58. Luca
58
LUCA
I lived with my father. Worked with him. Represented him to the other families. Killed for him. Ran the brutal empire he and his father before him had built with their own hands. Negotiated in his name. And we ate dinner together with my mother as often as we could.
Today’s summons felt different.
I walked into his office, surprised to find him alone, sitting behind his desk, his fingertips steepled together in a triangle in front of his face, deep in thought.
“Papà?”
“Luca, come in, sit down.”
He poured me a finger of whiskey, despite the early hour. He still drank the Irish stuff, in honor of my oldest sister’s husbands.
“Papà?”
“Don’t repeat yourself,” he snapped. “I raised you better than that.”
Right. I accepted the glass of whiskey and lowered myself into one of the armchairs facing his desk. “What’s going on?”
“The Baresis are looking for an alliance. With the Costas weakened and Angelo distracted with Tchérnov’s pending nuptials to his niece, it’s an ideal time to begin expanding.”
Donatella Baresi graduated college the same day Sofia did. The same day Ana graduated with her master’s.
Fuck.
“His daughter is biddable, marriageable, and wants children,” my father continued.
My heart pounded and my palms turned sweaty, an unaccustomed response to my father’s unspoken order. I’d known this day was coming, and still, I found myself unprepared.
How could he even consider this while Ana was Tchérnov’s captive? I scoffed at myself. Because he didn’t know I was in love with Ana. And wouldn’t care that I was.
“Baresi wants her married by Christmas.”
“No,” I said before I could stop myself.
“No?” my father repeated, his eyebrows furrowing and his face turning red with rage.
Had I ever refused him directly before? In my entire life?
“What the fuck do you mean no?”
“I cannot marry Donatella Baresi,” I repeated, my voice firm and confident, despite the terrifying crevasse that had opened under my feet, threatening to swallow me whole and rip me down to hell.
“You can’t, or you won’t ?” my father growled, leaning over his desk.
Tony Russo was no stranger to his children disappointing him. My oldest sibling, Ginevra, ran away when she was eighteen and stayed away from the family for a decade before taking Sofia’s place in a contract marriage to the Irish mob. And Sofia had a child out of wedlock, ruined her marriage prospects, and then later married three men, including our family’s enforcer, stealing him away from my father.
I’d spent my entire life trying and failing to live up to his expectations. I wasn’t stupid. I knew he wished Ginevra was a boy so he could have an heir he could be proud of. I’d disappointed him time after time after time. And this time, I was going to make it so much worse.
“I won’t.”
“Because of your silly crush on Ana Costa?” I clenched my jaw, surprised that he’d noticed. I shouldn’t have been. My father was an asshole, but he loved his children in his own way. “Son, she’s marrying Boris Tchérnov in less than a week, months after she was engaged to his son. She’s a money-hungry slut, grasping at straws to maintain her lifestyle now that Gio Costa’s dead.”
“I’m going to marry her,” I said firmly.
“She was fucking her uncle and that French asshole, last I heard,” my father told me, his eyebrows raised in challenge.
“And me too,” I answered.
“You want to merge the Russo empire with the remains of the Costas?” he asked, his voice shocked and furious. “You think anyone in this fucking business is going to trust them? Trust someone who worked for Gio? Related to him by blood?”
I stood to stare down my father, letting my rage show for the first time in my life. “Like anyone in this business was willing to go to war for Ginevra when that asshole kidnapped her? Like anyone in this business was willing to go to war over Sofia?” I reminded him of what happened to my sisters, the tragedies that had given them the strength to walk away from our father for good.
“I will not have that woman in my family. I will not have Enzo Accardi, the brother of the man who kidnapped your sister, your niece, and your mother, as a business partner. And Angelo Costa? He’s a fucking animal.” He turned to the door and shouted, “Patti!”
A moment later, my mother entered the office, beautiful and perfectly coiffed, as she had been every single day of my life. “Yes, Tony?” she asked.
“Take a seat,” he gestured. My mother raised an eyebrow, and my father immediately stood. “What can I get you to drink?”
“Wine,” she said, sitting beside me and crossing her legs. “Luca didn’t take the news well?”
I hid my smile and sat back down.
“Mamma, I can’t.”
“You won’t ,” she corrected firmly, unconsciously echoing my father’s earlier assessment.
“I won’t,” I agreed. My entire life, I’d played peacemaker in my family. When Ginevra ran off, I accepted that my father had lost his favorite and that, even as the heir, I was second best. When Sofia came in fists swinging, determined to forge her own path, I negotiated peace. Only now, there was no one left to negotiate for me.
“Because he wants to marry that Costa slut,” my father said.
Oh, fuck no. I stood, slamming my fists onto his desk so hard it shook his glass. “If you refer to Ana Costa with disrespect one more time, I will walk out of this office and I will never come back. Do you understand me?”
“Don’t be foolish,” my father said, waving me to sit back down. “No need to posture and pretend you’ll give up anything for the slut. She’s going to marry Tchérnov and that’ll be the end of that. I understand you don’t want to marry Baresi’s daughter.”
I blinked, surprised at my father’s nonchalance and hurt that he knew me so poorly after all these years.
“Tony,” Mamma said, “please don’t use that word to speak about women.”
“You’re not marrying Ana Costa, and that’s final,” he said, looking back at me.
My heart broke. His words might not sound like an ultimatum, but he was wrong. Ana was my wife, even if she didn’t know it yet. I’d let her walk away once. I wouldn’t make that mistake a second time.
I spun on my heel, then strode out of his office.
“Luca Russo, you get back here,” my father roared.
His soldiers looked at me with surprise as I hopped on my bike.
As I gunned the engine, he followed me out the front door. “If you leave right now, you better not ever come back,” he threatened.
My mother grasped his arm, murmuring quietly in his ear. But Papà wouldn’t back down. Rigid and righteous until the bitter end, he’d let his children waltz out of his life rather than admit he was wrong.
I spun out on the long driveway and sped toward the gate, wondering if he’d tell the guard to keep me in, but it lurched open just in time for me to speed through.
Twenty minutes later, Valentin answered the door when I pounded on it. Apparently I’d been added to the building’s guest list.
“ Ah, c’est toi ,” he said with a sigh, stepping aside so I could enter the spartan suite. “What brings you to my doorstep, puppy?”
Ana was in danger, and Valentin and Angelo had the best shot of helping me save her.
My father disinherited me when I told him I intended to marry her.
I needed to be close to those who were closest to her right now.
“I need a place to stay.”