"I don't. I really, really don't."

"I need to do this, Ma," Dante said, shrugging.

Cecelia nodded in Catrina's direction. His fiancee stood talking to a cousin of his in the family room with that sly look of hers. "She doesn't fulfill you. You're not doing it because you want to, but because you need to. I can't accept and like a woman who doesn't give you the kinds of things you should have. Things you deserve to have."

"I never wanted to be married in the first place, so no woman is going to give me that, Ma."

"Just because you can't have children doesn't mean you can't have love."

"You're missing the point."

"No, you are," his mother replied, huffing. "I know you feel you have little to offer someone because you can't give them certain things, but children aren't the only thing in a marriage, Dante. I loved your father long before I ever considered having you."

"But you still wanted children," Dante pointed out firmly. "Deny it, Ma."

"Not every woman wants children. Not every woman feels like she has to have them to be satisfied."

"Thank you."

Cecelia's brow furrowed. "I beg your pardon?"

"Without me needing to explain why the arrangement between Catrina and I was made and will work, you just did. So, thank you."

"I-"

"Catrina is the kind of woman who doesn't want children, therefore, I'm not denying her anything in that regard. She doesn't want attachments creating emotions to weigh her down. Neither of us need love in our agreement to hold us back. Our business intermingles in a way that we believe can succeed. She works for me and what I need right now.

"Besides, children have little to do with why I never wanted to marry. It was only one point," Dante added.

"She's going to be your wife, Dante."

"She's wearing your mother's engagement ring. I'm aware she's going to be my wife," he replied drily, tilting up his glass again for another drink.

"Yes, I can see that. The ring does suit her well, even if I don't like that she's wearing it. If she isn't going to be filling certain parts in your life, like your bed for example, who will?"

Dante nearly choked on the drink of vodka in his mouth. Forcing the urge to cough away, he shook his head. Cecelia believed sex should happen only within the sanctity of marriage. Obviously her sons didn't agree with that choice. Dante knew his mother wasn't ignorant to her sons' actions in that regard, but she rarely discussed it with them. She didn't approve and they didn't care. It was easier to leave the issue alone and not fight about it.

Evidently his mother had dropped that pretense with a bang.

Merda. Dante did not want to talk about sex with his mother.

"Ma, Dio mio! Stop it."

"I know it's not my business."

"No, my intimate life most certainly is not."

"I believe in total devotion and commitment to only the partner you choose, Dante. And I have little trust for those who don't. If your father had run around on me even once in our marriage, I would have kicked him out on his ass and kept everything he had, including his sons. I raised you three boys-"

"I know how you raised me. I'm faithful, Mamma. Drop it."

"Will you always be? Is that another piece of your life you have to give up in this faade to please your father and la famiglia? Because I know you too well, my boy. You are not the kind of man who would force a woman into something she wasn't willing to give you."

"Drop it," he repeated angrier.

"Fine. Gosh, you get so worked up over this." Cecelia sighed, her gaze drifting to Catrina once more. "She is very beautiful."

Dante laughed. "It's how she's managed to do so well in her line of business, I think."

"I don't doubt it for a minute. Doe-eyed women have that effect on stupid men."

"It will be fine, Ma. It's my choice, and this is what I want. I know you think it's all about Cosa Nostra and Papa, but it's more than that. This is my life, and to get where I want to be and to achieve the things I need, I have to do this. For Catrina and I, there's no third party here forcing it on us. We decided and I'm okay with it."

"I still don't approve."

"You don't have to," Dante reminded her softly.

"But you want me to, yes?"

Yes.

Dante wouldn't admit it out loud, though. He wanted his mother to, at the very least, find a mutual respect with his future wife if she couldn't manage to like Catrina personally. But he wanted Cecelia to do it on her own and not because he told her to. "Go find Gio and annoy him for a second grandbaby, huh? It's always funny to watch him get prickly over it."

