He blinked.
Dare continued to watch the screen, unbothered.
Well ...
“I’m not even sure if it’s about me, or not,” he muttered.
“Yes, well, that happens when you choose selfishness over selflessness.”
Right.
Dare made a good point.
And Corrado hated it.
29.
Ginevra
“Thank you.”
Siena’s head popped above the island counter, so she could see Ginevra on the other side. Slowly, she stood, a casserole dish in her hands she planned on using to cook their dinner. “For what, Ginny?”
“Everything you did, I guess. For me, but also for the girls when I couldn’t.”
“But ...”
“Yeah?”
“That’s what a family should do,” Siena said quietly.
Ginevra nodded. “You’re right, they should. I think because me and the girls were so used to depending on each other, and our mom, that we got used to it. We learned not to expect kindness from others because if we ever needed something, we could just go to each other for it.”
Siena set the dish down to the counter and offered a smile. “You probably don’t see me as your real sister, even if we are, but I hope you can someday, and that you’ll come too. I didn’t have a close family unit growing up, either. Dad preferred the boys, too.”
“Well ...”
“What?”
“I wanted life to go back to normal for Greta and Giulia. Before all this happened, when the mafia hadn’t touched us, and we were just ... normal.”
Siena let out a soft laugh. “Doesn’t work that way, huh?”
Not at all.
Ginevra tried to put as much distance between their life, and the people affiliated to the mafia as she could, and yet they still kept drawing her in. And while she understood people like Siena—or the woman’s boyfriend, John—were safe, she knew that didn’t matter.
All it took was one connection to become a target, and she never wanted her sisters to be that for anyone ever again.
“I just want them to be safe,” Ginevra whispered.
“And they will be. We made sure.”
Right.
For now.
Ginevra didn’t say that out loud. “And you love them, don’t you?”
“The girls?”
She nodded.
Siena smiled. “I do. And I never had sisters growing up—just a pair of asshole brothers that only cared about me when I was doing something for them. I was always the one expected to look after everyone else, and I do that with the girls, too. Except now, I don’t mind it. They don’t demand that of me, they need someone who gives a shit.”
“Yeah, they do.”
“And now they have you home, too.”
Greta and Giulia flew into the kitchen, their laughter high and breathless as they watched whatever loud video was playing on the tablet they were using. They had been the first ones to jump at the chance to have dinner at Siena’s place when she called earlier to ask. The girls fell into the chairs at the table, unaware or uncaring about Siena and Ginevra’s conversation. Not that she minded all that much.
She preferred them close.
She needed her family.
It had more people now.
“I had been so settled on what I wanted to happen when I came back for them that change scares me,” Ginevra admitted. “And I might seem a little too protective, but after everything, how should I be? So, I apologize in advance if I come off strong.”
Siena shrugged. “I get it.”
“Do you?”
“Of course, but you should know it’s easier to be open to change than to live with an ache in your heart because you’d rather things stay the same, Ginevra. That’s all.”
Ginevra had to laugh at that.
Heartache.
“I can’t find more heartache and trouble than I already did in Toronto.”
The words slipped from her lips before she could stop them. Maybe it was because Ginevra didn’t have anyone to talk to about the craziness going on in her life—things she hadn’t shared with her younger sisters because for one, she didn’t think it was appropriate, and for two ... because she didn’t want to worry them. Without Corrado and Alessio, she became hollow.
Instead, she handled it alone.
Lonely.
Siena cleared her throat, and her gaze drifted to the girls at the table behind them, distracted with a tablet. “Andino had hinted to John that you found someone in Toronto that you became close to.”
Close.
Right, that was a good way to put falling in love.
And someone?
“More like two someones,” Ginevra replied.
She had to be mindful of those younger ears behind them. She wasn’t sure how to appropriately explain the relationship she found herself in with two men when in general, all society showed as respectable couples were a pair of two people. Not that society was right—love came in many forms, she had learned.
It wasn’t easy to explain.
“Huh,” Siena said. “Really?”
“They were together before I came into it with them, but I fit there ... with them, between them, and with each of them. It wasn’t easy, but it was right—somehow, it was right, and now everything seems wrong.”
Siena let out a slow breath, her gaze reflecting only sympathy. She opened her mouth to say something, but one of their sisters at the table spoke up first.
“What does that mean, that they were together before you?” Giulia asked.
Apparently, those young ears had been listening.
Great.
“What do you think?” Greta asked. “Guys can like other guys, Giuls.”
“Yeah, but—”
“No buts. It’s true.”
Greta wasn’t wrong.
“That’s kind of like cheating, isn’t it?” Giulia asked, not knowing Ginevra’s face was heating from their conversation as they pondered her private life. “If they were with someone else—even if it was Ginny, right?”
“Poly, Giulia,” Greta said, like it should have been obvious.
“What?”
“Poly. Polyamorous. There are lots of people in committed relationships who go outside to sleep with other people.”
Ginevra sighed. “Could we not talk about this right now?”
“Well,” Greta asked, “how is she ever going to know about that kind of stuff if no one takes the time to explain?”
She had forgotten that although Greta was younger than her, and she had helped to raise the girl, she was still almost eighteen. The world was not so rose-tinted to her anymore, and she had noticed boys and things like sex a while ago.
Siena giggled, but popped a hand over her mouth when Ginevra shot her a look. “Sorry,” she mumbled.
“So, it’s not cheat—”
“Look at it like a triple Venn diagram,” Ginevra said, not wanting to keep letting them assume what they wanted about her relationship with the men. It would be better if they understood what it was, and that was it. “We are all individual people, but there are parts of me that overlap with one, and then another part that overlaps with the other. And there are parts of them that only overlap with each other, too, but there is a piece of all of us that overlap together. That is how it works, for us. Not everyone is the same, and no, it is not about sleeping with anyone you want.”