His Dark Vendetta (Bonded in Blood #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Luca

48 Hours Later

T he tip of my cane struck a ridge in the uneven cobblestones and threw me off balance. With a pop and a grind, my right knee buckled, and I stumbled forward. I caught myself on the staircase handrail but landed awkwardly on the unforgiving concrete.

Stabbing pain shot up my legs. The dull ache in my head morphed into a steady throb that pulsed in time with the beat of my racing heart.

I squeezed the handrail. The cold, familiar iron steadied me and reminded me where I was—home.

My body was weak despite having drained two Sources; weeks of torture without food or water or blood will do that. Dreading the climb ahead, I pressed into the cane and forced myself upright.

The stairs led to a mahogany door. It looked the same as it had any of the countless times I’d stood at the bottom of those steps throughout my life. Back when the DeVitas and Morettis were one big happy family.

So much had changed, but not that door.

The stairs inflicted fresh punishment one excruciating step at a time, each movement a sharp reminder of the torture I’d endured. And deserved. But that hell was nothing compared to the pain of a life stolen, a child abandoned, and a crime left unavenged. My suffering was nothing compared to the pain I’d inflict on the family who murdered my father.

Panting from exertion, I needed a moment to catch my breath. I pressed my hand into a long crack I’d put in the door when I was a teenager and had gotten into it with Marco for the first time. He never patched the aged wood, and the crack stared back at me with unmasked reproach. It was wider now than when I’d slammed the door in a fit of rage and split the wood. Twenty-five years and weather and neglect had deepened the untreated wound. Was it possible to fix such a rift now?

I moved my fingers from the crack to the doorbell, and the silence after the ring twisted my empty insides. The deadbolt clicked, and the door swung open.

Mamma Gina’s hand flew to her mouth. The other gripped the doorknob like she needed an anchor. “Luca,” she whispered and reached for my cheek with shaking fingers. “Il mio dolce ragazzo.” Her bottom lip trembled, and tears spilled down her cheeks.

“Mamma Gina.”

She stepped back, and I hobbled into my childhood home. I bent to hug her, desperate for her safety and comfort. She took my face between her hands, kissed my cheeks and forehead, and wrapped her arms around me, holding me close. She rocked us back and forth like she used to when I was little, muttering, “Il mio Luca,” and “Il mio ragazzo,” between more frantic kisses. I squeezed her tight.

She clasped my shoulders and held me at arm’s length, examining my face. “Il mio povero, dolce ragazzo. Cosa ti hanno fatto?” She ran her fingers over two-and-a-half-weeks’ worth of unkempt stubble and the edge of the bandage covering my right eye.

“Nothing I didn’t deserve.” My voice cracked over the truth.

The grandfather clock standing guard over the living room announced the first toll in its midday warning. It cut through the silence, and with each chime, the relief and worry in Gina’s face transformed into hurt and anger.

“Dannazione!” The curse resounded over the final bell of the old clock, and she slapped me across the face hard enough to let me know she meant it. Her lips pinched, and her breath heaved in her chest. Red specks appeared in her deep brown irises.

Tears welled in my eyes—from the sting of her hand across my face or the sting of the pain I saw in hers, I couldn’t be sure.

The red glow of her eyes dimmed, and her breathing slowed. She took me back into her arms and kissed my cheeks. “Andrà tutto bene. Sei a casa, adesso. Everything will be okay,” she murmured.

Was she trying to convince me or herself?

She pulled back and gripped my biceps. “You’re so thin.”

I nodded.

When Vinnie’d asked where I wanted his driver to take me, I hadn’t hesitated. “Gina.” But standing there, I didn’t know what to say. I’d hurt her. I’d hurt Marco. Nothing I said would change those simple facts, and nothing she said would change the reasons I’d done it.

“Va bene,” she said and patted my arms. She helped me out of my jacket and hung it by the door. She came to the side opposite my cane, slung my arm across her shoulders, and held my hand. “Andiamo.”

At six-four, I towered over her, but I’d lost so much weight, when I leaned on her for support, she held me up.

“Easy,” she said and wrapped her arm around my waist.

She led me into the kitchen, and with a grunt and a wince, I lowered myself onto a chair and set my cane down.

“Did you feed?” she asked.

“Yesterday. Twice.”

“And before that?”

