Chapter 4 Luca
LUCA
The security footage from Giuliana’s clinic explosion plays one final time across my laptop screen, each frame more beautiful than the last.
The controlled demolition unfolds in high-definition clarity—gas lines severed in exactly the right sequence, accelerants deployed perfectly, and ignition timed to the second.
My men are artists when it comes to destruction, and watching two years of her life’s work collapse into rubble and twisted metal fills me with delight.
Perfect execution. Perfect timing. Perfect results.
I close the laptop with a soft click and lean back in my chair, allowing myself a moment to savor the completion of phase one.
The mahogany desk before me is covered with legal documents—a marriage contract spread across the polished surface, each clause meticulously crafted to bind the Conti bloodline to me through legal ties that death alone can sever.
The irony is exquisite.
Giuliana has spent years trying to save her pathetic father from the consequences of his choices, sending him money she couldn’t afford while he pissed it away on cards and horses.
Now she’ll pay the ultimate price for his betrayal, becoming the instrument of his psychological torture until I decide they’ve both suffered enough to balance the scales.
The office door opens without a knock—Danny’s privilege as my most trusted lieutenant.
He strides in wearing a charcoal suit that conceals the Glock holstered beneath his left arm.
“The priest is confirmed, boss,” he says, settling his considerable frame into the leather chair across from my desk. “Father McKenzie owes us enough favors to perform the ceremony without asking uncomfortable questions about the bride’s…enthusiasm.”
Danny sets down a manila folder thick enough to contain someone’s entire life story. “Viktor Torrino is anxious to meet. And the complete background check on the daughter came back.”
I open the folder with the anticipation of a collector examining a rare acquisition.
More photographs spill across the desk’s surface—surveillance shots of Giuliana at her veterinary clinic, professional headshots from her website, candid images of her with friends at coffee shops and parks.
Her personnel file makes for fascinating reading.
Summa cum laude from Northwestern’s veterinary program, residency at one of Chicago’s most prestigious animal hospitals, glowing recommendations from colleagues who describe her as “brilliant under pressure” and “naturally gifted with both animals and their owners.” Financial records show a woman who’s supported herself entirely since college while regularly sending money to her worthless father.
Money that went straight into poker games and horse races.
The psychological evaluation is particularly illuminating.
Dr. Jennifer Clark, one of Chicago’s most respected forensic psychiatrists, has provided a comprehensive assessment based on interviews with Giuliana’s colleagues, academic records, and behavioral observation.
Her conclusions paint a picture of someone with exceptional emotional resilience, high intelligence, and what Dr. Clark terms “protective instincts that border on the pathological when it comes to family.”
“She’ll fight,” I murmur, studying a still from security footage where Giuliana is treating what appears to be an injured dog.
She looks compassionate as she appears to talk soothingly to the animal.
That wasn’t what I had been expecting.
“Maybe that’s not a bad thing,” Danny ventures carefully. “A little challenge might make the victory more satisfying.”
I look up at him, noting the way his jaw tightens when he thinks I’m about to cross a line he can’t follow me across.
Danny served two tours in Afghanistan before finding his way into my organization, and his military background gives him a moral compass that occasionally conflicts with the requirements of our business.
It’s why I trust him.
A man without principles is useful, but a man who chooses to compromise his principles for you is invaluable.
“Something on your mind, Danny?” I ask softly, danger lurking in every word.
He shifts in his chair, his massive hands folding together as he chooses his words, clearly understanding the warning. “The girl’s never hurt anyone, boss. Clean record, clean life, clean conscience. This feels different from our usual business.”
“Different how?”
“Usually when we destroy someone, they’ve earned it. They’ve betrayed us, stolen from us, threatened what’s ours. But Giuliana Conti…” He gestures toward the photographs. “She’s collateral damage. An innocent paying for her father’s sins.”
The date on the security footage of Giuliana tending to the dog catches my eye: three years, two months, and eighteen days since Marco died.
The numbers are etched into my memory, marking the moment my world split into before and after.
I remember every detail of that horrible discovery at the Port of Chicago.
The warehouse where we conducted legitimate business, where Marco had gone to oversee a routine weapons shipment transfer.
I’d been across town mediating a territorial dispute between two of our subsidiary crews, confident that my cousin could handle the simple logistics of moving product from point A to point B.
Something he’d done numerous times before.
The call came late. Danny’s voice was something I’d never heard from him before: “Boss, you need to get down to Pier 19. Now.”
I found Marco zip-tied to a metal chair in the center of the empty warehouse, his head hanging at an angle that told me everything I needed to know before I checked for a pulse.
But they hadn’t just killed him—they’d taken their time.
Cigarette burns dotted his arms.
His fingernails were gone.
There were cuts that spoke of information extracted through pain, questions answered under duress.
My cousin. My best friend. The only person in the world who could make me laugh genuinely, who remembered the scared kid I’d been before power and violence shaped me into something harder.
Marco had been the moral center of our organization, the voice that reminded me when we were becoming monsters rather than businessmen.
They probably tortured him for information about me.
Things like my location, my security protocols, my personal vulnerabilities.
But in the days that followed, none of our safe houses were compromised, none of our security protocols were breached, and none of the personal details that could have destroyed me ever surfaced.
Marco had died protecting me, enduring agony rather than betraying the man he called brother.
It took months of investigation, but eventually one of my contacts in the underground gambling circuit confirmed the details.
Antonio Conti had sold detailed intelligence about our shipment schedules—route information, timing, security protocols—everything needed to set the perfect trap.
Financial records proved it.
Fifty thousand dollars in gambling debts mysteriously erased just days before Marco’s death.
The timing was damning.
