Page 11 of Marcus

“Can’t make it,” Cella said. “I had a client come in as a favor to Dad, although all I was given for it was an address and time to be there—in Toronto. The check cleared, a very nice check, so I am inclined to take the job. I let Lucia know, and she doesn’t mind. Just hadn’t thought to mention it to Ma.”

“Boo.”

Cella followed behind her sister as they headed for the front entrance of her ground floor studio. In the large building, there were several different businesses set up. Upstairs, a ballet studio for young dancers stayed open for most of the day, but she swore they were so light on their feet at times that she didn’t hear a thing. Besides, even if she could, she loved her studio and wouldn’t be giving it up for nothing.

“And you don’t know who the client is?”

She didn’t respond until the two of them had stepped out onto the street, she locked the studio’s front doors, and the late April breeze brought with it the scent of spring clinging to the air. “Dad assured me everything is on the up with it … and it’s not entirely unusual for big name people to contract me for a design job through third-parties, but especially if they want to make sure everything is going to stay quiet.”

“Are you taking Tiff?”

“Yep.”

Her daughter hadn’t been to Canada yet—Tiffany would love all the trees.

“So, you’re not avoiding anyone, then?”

Cella gave her sister a side-eye as the two of them headed down the street toward her car parked at the corner. The only goddamn spot she had been able to grab that morning as she came in later than normal, and that always meant she had to fight for a parking spot that was remotely close to her studio. It was the only thing she hated about the current setup.

“What does that mean?”

Liliana shrugged. “Well—”

“When do I avoid people?”

“Sometimes, you just do it. I don’t even think you mean to, but you do. I think it’s whenever you’re having a rough time, maybe because of life, or William … either way, you tend to hide away from the rest of us. John, I could understand because—”

“I don’t avoid John.”

And she didn’t.

Not anymore.

Oh, sure, she had blamed her brother for a long time because of what happened to her husband. It had been because of things that happened with John’s involvement that made those people attack William, after all, but her feelings then had been a by-product of her grief, and very little else. She tried not to react from that because she still occasionally felt herself slipping back to a grieving state of mind whenever she thought about her dead husband.

It happened.

No one was to blame but the people who pulled the trigger.

And they were gone.

Her father and brother made sure of that.

“Anyway,” Cella said, “enough about me. Are we eating, or …?”

Liliana grinned. “Yeah, let’s find a place to eat.”

“Why is there a camera up there, Ma?”

“To make sure everything is okay in the elevator.”

Tiffany, in all her blue-eyed, blonde-haired sweetness, peered up at the camera in the corner of the elevator with curiosity. “Oh.”

“Any other questions?”

Because her kid asked about a million of them. Her daughter’s desire to know everything about anything and anyone who stepped in her path just couldn’t be contained. The constant flow of whys that came out of Tiffany’s mouth were never-ending. Some people tried to deflect the girl onto another topic, but Cella never did.

She loved it.