Chapter 2
Leonardo
Dom once told me Il Lusso was too beautiful for people like us.
He was wrong. It’s too ugly. This room has invisible rot in the walls and under the floors, beneath the polished gold fixtures and the tuxedoed waiters offering cocaine instead of hors d'oeuvres. I don’t hear the jazz or the clinking of glasses or the sound of hollow men shaking hands on hollow deals.
All I hear is my own blood. Too loud. Too fast. The usual.
Someone lets out a braying laugh across the room, a stick-thin woman wraps herself around a man, and the world here keeps spinning without me. I lean back against a marble pillar and try to keep the scowl off my face.
I take a deep breath, scratch my fingers through my hair.
This isn't where I belong. The fights I get into don't happen on deep leather couches with tumblers of scotch. I'm the wild card. The hothead. Always two drinks in or one punch out. I’ve tried to pretend like Dom, but I can’t do it. Won’t do it.
Speaking of Dom, I spot my brother’s sharp eyes cutting through the crowd, scanning for me.
His shoulders are too wide for the place, or maybe it’s just his ego, but people make way.
He moves with the cool precision of a man who’s been running this joint forever.
Long enough to make himself rich off the scum.
Dom locks onto me and heads my way, brushing off someone who looks important.
“Thought I’d find you brooding over here,” he says, stopping in front of me.
I shrug. “And you thought right. Your point?”
Dom smirks. “You look miserable, Leo.”
I scoff. “I look bored. I’d rather be starting shit somewhere else.”
“Be patient.” Dom crosses his arms, and the fabric of his suit barely creases. “You’re already getting twitchy. Haven’t been here an hour, have you?”
“Ten minutes. I don’t know how you do this every night. I’d rather punch myself in the head.” I crack my knuckles to make my point, the sound sharp like gunfire in all this dull white noise. Dom doesn’t flinch.
“I do what needs to be done, that’s how.
Dad has some big moves lined up.” Dom lifts his chin and stares me down, his eyes full of that calm intensity that’s way scarier than shouting.
The kind of seriousness that makes most people nervous as hell.
Me, I’m just waiting for him to spill the next part of the plan and explain why he dragged me to meet with him. I don’t have to wait long.
“You’re not going to like it, Leo,” he finally says, cutting his gaze deeper. He knows I'm about to lose my cool, just like always. “But you better get on board.”
I snort, rubbing at the back of my neck. “Let me guess. Daddy’s moving coke through the elementary schools now?” I know the jab has landed when Dom’s mouth tightens. I’ve hit a nerve.
“Funny. We’re getting close to something, and this one’s important.”
“Okay,” I say. “Important how?”
Dom is quiet for a beat too long, and I see him weighing exactly how to tell me.
How to get me to swallow whatever bitter pill Sal’s cooked up.
He shifts his weight from one leg to the other, like he’s bracing for impact, or maybe like he’s getting ready to tell me I’m adopted. “This deal with Richard Price—”
“The gem guy?”
“The gem guy,” Dom confirms. “We’re ready to move on it.”
“Are we now?” I arch an eyebrow.
“We are.” Dom's eyes bore into me like he’s trying to plant the idea in my skull. “We want you to lead it, Leo. It’s a simple business deal. You marry the daughter, and we’re all happy families. He gets our distribution network, we get his rocks.”
My mind spins, struggling to comprehend my brother's words.
For a second, the roar of everything around me vanishes, replaced by deafening silence.
I stand there, unmoving. The suggestion is absurd.
It feels like a joke, except I know Dom never jokes about business.
My pulse hammers. I find myself at a loss, as if words have been ripped out of me along with my breath.
Marry the daughter? The phrase echoes until a flicker of anger lights inside my chest. My mouth finally catches up with my brain. I lean forward, a snarl twisting my lips. "You can't be serious."
I almost expect Dom to smirk and tell me it’s all a setup, a new way to mess with my head. But Dom just stands there, impassive and composed. Infuriating dick. He knows I don't back down from challenges. But this? The longer Dom holds my gaze, the more the truth of it sinks in.
