Chapter 3 Miko
MIKO
“Hands up, Gio!” Don Augusta barks as I spar with my two younger brothers on the back lawn of the Chiaroscuro estate.
It’s a hot summer day, the sun beating down on us relentlessly, and we’ve been at this for hours, but the Don has never been one to take it easy on his children, and hand-to-hand combat is critical to master.
“We live in an unforgiving world,” he often says, “so to go easy on you now would only set you up for failure as men.”
At age three, the twins, Sandro and Raf, are too young for training just yet, so they watch, sitting with rapt attention beside the Don as Gio and I exchange blows.
Our world-renowned instructor is busy with Leo, tutoring him on the weak points of his last attempt to take me down.
That leaves me to spar with Gio without reprieve since I’m the oldest and the strongest—and therefore, possess the longest endurance.
Leo and Gio have been trading off as their strength wanes, but I can see it in Gio’s eyes.
He’s determined to keep up with me for as long as he can. Still, I have him on the defensive as I throw several well-aimed blows that he manages to block—just barely.
Then I finish him off with a roundhouse kick, knocking him to the ground. Ruthless, I know, but then, the punishment for holding back would be far worse—for both of us.
Ready to get back into the fray, Leo charges in with a bellow of rage, plowing into my stomach with his shoulder, not a thought wasted on his safety.
He takes me to the ground with impressive force before raining blows down on my face.
Too bad for him, at three years younger than me, he just doesn’t have the body mass to hurt me, so his fists don’t pack enough punch to break through my defenses.
Still, I stay down, using it as a momentary reprieve to catch my breath—because even if my brothers aren’t hard to beat, they sure don’t let me off easy.
Steeling myself, I roll, taking Leo to the ground as I twist, pulling him into a headlock in one fluid move.
My brother struggles, kicking against the ground and arching his back as he yanks at my arm, trying to break free.
“That’s enough,” Don Augusta commands, and I release Leo immediately.
My brother rolls off me, collapsing back onto the grass, sweaty and shirtless, just like me, as we pant for breath.
“You boys never stood a chance,” I tease as Leo and Gio sit up, grinning broadly.
“We’ll get you one of these days,” Gio insists, his eyes hopeful.
“You can try,” I taunt, reveling in my victory at the same time as I prod them playfully to improve.
“Yeah, in your dreams, Gio,” Leo says, then turns to the Don for confirmation. “Miko’s the best at everything, isn’t he, Father? He might even be as powerful as you someday.” There’s a hint of reverence in my brother’s voice that makes me grin.
I like being the oldest. Not just because that gives me the advantage of size and strength but because my brothers look up to me for it, and that honor is something I want to be worthy of. But Don Augusta’s expression tells me he’s less than thrilled by Leo’s statement.
At just seven years old, Leo doesn’t seem to pick up on the undercurrent of tension that rises from his comment.
But I do, and even if I don’t fully understand why it’s there, the disapproval in the don’s gaze is enough to make the back of my neck burn with humiliation.
Because even if the reverence my brothers show me is meant well, I can see our father doesn’t approve.
“Leo,” Don Augusta says haltingly, placing a hand on my brother’s tan shoulder. “As much as we like to think of Miko as family, he’s not one of us.
He might carry the Chiaroscuro name, but he will never earn the title of Don.
He’s here to serve and protect you, and as my true-born heir, Leo, you will be the one who inherits our family’s empire.
So, keep that in mind next time you choose to worship the ground Miko walks upon.
He’s a rival you should strive to overcome, a tool to support your power—not an idol to look up to. Is that understood?”
His words cut deep, the truth cracking something deep in my foundation, and the hot summer day suddenly feels dark, ice-cold, and achingly lonely.
I always knew I was different somehow, but I couldn’t put my finger on it until now.
I saw it in the sidelong glances people gave me when they didn’t think I was looking, felt it in the lack of physical connection—even a supportive hand on the shoulder, like the Don is giving Leo now.
I heard it in the way people called me “the adopted Chiaroscuro,” like it was a specific attribute to identify me by.
I know I don’t look quite like my brothers either—my eyes are far too light, as is my skin, which burns twice as fast in the grueling sun, though I’ve learned not to complain about the blisters, and my skin has developed a tougher outer layer over time.