Cecelia patted his arm lightly, smiling widely. "I think that's just what I'll do. Something to make this awful day a bit brighter, anyway."

With his mother gone, Dante focused his attention on Catrina once more. She had moved on to another guest at the dinner. Her coy grins and quiet giggles reminded him that Catrina was always on. It didn't matter where she was or what might be happening around her. The girl didn't know how to turn the queen off.

She knew how to wear a mask.

Yes, Catrina was precisely what Dante needed in a wife if he was going to have one at all.

Chapter Five.

Gaetano and Pao flanked Cat on either side as she walked into the club that was closed for business in the daytime hours.

Well, closed for regular business, anyway.

The moment Cat appeared around the corner with her men in tow, the nineteen-she asked ahead of time of how many men to expect at the tribute-Marcello capos and their boss fell silent. While the others wore masks of shock and confusion, Dante simply offered his fiancee a smile and his hand when she came to stand at his side.

"How was your morning, dolcezza?" he asked.

"Good. Yours?"

"Long."

"We have that meeting with Father Peter tonight," Cat reminded him.

"I'll be there. Worry not."

Dante urged Cat to turn so they faced the gawking, speechless crowd who had watched their entire exchange. Cat thought, by gazing over some of the faces, she had met a few of the men at the Marcello mansion for Sunday dinner two weeks earlier. A lot of them were still unknown.

"Gae, Pao, go find a seat somewhere," Cat said, dismissing her men with a flick of her wrist.

They did as she asked without question, earning a few snickers from the peanut gallery. Oh, this was sure to be fun if the nonsense was starting already.

"Afternoon, gentlemen," Cat greeted. "I'm sure most of you know who I am by now through rumors, but we'll get better acquainted over the course of the day."

Lucian stood from the table. "Dante, what-"

"I invited her, Lucian," Dante interrupted coolly. "I expect that every man in this room will treat her with the utmost respect she deserves not only for her success as a Queen Pin, but as my fiancee."

"You could have given me some warning," Lucian spat "Would you have argued with me about it?" Dante asked.

"Yes."

"Exactly. Sit down and shut up with the rest of the men, brother."

Lucian's jaw fell slack, making Cat laugh under her breath. The sound caught the attention of several men around her but she ignored all their curious, and some annoyed, stares.

"Antony would never have stood for this," another man growled.

Dante shrugged. "Antony isn't me and he isn't here. Look the fuck around, guys. Neither is Paulie. It's just me here. We all know what that means. It's pretty fucking simple. I get to make all the calls. I'm the goddamn boss. And if you don't like that, take a walk. You won't be invited back, but there's a grave with your name on it if you do."

"A woman in business really sets you boys off, doesn't it?" Cat asked.

None of the men said a thing.

Dante smirked. "I don't think I've ever heard them so quiet. This should be an easy, quick meeting."

Giovanni glared at the end of the booth. Cat was surprised even her future brothers-in-law were making a fuss, but she suspected Dante hadn't prepared them for her presence today. It was a smart tactic to take people off guard and set them on their asses. It looked good on them.

"This is ridiculous," Giovanni said. "We don't involve women."

"She's not involved like you think," Dante replied, brushing his brother off. "She's here for a couple of reasons, but mostly importantly, because she is going to be my wife and our business may overlap at times. There are certain aspects she needs to have a say in now."

"Women don't get-"

"Women can do anything a man can do," Cat interjected sweetly, waving her fingers in the direction of the man in particular who had spoken up. "And I must say, I don't think you could wear the heels I do when you did it."

A few chuckles passed around the room. Cat took that as a good sign. She just needed these men to open up to the idea of including her, and like the wolf she was, she would go straight for the kill. They weren't her men, sure, but if she was going to be working alongside her future husband at times, these fools needed to respect her.

