Her face started to get red, even as ice formed in her gaze as he spoke, and she didn’t hesitate to reply when he was done.

“Concettis treat her like shit?” she asked. “How ’bout the Bianchis?”

“You spoke to your sister, you’d know that’s done and we’re all movin’ on.”

“Yeah, you’re here and word is she’s in your bed. I know how you’re movin’ on.”

“Known me decades, Cat. Honest to God, do you think I’m gonna sink low enough to field that one?” Ben clipped.

She glared at him, not like Nat, much like Frankie, except a lot less cute because he didn’t love her, and more, he’d never really liked her.

“You know,” she started, “your big sister’s boyfriend gets whacked in a mob war, then she gets shot, then it’s all over everywhere that her dead boyfriend’s brother is up in her shit and then it’s everywhere they get hooked up, a girl’s gotta make a decision. She continues to get caught up in that ridiculous drama that ain’t real healthy, or she cuts herself off and tries to make a decent life. Me and Art talked about it a lot. He’s tight with his folks, his brothers. He didn’t get it. Why I wanted to cut ties. Until Frankie got shot and you were involved. Frankie involved with another Bianchi. Then he got it. Totally messed up. Totally unhealthy.”

She flipped her hand in the air and didn’t shut up, she kept on yapping.

“Art and me got marriage counseling so we’d quit fightin’ all the freakin’ time. Art and me found out in marriage counseling that it might be a good idea not to drink so freakin’ much. Art and me quit the booze, and now Art and me are in a good place so we’re tryin’ to make a baby. We got a good thing goin’, had it goin’ for a while. We don’t want anything to fuck that up. More, we bring a kid into this world, we don’t want that kid to be involved in fucked-up shit.”

Benny couldn’t believe his ears.

“You quit the booze?” he asked.

“Yep. We’ve been dry now for nearly a year.”

“Congratulations, Cat,” he murmured.

“Yeah, hold a party for that,” she returned.

“Cat—”

She shook her head and lifted a hand to him, palm his way. “No. My sister got shot. Before that, her boyfriend was in the mob. Now, after years of watchin’ the Bianchis like she was on the verge of beggin’ you to adopt her, she went from one to the other to get her in.”

“That’s not what she’s doin’,” Ben said, his voice tight.

“No?” she asked, sarcasm easy to read. “She’s gorgeous. I know it. She’s sweet. She’s funny. I see why you want a piece of that. Totally. I love her to bits, my big sis. Only one who gave a shit about me my…entire…life. Until I met Art. But she’s messed up, Benny. Took me a while, but I finally woke my ass up and saw I needed to get out of the crazy that was my family draggin’ me down. I love her. I know the way you’re lookin’ at me you don’t believe that, but I love her. That doesn’t mean she’s any good for me. It was a hard decision to make, but I gotta look out for me. And you can take this as my good turn to you: you need to get outta that shit before she chews you up and spits you out like Ninette chews up every man who even looks at her.”

“Your sister is not Ninette,” Ben bit out.

“Who lives with one brother and then hooks up with the other one?” she retorted, shaking her head. “No one does that.”

“Vinnie died seven years ago.”

“He’s still your brother.”

“He quit bein’ my brother when he joined the mob.”

At that, she snapped her mouth shut.

Yeah.

She got him.

“Life sucks, Cat, for everyone, not just you,” he told her something she should know. “Shit happens and you make decisions that can make it suck even more. From what you’re sayin’, I see you took a look at your life and decided to make good changes. But what you’re doin’, slammin’ the door on Frankie, means you won’t see she’s doin’ the same thing. Makin’ good changes to her life. And you didn’t ask, but what she did when she got shot was crazy. Crazy-stupid and crazy-brave. She helped save a woman’s life. You got a screw loose if you’d turn your back on a woman who’d take a bullet to do somethin’ like that. But I know it’s loose ’cause she’s had your back your entire life. Took you as you came, made no judgments when you were three steps away from bein’ a full-blown drunk, a mean one half the time, and she never shut the door in your face.”

He saw by her expression that he’d scored with that one, but he still took a step back, shaking his head and lifting, then dropping his hands.