“Leo, Gio, square off. I need a moment alone with Miko,” the Don says.
With a groan, my brothers do as he says, rolling up off the ground and bouncing spryly back to their feet despite their protests.
And as they engage once more, our teacher stepping in to instruct them, I come to stand next to the man I call Father.
“I think it’s time, Miko, that I tell you the truth about your past,” the Don says, his voice serious as he watches his sons wrestle beneath the grueling sun.
“I adopted you as a toddler—picked you up off the streets, where you were starving and abandoned. I took you in and cleaned you up, cared for you like you were my own son, because I saw an invaluable strength in you that I believe can serve this family well. I adopted you, hoping that, one day, I could trust you to look after this family—to protect your brothers in a way no hired man ever could.”
The don’s words soothe that searing rejection somehow, giving me a sense of belonging that I’ve been lacking for as long as I can remember, and I turn to look up at him, squinting into the brilliant summer sun.
“We are your family, Miko, in every way that matters,” he says, his smooth voice as calm as ever, but somehow, the words feel gravely important, and they give me an agency that lifts my fractured heart. “Do you understand?”
“I think so, sir,” I say, though in my ten-year-old psyche, I’m not entirely sure what he’s trying to tell me.
“I’m entrusting you with a significant responsibility, Michelangelo,” he says, turning to face me fully now, and as he rests both hands on my shoulders, I feel the weight of that responsibility settling on me like a mantel of honor.
The significance of that touch strikes a chord within me, and suddenly, for the first time, I feel like a man—someone my father can rely upon.
More than anything, I want to be worthy of that trust.
“One day, I won’t be around to protect and guide my sons. It will be up to you to keep them safe—no matter the price. That is how you can repay me for my generosity, son.”
“I will, Father,” I promise, filled with a conviction I hadn’t felt before.
I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to repay my debt to this man who took me in when no one else would.
But I have to try.
Even if it takes my life.
I jolt awake, coming back to reality from my dream as the yacht lurches violently beneath me, and guilt gnaws at my stomach as the cold, hard truth hits home.
I failed him.
I utterly failed the man who gave me everything—a home, a life, a family. Yes, my brothers survived the attack, but I let the Don be murdered in cold blood, right before my eyes.
I watched as the Chiaroscuro home burned to the ground, stood by—helpless—as Raf lost his wife, and Leo nearly lost Sora.
But I promised to protect Don Augusta’s family that day, twenty-five years ago. I swore on my life that I would prove worthy of his trust.
And now the memory has come back to haunt me—right alongside the vivid image of Pyotr’s gun painting the foyer floor with my adoptive father’s lifeblood.
Sitting up, I scrub my face with my palms and release a heavy sigh. Then I snatch my phone to take a look at the time.
It’s not yet five in the morning, but now that I’m up, there’s no way I’m going to fall asleep again.
The few hours of shuteye I managed to catch will have to suffice.
Because if my dream has done one thing for me, it’s awakened a new conviction in me to right the horrible injustice I’ve allowed.
My real family abandoned me, and Don Augusta took me in when no one else would.
I don’t remember my life before that day—I never have—but it doesn’t matter.
I owe everything to the Chiaroscuros, and still, I couldn’t save the Don, the only man I’ve ever called Father. And I will have my revenge.
For the Don, for my brothers.
Our family might be a complicated one—dysfunctional even—but no one gets to tear it apart without facing the consequences.
And while the Tanakas and Murrays will face my wrath, first, I intend to make an example of the man who took my father’s life.
Pyotr Novikov.
I never liked the man.
In truth, I’ve disliked him like one would a creepy little spider that sneaks into the cracks of the walls before it can be squashed, because that is what he is.
A poisonous insect that weaves webs and lays traps too flimsy to catch me in.
But now he’s gone and killed someone he shouldn’t have. And he’s going to die a slow and very painful death for it.
Taking a quick shower, I throw on a sun shirt and board shorts—the only clothes we have on hand after our impromptu retreat from our family home—and head to the galley for some coffee.
To my surprise, the twins are already there, dark hair still a tangled mess, their five-o’clock shadows telling me neither actually slept a wink.
