Chapter 20
LUCA
By the time I got home, I was dead tired. Ready to shower, eat dinner, and sleep hard.
But then Aliénor texted me. I love my new job. She sent a bunch of heart emojis.
I’d had a shitty night and I was dead behind the eyes, but her message still made me crack a smile. I’m glad to hear that. I hopped in the shower and scrubbed down quickly before I dried off with a towel.
By the time I looked at my phone again, she had already texted me several more times. She sent a picture of her office, the view outside the window, and a picture of her eating a chocolate croissant. They just have these in the break room. I ate three today alone.
It’s perfect for you.
Thank you for your…interference.
Anytime. I changed into boxers and got into bed. I would probably skip dinner because I was that exhausted.
I can’t wait until Friday. It’s like the slowest week of my life.
I noticed she was more forward with me than she’d been previously. The touch of her tight tentacles should make me withdraw, but I let them squeeze me hard. I’ll see you soon. I’m going to bed now. Long day.
Okay, sleep tight. She sent a bunch of kissing emojis.
I never used emojis or conversed with anyone who did, but there was something cute about the way she did it.
I walked up to the door, and the doorman immediately let me inside.
My uncle’s boisterous voice could be heard from the other side of the villa. “Let me tell you how this works, shithead. I tell you what to do, and you do it—it’s that fucking simple. Now, do it.”
I walked past the entryway and headed farther inside toward the open living room next to the kitchen.
My uncle continued to yell from his office upstairs.
When I entered the kitchen, I saw my aunt picking up one of the canapés with smoked salmon and cream cheese and taking a bite.
She covered her mouth when she saw me and quickly swallowed it down.
“Luca, I didn’t hear you come in.” She set down her champagne and came to me, giving me a warm hug.
“Thank you for having me,” I said politely.
“Don’t say that bullshit.” She pulled away and gave me a gentle smack on the arm. “You’re always welcome here.”
I extended the wine to her, something Andre had picked out for me, a bottle that probably hit my wallet hard but not hard enough for me to notice.
“You didn’t have to,” she said as she grabbed it by the neck.
“But you know I love wine, so…” She smiled and placed it on the counter, and one of her staff immediately uncorked it and poured a couple glasses.
She read the bottle. “1883. That was a great harvest.” Aunt Charlotte was at least a decade younger than my uncle.
And on top of that, she looked young for her age, probably because she didn’t smoke like the rest of us.
“Is Jacques here?”
“No. He said he was busy at the office.” She made this face like things weren’t perfect in paradise.
All I did was nod.
My uncle had one son, who he expected to run the business at his side.
But Jacques had decided to choose his own path in life, becoming an accountant for a large financial institution in Paris.
His wife was a stay-at-home mom, and they had one daughter.
Uncle Baptiste mentioned it from time to time, sour that his son decided to be “a pussy instead of a man.” Those were his words, not mine.
“How are you, Luca?”
Aliénor was the first thing that popped into my head. A woman I’d only known for a couple of weeks but had left a permanent mark on my skin where everyone could see. I felt her with me when she was nowhere in sight, like I was responsible for her, even at a distance. “Busy with work.”
She nodded. “Your uncle’s life story…”
“What was that, sweetheart?” Uncle Baptiste entered the room and showed Aunt Charlotte some playful anger before he gave her a gentle pat on the ass. “My boy.” His eyes lit up at the sight of me, and he gave me a hard hug. “Are you taller?”
“No. Just bigger.” I pushed myself in the gym every day.
Every time I reached a new threshold, I worked to overcome it.
When I wasn’t hungry but needed more protein, I had Andre make me another shake.
I felt like I’d reached my plateau now because if I got any bigger, it would start to look disproportional.
My uncle chuckled and clapped me on the shoulder. “Let’s eat. I’m fucking starving.”
We gathered at the dining table, the three of us, and the servants brought our first course, a small green salad. The wine flowed, and there was a basket of fresh bread in the center.
“What’s going on with you?” Baptiste asked, scarfing down the small salad in a couple of bites then taking half the bread from the center.
“Well, you were right about the Aristocrats.”
“Psychopaths.” He looked to his wife. “What did I tell you?”
