Page 78 of Unraveled

However, it wasn’t polite conversation to ask about someone almost being shot.

Or who they were fucking.

Daniele was always polite.

Always a proper mafia wife.

It was the one thing Cara knew to expect from her aunt.

“So, how have you been?” Daniele asked.

“Busy with school. I thought that since I basically took four months off after Lea died that I would probably be behind, and not graduate on time next year, but I’m on track again now. It took a bit to get there, though.”

“Oh?”

“And I got an early spot for a co-op of sorts at a woman’s shelter, starting this summer, too. I’ll be mentoring the mothers and teen girls, and helping with the outpatient rehab program. Since it’s exactly what I want to work in, in a roundabout way, it was a lucky grab.”

“That’s good,” her aunt said absently.

Cara shot a look across the flower bed, only to find Daniele wasn’t actually paying her any attention. Her aunt was more focused on dragging the tiny hoe through the soil, overturning it to get the bed ready for planting.

She had been sure her aunt’s only reason for asking her over to visit was to pry information out of her, but so far, Daniele hadn’t done any of that.

Maybe Cara had been wrong.

Cara went back to helping her aunt clean out the flower beds, before they moved onto the railing pots that were sitting on the back deck. She was half way through filling the hanging pots with a fresh soil and mulch mix when her aunt starting talking again.

“Are you seeing anyone new, Cara?”

Her shoulders grew stiff at the innocuous question.

“Not particularly,” Cara answered carefully.

Gian wasn’t new, after all. And she wasn’t exactly seeing him, after their meet at the café the week before. They were a thing, sure, but that meant nothing for now. Or, that’s what Cara had been trying to convince herself for a whole fucking week.

“Claud mentioned you were having dinners with a gentleman.”

Cara resisted the urge to say her uncle should mind his business. “Did he?”

“Yes, and sleepovers, too.”

“Is that what you’re calling it, nowadays?” Cara asked, not bothering to hide her sarcasm.

Daniele laughed lightly. “Don’t get prickly, I’m only asking to be nice.”

“Being nice would be not asking, Zia. Personal business, okay?”

“I do worry about you, Cara. You weren’t your usual self these past few months, and then you seemed to be doing better. I still worry, though, especially if you’ve gotten yourself caught up in something of a mess.”

Cara’s brow furrowed as she regarded her aunt. “And what mess would that be?”

Daniele didn’t even blink. “Men have a way of causing all sorts of messes that we women are not prepared for. They like to blame the mess on us, of course, but that’s only because men fear the fingers pointing back at them when it’s all said and done.”

“I’m not caught up in any sort of mess, Zia.”

“For your sake, I sure hope not, Cara.”

The news program switched to the oncoming weather for the last few days of April, leading into May, and Cara shut the television off. She let out a hard breath, frustrated at herself that she had once again succumbed to her curiosity and checked the news.