And from the haunted look in Raf’s eye, I know it’s because he’s reliving his wife’s death over and over—just like the don’s execution plays on repeat behind my eyelids.
“Couldn’t sleep?” I ask.
Sando meets my eye, his gaze filled with an agony as if he himself had lost a part of his heart, and I know it’s because Raf and Sandro—as different as they might be—are like two halves of a whole.
If one gets injured, the other bleeds. He shakes his head subtly, and I press my lips together as I study Raf’s face.
The hollow look in his eye is almost more frightening than the half-crazed one from before.
Something inside him is dying, and I know that he needs to hear my plan just as much as I needed it.
Wordlessly, I start a pot of coffee brewing then slump onto the bench seat across the table from my brothers.
As if summoned by the smell, Gio appears minutes later, his hair tousled like his sleep was just as restless.
“Good, you’re up,” I state flatly as he heads straight for the coffee pot and pours four steaming mugs to bring back to the table.
My brothers’ eyes all turn to me as they hear the conviction in my voice.
“I don’t know about you boys, but I’m not ready to take this attack lying down,” I state flatly.
“Our enemies might have taken our home from us—Father, Genevieve. But I refuse to crawl into a hole to lick our wounds. I say we strike while the iron is hot and show them just how badly they screwed up, thinking they could take down the Chiaroscuro family.”
“And how do you propose we do that, Miko?” Gio asks, his eyes filled with resignation. “Our forces are scattered, significantly depleted. Leo and Sora are on the run, and like you pointed out, Father’s dead, so we have no one to lead us—”
His words are cut short as my phone vibrates across the tabletop, and I snatch it up to look at the unknown number.
Sliding my finger across the screen, I answer in Italian—on the off chance that someone could be tapped into my phone.
“Pronto?”
“It’s me,” Leo responds curtly in our native tongue—or at least, the language we grew up speaking around the Chiaroscuro house. Considering I’m something of a stray, I have no clue what my native tongue might be. “Just checking in to let you know Sora and I are somewhere safe.”
Where that is, he doesn’t say, but it’s better that way.
“Good,” I confirm. “Your timing is perfect. We were just discussing where to start our revenge.”
A long pause stretches across the line, and I share a look with Gio as Leo releases a sigh that crackles through the phone.
“Look, you have my blessing to kill every last one of those bastards for what they did—Sora’s family included.
But I’m out, brother. Permanently. Sora and I are done fighting wars we didn’t ask for or start in the name of family.
I never wanted Father’s legacy—you know that.
And now that we have a baby on the way… I want to start a new life, one where Sora and our baby will be safe.
Besides, you’re perfectly capable of fighting without me. ”
I can hear the remorse in Leo’s tone, even with the miles stretching between us, but I don’t want him to feel guilty for putting his new family first.
If I had a wife and baby to protect, I might just feel the same way. I want my brother to be happy—and I know how desperately Leo wanted to escape the shackles of his inheritance.
“I’m not asking you to come back and fight,” I assure him. “We can do this without you, right, brothers?” I meet Gio’s, Sandro’s, and Raf’s eyes in turn, and relief floods me as I get a stoic nod of confirmation from each.
Then Raf’s jaw sets in grim determination, fire igniting in his gaze for the first time since I found him in the rubble of our family home. “We’ll make them regret the day they ever thought they could take what’s ours,” he growls.
I can hear the wicked grin in Leo’s response. “Make ’em pay,” he says before ending the call.
And this time, when I look around the table, I can see the same glint of determination in my brothers’ eyes that raised me from my devastation. Our enemies might have taken everything from us, but they’ve also given us too sweet a reason to live. Revenge.
“Alright,” I say, my pulse throbbing with fresh conviction as I lean my elbows onto the galley table and get down to business.
“I say we start with the Russians. Pyotr’s the one who killed the Don, so it will make a solid statement.
Besides, without the Yakuza and the Irish, the Russians are the most vulnerable. ”
My brothers nod in silent agreement, leaning in as they get on board with the plan.
“If we gather our remaining men, we should still have the numbers to crush the Russians and claim their headquarters. From there, we can start to rebuild…”