I gritted my teeth. She didn’t need to know that I’d been blood-starved for weeks. Without a Source to replenish my blood’s power, my body turned on itself for nourishment. Each round of Vinnie’s torture took longer to heal from than the last. Only to have him destroy my body again. She didn’t need to know he’d taken me to the brink of immortal death before ending my ordeal.

“When was the last time you ate?” she asked.

“Not since they took me.”

The refrigerator door opened and closed. Dishes rattled. A cork popped followed by the splash of wine against crystal. I shifted my weight, and the old chair creaked. The sounds of home. They transported me back in time, and the tightness in my chest eclipsed the ache in my head and knees. The onslaught of memories hit like a battering ram, and I flattened my palms against the polished wood of the kitchen table for stability.

“Antonio, get the phonebook for Luca.”

“Nooo, Nonna!” I whined. I tapped Papà’s arm. “Papà! Tell her! Tell her I don’t need it anymore. I’m six!”

“You heard him, Mamma.” Papà looked at me and winked. “He’s too grown-up to sit on the phonebook now.”

Zio Marco stood behind me and started messing up my face, smooshing it under his hands.

“Stop it, Zio!” I squirmed in my chair and swatted his arms. I didn’t really mind; he always did that just to mess with me. Zio Marco was the best.

He grabbed my shoulders and squeezed. “Our boy is all grown-up, Mamma. He can sit at the table like the rest of us. Right on his chair.”

Zio Marco stared down at me, a proud smile on his face.

I rubbed my sternum. The emptiness in my heart was as deep and profound as the emptiness in my stomach. All that was left was pain.

Gina handed me a glass of red wine and sat down at the head of the table, her mouth stern.

The strong red immediately went to work. Warmth spread across my chest and down my limbs, and for a moment, I thought it might be possible to breathe again.

She leaned forward and folded her hands on the table in front of her. “The weight will come back in time. You’ll stay here in your old room until you’re healed.”

I watched her over the rim of the glass, skeptical and wary.

“Marco leaves for Italy tomorrow,” she said. “He and Anna stopped by this morning to say goodbye.”

I opened my mouth to protest.

“It’s not open for discussion.” When Mamma Gina used that tone, when she gave you that look, you didn’t argue.

Truth was, I didn’t want to go back to my house in Saugus. Not yet. My eye hadn’t fully regenerated, and its absence gave me blinding headaches. My knees hadn’t completely healed either, even after being reset by Vinnie’s doctor. I could barely get in and out of a car, much less drive stick.

Her eyes bored into me, and I knew what was coming—an earful. I stared at my hands resting on the base of the wine glass.

“I’m not going to lecture you about how you betrayed my brother,” she said. “I don’t need to. You know how badly you hurt him.”

As angry as I was with Marco, as much as I resented him for not taking action, the pain I’d seen in his eyes the night he disowned me haunted me every day.

“Despite what you did, you’re as much a DeVita as you are a Moretti. Always have been. Just like your father. I’m not going to lecture you about how you betrayed our family, because you already know how badly you hurt me.”

I raised my eyes to meet hers, guilt overpowering my need to escape her reproach.

“But if you think for one second I’m not going to lecture you about how badly you hurt yourself—how you keep hurting yourself with this vendetta bullshit…” She shook her head. “You forget who raised you.”

Anger clashed against regret, but I couldn’t hold it back. “I didn’t come here for a lecture.”

“Too bad. My house, my rules.”

“You’ll never understand.”

“I understand plenty,” she snapped. “Do you have a death wish, Luca?”

I looked out the kitchen window and ground my teeth so hard, my jaw started to throb as badly as my head.

“Do you? Because that’s the only reason you’d do something as stupid and reckless as you did.

“Marco gave you a choice when you turned eighteen. I know, because as your foster parents, we had long discussions about giving you that choice. You chose to get involved. You chose to get made. And that means you play by the rules.” She held up her hands as if forcing herself to slow down. “What the hell were you thinking?”

My pulse roared, the pounding in my ears as loud as my labored breath. I clenched my fists, trying to contain the torrent of emotion.

Mamma Gina placed her hand atop mine. “Look at me,” she said softly and wriggled her fingers into my fist to hold my hand. “Guardami, Luca.”

My breathing slowed, and my shoulders relaxed.