Antonio had received a large cash payment, his debts vanished overnight, and within hours Marco walked into what could only have been a carefully planned ambush.
My cousin had died because a pathetic gambling addict valued fifty thousand dollars more than an innocent man’s life.
“You know what they did to him,” I say to Danny, my voice carrying the weight of three years’ accumulated grief and rage. “You saw the photographs. You read the medical examiner’s report.”
Danny’s expression softens with shared memory.
He’d been the one to cut the zip ties from Marco’s wrists, the one to help me carry my cousin’s body to the car so we could give him a proper funeral instead of letting the police turn him into evidence in a case that would never see prosecution.
“I remember, boss,” he says heavily. “But Marco wouldn’t want—”
“Don’t.” The word comes out sharply. “Don’t tell me what Marco would want. Marco’s dead because a pathetic gambling addict sold his life for fifty thousand dollars. Marco doesn’t get to want anything anymore.”
I stand and walk to the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook my estate’s grounds.
Twenty acres of perfectly manicured lawns stretch toward the lake, interrupted by stands of oak trees that were old when Chicago was still a trading post.
“This arrangement is justice in its purest form,” I continue, watching a groundskeeper trim the hedges.
“Antonio will spend every remaining day of his life knowing his daughter suffers because of his choices. Every smile I take from her face, every tear she sheds, every moment of happiness I steal, he’ll know it’s his fault. ”
“And when you’re done with her?” Danny asks.
Ah, the age-old question.
What to do with Giuliana Conti?
I turn back to face Danny, letting him see the satisfaction in my expression.
“When I’m done with her, Antonio Conti will have watched his daughter suffer for every day of torment Marco endured. Only then will the debt be balanced. With her death.” I pick up a piece of paper and crush it in between my hands.
Danny’s phone buzzes against the leather of his holster.
He checks the message then looks up at me.
“Surveillance team reports she’s leaving the clinic ruins now.
Katie Carmichael picked her up. They’re heading to Lincoln Park.
” He pauses, reading more. “Team says she’s moving carefully.
Holding her ribs. The friend looked alarmed when she saw her. ”
“Good,” I say, returning to my desk. “Let the friend see what happens to people who interfere with my plans. Perhaps it will discourage her from any heroic ideas about helping.”
I sit down and sign the final page of the marriage contract with a fountain pen that once belonged to Al Capone himself—a gift from Viktor Torrino when we first began negotiating our territorial alliance.
“Double the security at the safe house where we’re keeping Antonio.
I don’t want him developing any heroic ideas about saving his daughter. ”
The hours pass slowly as I review other business—territorial disputes that require mediation, legitimate enterprises that need oversight, the countless details that keep an organization like mine running smoothly.
But my attention keeps drifting to the clock.
The forty-eight-hour deadline approaches, and I find myself genuinely curious about her choice.
She wouldn’t be stupid enough to decline my generous offer. Would she?
At 11:43 p.m., my phone finally rings.
The caller ID shows the number I programmed two days ago.
I answer on the second ring, already savoring the victory that three years of planning have earned me.
“Giuliana,” I say, her name rolling off my tongue like wine I’ve been saving for a special occasion.
“I accept.” Her voice is hoarse, strained—probably from screaming in the warehouse, or perhaps from crying.
I can hear the pain when she breathes, a slight catch that suggests Dimitri’s boot did more damage than expected.
Good.
She hasn’t broken yet, merely bent to the inevitable.
That’s fine.
Breaking her will be a gradual process, and I have all the time in the world.
The satisfaction of a perfectly executed strategy settles over me like expensive cologne.
Every piece has moved exactly where I placed it.
Every contingency has been accounted for.
Every outcome has been calculated and prepared for.
“Wise choice,” I tell her, allowing just a hint of warmth to color my tone. The carrot before the stick, the illusion of mercy before the reality of captivity. “My driver will collect you tomorrow morning at eight sharp. Bring one suitcase. Everything else from your previous life stays behind.”
She doesn’t ask about her father or demand to know if he’s alive or being cared for.
Perhaps she’s finally learning that she has no leverage or ability to negotiate.
Or perhaps the pain makes it difficult to argue.
Either way, her silence is satisfying.
I end the call and set the phone aside, looking at Danny who had returned to my office to discuss some matter. His expression is…interesting.
Like he highly disapproves of my phone call but doesn’t want to say anything.
That’s too bad for him.
“Something you want to say, Danny?”
He straightens, those green eyes meeting mine with the steady gaze of a soldier preparing to deliver an unpopular report. “She’s not her father, boss. From everything in this file, she’s never hurt anyone. Never betrayed anyone. Never chosen the easy path when it would damage someone else.”
“Neither had Marco.” I stand and adjust my jacket, smoothing imaginary wrinkles from Italian wool. “Prepare the estate for our guest. The future Mrs. Marchetti arrives tomorrow, and I want everything perfect for her arrival.”
Tomorrow, the Giuliana Conti she once knew will cease to exist.
In her place will be a woman who belongs to me as completely as the furniture in this room, as thoroughly as the contracts in my desk drawer.
Danny nods slowly, accepting the order despite his obvious reservations. “Yes, boss. I’ll have everything ready.”
As he moves toward the door, I allow myself one final look at the photographs spread across my desk.
Giuliana treating injured animals with gentle hands.
Giuliana laughing with friends over coffee.
Giuliana living a simple, honest life that’s about to become infinitely more complicated.
Tomorrow begins the education of the future Mrs. Marchetti.
She’ll learn that mercy is a luxury I can’t afford, that her father’s sins have consequences that extend beyond his own punishment, that the choices we make ripple outward in ways we never anticipate.
Marco’s death taught me that lesson three years ago.
Now it’s Giuliana’s turn to learn it.