"First off, Gio and Val, you were the two with the coke issues," Dante said, lifting his frame onto the table to sit beside Cat. His hand found her knee in a silent gesture of what Cat assumed was either approval or support. She didn't need either from him, but it was nice to have nonetheless. "Cat is here to explain exactly why those issues happened. I think you might want to listen to what she has to say so you can get on your guys and remedy their fucking nonsense before I have to go out and do it."

"We had those issues because she put a lower priced product into our streets," Giovanni said, shaking his head in frustration. "What more is there to say other than she ripped us off?"

"Maybe you're slipping in your streets, Gio," a man across from the youngest Marcello said.

"Maybe I should cut your fucking tongue out and feed it to Cain, Leo," Giovanni hissed.

"Hey, I'm just saying ... when a man is allowed to bend a few rules, he gets a big head and I'm not talking about the one between your legs, either. Skip's not the big dog he once was, you know. And all for a little pussy, too."

"Watch your fucking mouth!"

Dante's teeth grinded beneath his clenching jaw. "Cristo, you idiots! It's like fucking children dealing with the likes of you. If you two don't correct whatever bullshit you've got going on, I will do it for you. Is that understood?"

Giovanni continued staring down Leo across the table, "Yeah."

"Yes, what?"

"Yes, boss," Giovanni corrected, shooting his older brother with an apologetic wince.

"Leo?" Dante demanded.

"Everything's just fine, boss."

"I'm not doing this shit again next month. I'm fucking serious. You two are getting to be downright shameful with your bickering. This is not how made men act toward one another. Fix it and fast."

Cat surveyed the entire scene in silence, catching on quickly that there was more to the issue here that just the surface. She was curious, but not enough to ask Dante what had happened between the men. It wasn't a good time.

"Let's try this again," Dante muttered, gesturing at Cat. "She's going to explain why she was able to slip into your streets as easily as she did. Not to mention, I think you would all benefit in knowing how her product overtook yours with barely any effort on her part at all."

Ignoring the disinterested grumbles from the men, Cat tapped the heel of her pumps to the leg of the table to gain their attention on her. Crossing her legs and shifting on the top to straighten her back, she sighed.

"It has nothing and everything to do with the capos of the crews at the same time," Cat said quietly. "I know that must be confusing to the likes of you, since you all believe this is the only thing you're good at, which maybe it is. Who am I to say? The problem is, people like me are just a little bit better."

Cat flashed her teeth, smiling wickedly. "Was it anyone's fault I was able to offer the same product, at a better quality no less, for a lower cost? Absolutely not. It was only one of the reasons we were able to push the blow hard and work it into the user's hand until yours was pushed right out. I took three men out of my main crew, gave them access to the product and streets, and let them go.

"That wasn't even the easy part," Cat continued. "The easiest part was messing with your ... what do you call them, Dante? Soldiers, is it?"

"Yes, soldati," Dante confirmed.

Cat turned back to the men, shrugging. "Yes, them. See, most of those thugs you have dealing are just out there feeding their own addiction alongside trying to get their faces known to their bosses. And addiction brings desperation. At the point they realized they could still sell yours even if it wasn't selling well, make just enough money to feed their habit elsewhere on a cheaper product, that's exactly what they were doing. I bet it was terribly hard to pull information from them at first about who was encroaching on their territory, wasn't it?"

No one answered. Cat didn't need them to.

"Some probably even lied, but I wouldn't be surprised. Inevitably, their customers began weeding their way over to my men as well. It didn't take long after that for us to catch your attention, which was exactly the point of the entire thing. My suggestion to all of you is that you begin culling the weak links on your streets. Find people who enjoy the game-money is what those people want, not the drug. It won't be hard as far as that goes. Once you do that, you'll take back control."

"Our streets have always been well managed," a man sitting beside Giovanni stated, aggravation setting his features hard.

"Until someone like me stepped into them," Cat replied. "I was simply the first."

"She won't be the last," Dante added. "I don't want to see this issue come up again, and I don't want a bunch of addict riddled users ruining the rules we've created and the respect we've earned on our streets with their mess. Does everybody understand that?"