“My brother Cassius is learning this in school too.” Her assumption of him being around her brother’s age had been right. She took his pencil and paper, writing out the problem. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Drago just standing there staring, which was making her feel self-conscious, but finally, he left the room, which let her work out the problem easier as she began trying to teach Leo.
However, they only had worked out half the problem when she saw Drago return with a bunch of paperwork and take a seat at the end of the kitchen table, keeping them in his view. It took a while for her to begin to forget about him again, and by the time they were toward the end of the problems, someone started coming from the foyer again. When she looked at who it was, her jaw practically dropped to the floor when a tall blond model entered the room.
“Where were you?” Drago was the one to ask.
“What do you care?” She laughed as she went to sit on the couch. Rolling her eyes when his face became serious, she answered. “I was in my bedroom on the phone.”
“I thought you looked for her?” he asked, giving Leo a stern look.
“She must’ve not heard me when I knocked.” Leo shrugged.
“You should have knocked harder then.”
“It’s okay,” she interjected, noticing Drago getting a little frustrated. “I don’t mind helping him. We’re already almost done.”
“Thank God. If I have to teach him PEMDAS one more time, I’m going to shoot myself.” The woman touched by Jesus himself smiled at her. “I’m Maria.”
Smiling back, she figured the woman was definitely Leo’s older sister. “Katarina.”
“You can call her Kat though,” Leo added.
“Your hair is freaking gorgeous,” Maria complimented her, looking at the light pink strands.
“Thank you.” Hearing a shuffle of papers, she noticed Drago stand up and beginning to pack up his papers, but she turned back to Leo. “Ready to finish?”’
“Do I have to? It’s not like I’m going to use this when I’m done with high school.”
Even though she had heard that typical response from every other teenager, she had gotten a different vibe from the kid since he was the one who’d sought help. “How do you know?”
Leo smiled proudly. “Because I’m going to be like my brother Lucca, one day.”
Huh…. “Lucca’s your brother?”
“Yeah.” Maria was the one to answer, seeming to be dumbfounded by her response.
“Oh.” She licked her dry lips seeing that even Drago had stopped packing up. “I don’t see the resemblance, is all. You two are very…” Katarina tried to search for the right word. “…good looking.”
Maria’s jaw dropped. “You don’t think Lucca’s good looking?”
Oh fuck. She stared at the shocked faces in the room thinking she had just made a huge mistake telling them she didn’t find not only their brother handsome but the Caruso underboss. However, she couldn’t help it. She really didn’t find him attractive at all. He was quite fucking frightening to her. Wondering if she should try to backtrack, she decided to fuck it and just be truthful. “Not really, no.”
“What?!” The sister’s voice came out half shocked but filled with laughter. “Every girl he meets falls in love with him.”
How in the hell? Now she was the one with a shockingly pain-struck face. “Really?”
“YES.” Maria continued to die with laughter realizing she was being serious in not finding him attractive.
Drago placed his papers on the table and sat back down again.
Shrugging, she had to make sure and try to reel it back. This was the underboss, for Christ’s sake. “He’s just not my type, I guess.”
“Then what’s your type?” Leo asked with an arched brow.
Handing the pencil for him to solve the last problem, she answered him truthfully. “Men who are smart.”
Leo couldn’t have grabbed the pencil any faster.
Katarina wasn’t sure if she heard the mumble coming from Drago’s direction correctly over Maria’s even louder hilarity, but she could have sworn she heard the words….
“I’ll be damned.”
Seven
He’s an Idiot
“Can we get pizza?”
“Leo!” Maria hissed at him.
“Sorry, I forgot.” His voice trailed off.
She was confused at first as to why she had hushed him, but then she quickly remembered her brother telling her how Lucifer had taken down Drago. Posing as a pizza delivery guy had gotten Drago to open the door and make an almost fatal mistake.
Drago didn’t even look up from his work. “I’ll get one of the guys to bring some pizza.”
She figured the Carusos had unfortunately learned their lesson. Hence why she was here. It was all going very differently than she anticipated, not knowing what she had expected, but it wasn’t this. Katarina wasn’t even really spending the day with Drago per say, but she figured he wanted it that way, distancing her from himself, so his mind wouldn’t change. She had barely learned anything new about him; the only things she did know about him were what Dominic had told her—that she needed to know everything she could about the enemy in order to defeat him. In order to get him to change his mind in choosing her. She learned Drago De Santis was the boss’ personal bodyguard and one of the most respected men in the family, like most De Santis men were. The night he had been taken down, he was here, in the Caruso family home, when he was shot and the woman he was protecting, Chloe, was captured. All she knew of Chloe was that her father had been fascinated with her and to stay the hell away from her, as she was Lucca’s.