.

Marco’s former childhood friend.

My one-time future husband.

And our current biggest enemy.

“Marriage contracts simply can’t be legally binding anymore,” I argue. “That has to be a thing that went the way of the dinosaurs in the ‘60s.”

“Dad wouldn’t have negotiated it if that were the case,” he says with a frown.

Marco frowns a lot these days.

For a split second, my heart aches for my older brother.

He was only twenty-eight when he was suddenly the head of everything. The legal business. The illegal business. Dad was a healthy man, and no one expected him to die.

Then again, I was only twenty-two when I became a mom so…

I guess no one got what they were hoping for.

Life has a way of doing that, I guess. Not in the sunshine and roses ‘everything works out in the end’ type of way.

No, for people like us, it’s mostly the ‘die-or-go-to-jail-for-a-long-time’ way.

Or, in my case, have a baby when you’re still a baby, and spend your life trying to hide her from her father, because if he finds out…

I shiver. That’s the other reason that I’m here begging my brother to call it off.

Elio cannot know about his daughter.

Because if he finds out, I think he’s probably going to kill us both.

Marco, however, thinks our family’s dwindling resources will be enough to keep Elio and his goons at bay until I can figure out the evidence that we need to prove that Elio and the rest of the Rossi family had our parents killed.