With a sharp exhale, I finally bark out, “And you thought I’d be the best brother for the job?” I laugh. “No fucking way.”
“It’s how these things work. This is family, Leo.”
I spit the words back at him. “It’s how they worked in the fifteenth century.”
He doesn’t let me get the better of him. “You don’t do love. So marry this chick, what's the difference? You're a fighter not a lover, right? You said it yourself a thousand times.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“That was before you told me I had to get married,” I snap. “You’re insane. We’re not animals. This isn’t going to happen.”
“It will,” Dom says, signing my death warrant. “If you want to run the new gem arm of the family business.”
I grab him by the collar and shove him back. He just lets me, because he knows I’ll regret it in a second. “I don’t care if you are my brother. Fuck you for thinking you can do this to me.”
“I’m thinking about family,” Dom says, brushing off his suit. “You should too. We need this, Leo. It’s everything.”
A woman walks past, makeup impeccable, skirt painted on, and heels even higher than her bankroll.
I can see Dom noticing too, but I doubt he’s thinking the same thing I am.
This glittering, skinny thing probably wears her daddy’s credit card like an award, but she’s got a mouth on her and a body that could keep me interested—at least for a little while.
She saunters away with the kind of sway that makes you forget what you were talking about.
“And I’m the only way?” I ask.
“You’re it. I’d do it myself, but—”
“But you’re the heir. Sal’s saving you for a bigger fish. But what about one of the twins? Or Rafe? I’m sure they’d love to snag a hot, rich girl.”
“They’re setting up the fight rings with the Russians for the next few months, you know that.”
“So we wait. What’s a couple of months compared to years of wedded bliss?”
“The Albanians are trying to get into the rock business too. We have to move fast on this. So, it’s you. There’s no other option. Dad’s set on this.”
“Let him marry her, then.”
He almost smiles. Almost. “I don’t think Mom would like that very much. It's you or no rock business.”
He’s right, and he knows I know it. I’m trapped and twisting, an animal with its paw in a snare. A violent little animal that’s ready to chew its leg off.
Dom waits.
A pressure cooker. That’s what I am when it comes to family. I'll do anything for them, but I'll blow my top while it's going down, and he knows it. His patience is infuriating.
I spit my words at him like bullets, ugly and metallic. “If the girl doesn’t want this, I’m out. I’m not forcing someone to marry me.”
Dom doesn’t even flinch. He knows me too well. “I’ll talk to Richard.”
“I want to meet with her.” I insist. No way I'm marrying some woman I've never even met. No way am I going in blind
Dom looks surprised, like I’m more sentimental than he thought I was. Like I’m weaker. “All right. But it won’t make a difference.”
I hold his gaze because we’re still brothers, even if we’re different breeds. “If she doesn’t want it, it’ll make all the difference.”
“There are two women,” Dom says, as if waving a golden ticket in front of my face. “You can take your pick.”
“The Price sisters. Great.”
Dom shrugs as if he’s handing me a gift instead of a life sentence. “Not a bad deal.”
I shake my head, my pulse keeping the time to a growing rage. “Fuck you.”
“You’ll thank me.” He turns to leave, and I’m ready to throw something at the back of his perfectly groomed head.
I call after him, because I have to say it. Because even when I’m pissed to hell, I’m still a Rosetti. “You know I’d do anything for the family.”
“That’s what worries me.” Anyone else, he’d say thank you, but me, he insults, like I can’t keep my temper for five minutes straight.
I watch his back as he goes, gliding into the crowd like a bullet sinking into flesh. That’s how it is with him: precise, cold, businesslike. Not like me, blood running out of me faster than I can keep it in.
I look around this gilded room again, and it doesn’t look like blood after all. It looks like rust. A tarnish that’s setting into everything. I’m part of it, even if I never wanted to be. Dom’s words echo, Choose the one who wants it most.
I’ll do it. For the family, I’ll do anything. I just don’t know who I’ll be when it’s done.