“You’ve spent too much time in Italy obsessing over this vendetta. You’ve lost sight of what matters—your family, your community, the people who love you. We’ll help you through this. And if we can’t? If we can’t help you heal?” Her lips trembled, and she swallowed. “Then I’ve failed as a mother,” she finished, her voice shaking through a declaration that only deepened my guilt.

Tears made the crimson specks in her dark brown eyes sparkle. They pleaded with me as strongly as the strain in her voice.

But she didn’t understand. She could never understand what the Shaughnessys took from me. My father. My childhood. My sense of belonging. Nothing could fill the hole they left behind. Nothing but revenge.

The oven beeped.

Gina rose from the table and busied herself with my meal.

The promise of revenge had sustained me through the weeks I’d spent in that Valenzano hellhole. It had consumed every waking thought. I’d held on, knowing that if I made it to the other side, I’d make the Shaughnessys pay for the life they’d stolen and find some semblance of peace.

Gina set a plate steaming with baked ziti in front of me. My stomach rumbled. I picked up my fork and shoveled a huge bite into my mouth.

“Slow down! You’ll make yourself sick.”

But I couldn’t slow down. The aroma and flavor and texture of food after starving for so long…

“Allora. What’s your plan?”

I washed the bite down with the rest of my wine. “I work for Vinnie now.” I stabbed the salsiccia with my fork and tore a chunk off with my teeth. My body ripped through the food almost as eagerly as it had devoured the blood of the two Sources I’d drained.

“And the rest of your life?”

I shrugged and licked the thick sauce from my bottom lip. “Ancora vino, per favore?”

Gina pressed her brows together, as unhappy with my non-answer as she was with my attitude. But she was as close to a mamma as I had, so she got up, grabbed the bottle off the counter, and filled my glass.

The Moretti family blood debt demanded payment. The stain had to be removed from my hands, not to mention the DeVita’s and the Valenzano’s. An eye for an eye. Blood for blood. I was owed my sliver of peace even if it was a fraction of what I deserved. But I’d learned my lesson; I would play by the rules this time.

Mamma Gina tidied up the kitchen, and I finished my meal. Plate and glass empty, I leaned back and ran my hands over my full stomach.

“There are a few things in your room from when you renovated your house. I’ll go to Saugus tomorrow and pick up anything else you need.”

“Grazie.”

“Figurati. But now you need rest. Andiamo.”

She wasn’t wrong. I could barely keep my eyes open now that I’d eaten, especially after all the wine. I grabbed my cane, and Gina helped me to my feet.

My knees shook with each step through the living room. I stopped short before the hallway, my eyes fixed on a portrait that might as well have been a bullet through the head.

We’d piled into Nonno’s station wagon to drive to the studio. Nonna’d said we needed a family picture before Marco and Gina left for Italy. It had been time for them to relocate, assume the identity of their children for a few decades before returning to the States. Nonna’d explained that because we were special, because we were blood demons, we all would experience that adventure someday.

I sat on my father’s lap. His arms wrapped around me. I held his thick thumb in one of my little hands. The other held onto Gina standing to my right. I had a big gap-toothed grin on my face; I’d lost my first front tooth days before. Papà told me that if I smiled nice for our family picture, he’d take me to Mike’s Pastry for cannoli. Marco stood behind and to the left of my father, resting his hand on my father’s shoulder. Nonno e Nonna stood behind them.

The DeVitas. Complete with two Morettis. Our family.

My throat constricted, and rage clawed its way up from my chest to blaze through my eyes. I gritted my teeth, trying to cage my emotion, but the loss was too profound.

Mamma Gina squeezed my arm. “Come on, Luca. Let’s get you to bed.”

Marco’s hand on my father’s shoulder filled my vision and swelled my anger. It was bad enough I’d lost my father to Pádraig Shaughnessy, but to lose my foster father to a rat?

Siobhán Connelly—Siobhán Shaughnessy —had destroyed my relationship with Marco. She’d broken our bond with her scheming.

I’d known she was a liar, leading me on with that fake fucking accent. Irish, my ass. But a fottuto Shaughnessy? A maledetto rat? She’d lied to me and my family for the last time.

My vendetta wouldn’t be complete until both crimes were avenged. Lucky for me, there was one Shaughnessy whose life would pay full price.