“That’s your decision; it’s your life. I came by, we had our words. I leave, you continue your life. I’m happy for you. You’re tryin’ to make a good one for the family you wanna build. But that doesn’t mean what you’re sayin’ isn’t complete bullshit. The thing is, you sit there knowin’ it. You cast judgment for the decisions Francesca has made in her life, sittin’ there knowin’ you let your sister lie in a hospital bed with a hole in her without showin’ your face and givin’ some love. And still, you did that to her, Frankie calls you because she’s worried about you. What’s that say about her, Cat? And more, you can take this as my good turn to you: what’s it say about you?”

He knew he scored another point when the red went out of her face and it got pale.

He also didn’t give a fuck. He was done.

“Dinner’s at seven,” he ground out. “You’re there, you’re welcome. You’re not, I do not share blood with you so I do not have to put up with your shit. You don’t show, Frankie won’t cut ties. But seein’ as I’m in love with her and she’ll be the mother of my kids one day, you’ll have to work to get me to let you in our door, because, straight-up, Cat, I don’t need my woman or my kids around that kind of fucked-up shit.”

He left it at that, turned, and walked out, deciding he wouldn’t share this visit with Frankie. Cat and Art showed the next night, then he’d get the goodness of her gratitude that he went out of his way to get her sister back. If not, she didn’t need to know.

And anyway, he didn’t need to give more headspace to Cat, seeing as not fun as that visit was, the next one he was going to make he knew was going to be a fuckuva lot worse.

***

Ben looked around the huge-ass house Gina was leading him through, thinking that she’d had the whole fucking place redecorated since the last time he’d been there.

Since he lost track of when that was, he shouldn’t be surprised. It was more than eight years. It was more like fifteen.

She now had marble floors. Acres of them.

Things must be good in the mob business. He’d never be able to give Frankie acres of marble floors. That said, she’d never want them, and if she did, she’d work to get them for herself.

“It really is nice, you showin’, Benny,” Gina murmured, and he looked at her.

She held some weight, not much, but she no longer had the slender, built figure she’d had a couple of decades ago. That didn’t mean she wasn’t dressed well, she was. She’d always dressed well. Slightly over-the-top with jewelry and bright colors, but she wasn’t the stereotypical mob wife you saw in the movies.

But she was beyond middle age and her face didn’t have a line on it that he could see. And she dyed her hair so there wasn’t a strand of gray.

She took care of herself. Then again, she could. She had the money and she had the time.

Wouldn’t matter if she didn’t, Sal was devoted to his wife. Doted on her. Never was a time back in the day when they were around where he wasn’t affectionate or didn’t look at her like she jumpstarted the world every morning.

That didn’t mean he didn’t fuck around. He did. Always. Even now. Word flew through the family, regardless if you didn’t want to hear that shit, and Ben knew Sal had two women on the side, both kept, both thirty years younger than Gina.

Gina probably knew too and kept her tongue. It was a thing with men like Sal, and the women with them had to put up with it. It was his way to show how big his balls were and that they still worked.

It was also as whacked as everything else Sal did.

“It’s good to see you, Gina,” he muttered in order to be nice, even if he didn’t mean it. He liked her, but that didn’t mean she didn’t bring up bad memories.

She turned her head to look over her shoulder at him and he knew she knew he was lying through his teeth by the sad look in her eyes.

Her husband fucked around on her and did seriously fucked-up shit for a living, which meant every day anything could happen, and that “anything” could include him being incarcerated or assassinated. When you lived a life like that, family was important, and not the kind who were all in danger of the same thing.

He couldn’t say he didn’t feel for her. She was a good woman. But he couldn’t help her by biting the bullet and giving her the big family that would make the shit in her life less shitty. She’d made her choice.

She looked forward again and led him out onto a patio with a pool, gazebo, and pool house. There was a huge-ass, ostentatious fountain shooting water into the deep end of the pool. There were pots filled with thriving flowers and greenery all over the place. It looked like it belonged in a resort, not in an affluent Chicago suburb that would much prefer the local mob boss hadn’t bought a house there but no one would say jack for fear they’d find a horse’s head in their bed the next day.

And like he was at his own personal resort, which he was, Sal Giglia was sitting at a table with an iced drink in front of him, along with a tablet, his phone to his ear.