“Yes, dear.” She continued to eat like she had no interest in this.
“Guess who dropped by unannounced?” I finished the salad just as quickly because there wasn’t much on the plate.
My uncle gave a shrug. “Don’t leave me hanging.”
“Constantine. Came all the way up here.”
“Did he?” he asked, eyebrows raised.
I nodded.
He took a beat as he stared. “He’s pissed about the Vatican Museum…”
“Yes.”
“Does he know it was them?”
I nodded.
The servants entered the room and took away the salads. They placed soups there instead, unaffected by the subject matter of the conversation.
“He said he wants everything returned to the museum—and he wants the heads of those who did it.”
Baptiste grabbed his wine and took a long drink. “What are you going to do?”
I shook my head. “No idea.”
“What retaliation did he threaten?”
“Tariffs on pretty much everything.”
He shared a look with me like this was insane news. “Wow, he’s got the president involved in this.”
“The Vatican is their holy seat. They’re deeply offended.”
“But the actions of some weirdos don’t mean the entire country should be punished.”
“He said as the leader of the Fifth Republic, it’s my responsibility to monitor all criminal activity, so I’m just as guilty as the nutcases who did this. Even though they only took French pieces.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” The Aristocrats had been eviscerated by Bastien, but of course, they rebuilt like a colony of ants.
Our strained relationship continued in this new era of their organization.
If I provoked them like this, there was no way it would end amicably.
“I’ll set up a meeting and see where it goes from there.
If I can convince them to grovel at Constantine’s feet, perhaps I could spare their lives. ”
“Why spare their lives at all?”
“I don’t want to be their enemy forever. And technically, they didn’t violate the Fifth Republic, so I should be defending them rather than sending them to their deaths. I should prioritize my relationship with my own rather than out them to a foreigner.”
“An Emperor is not an enemy you want to have. Not just because of the tariffs, which is a two-way street, by the way, but because of the effect it will have on the drug trade through the Mediterranean.”
It was a complicated and delicate position—and it was my job to fix it. “I’ll figure it out.”
“I’m sure you will, Luca.” My uncle took another piece of bread and shoved it into his mouth. “But I’m glad I’m not you.”
My uncle and I had a cigar together in the drawing room, along with a couple scotches.
Aunt Charlotte didn’t join us, hating the smell of smoke and detesting hard liquor.
He relaxed in the armchair in front of the fire, staring at me for a long time.
“Most parents fail to accept that their children are no longer children anymore, but fully functioning adults. I have the opposite problem with you. You sit before me as this smart and powerful man, and I can’t even remember you as a child.
When I see pictures of you as a kid in the hallway, I don’t even recognize that person.
” He let out the smoke from his mouth, his arm resting on the armrest with the cigar between his fingers.
“Here you are, a French Emperor, a man more powerful than President Martin. From rags to riches. From nothing to everything.”
He praised me often, praised me more than anyone I’d ever known.
“And my son is a fucking accountant…for some dumbfuck suits.”
The relationship with his son had been strained a long time. My uncle couldn’t hide his resentment, and if he couldn’t hide it from me, he couldn’t hide it from Jacques.
“Making seventy thousand a year?” he asked incredulously. “Living in that small-ass apartment with a kid? I raised him to be so much better. Raised him to be anything other than the worst thing he possibly could be—ordinary.”
I tried not to involve myself in their complicated relationship. I very rarely said anything, just let my uncle vent about it.
“You feel more like my son than he ever has.”
Those words meant more to me than they should, but I knew I shouldn’t accept them. He only spoke in anger. “Have you talked to him lately?”
He shook his head. “And say what? That he turned his back on me? On the business built with my blood? That he could be richer than any of the men he works for at his prick-ass company? That he would rather live in a small apartment and send his daughter to public school than live like this?” He threw his arms up and gestured to the grand room around him.
“Cunt thinks he’s better than me. Thinks he’s better than me because of his little degree from university.
Because he did things the right way. That I’m just a criminal and he’s a civilized man.
That he knows right from wrong and I’m just some prick.
” His fingers rested on the rim of his scotch, and he threw it hard into the fire.
Glass shattered, and the flames leaped slightly from the rush of air and the burn of the liquor. “Some fucking prick…”