Chapter 23
Luke
I told Emma that I didn’t want to second-guess the fact I could’ve already fallen in love with her.
In the next couple of days that followed, I laughed to myself that I had. I fell for that pain-in-the-ass well before I thought about making love with her.
Leaving her condo, where I was sleeping with her every spare chance I could, I wondered how long she’d manage my absence until she tracked me down and stole another kiss.
“Luke?”
She cracked the door open and beckoned me to return.
I laughed, shaking my head as I was beholden to return to her. “Five seconds. That’s a record.”
She grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me inside the doorway. “I miss you the moment you walk away.”
I groaned, thrusting my tongue into her mouth as she tried to cling to me. “I’ll see you later.”
“I know.” I’d been sneaking into her place and staying the night and had no plans to stay. She was well aware of how addicted I was to her, and she didn’t hold it against me as power.
“But I need to use the rest of my lunch break to check on my mom.” I’d been texting her. So I wasn’t worried. Still, I couldn’t neglect her and let her worry about me not showing up. At the least, I had to tidy up the place by taking the trash out and such.
“I could come with you.”
I smiled, stroking my hands over her back. I knew she’d enjoy it. I was confident my mom was already nuts about her, and that was a huge weight off my shoulders. My situation was unique. I had to provide for my ailing mother. I had been since I was a young teen. That was the hand of cards I’d been dealt and I wouldn’t change that. Whenever I used to wonder about what it’d be like to meet a woman I wanted to keep forever, I worried that she wouldn’t like my situation of taking care of my mom. Randy still griped about Alyssa’s complaints about his mom.
I’d lucked out in so many ways in knowing Emma really did like my mom.
“Didn’t you want to check on Krista?”
She sighed, nodding. “Yeah. As long as she stayed hydrated, she’ll be all right.”
I smiled, loving this nurturing side that she hid from me at first. “I’ll see you later,” I promised.
This time, when I walked out, I stayed on track to head home. I only had a half hour to get there and back, and I bet my mom would want to ask me all kinds of questions about how I was getting on with the “decent, nice good girl” she wanted me to find.
Before I got to the main road that would lead the way home, I saw a familiar—or not so familiar—figure approaching. I would recognize Jimmy anywhere, but never in the broad daylight like this.
“Luke.”
I lifted my chin in acknowledgment. It was weird to see him now, but I wouldn’t treat him like a stranger. “Hey, man,” I greeted, leaning in to shake his hand and pat his back in the familiar routine we did. He didn’t lift his hand to my back in reply though, quick to step back.
“What’s up?”
His grim expression didn’t bode well. “I need to talk to you.”
“Here?” He typically preferred to have our conversations at night, in the shadows. Where fewer people could overhear or see. I scanned the street, realizing that not many people were loitering on the sidewalk. It was too damn hot.
“It doesn’t matter where. Just that you listen to me now.”
My hackles rose. Anxiety crept in. He never used that tone with me. “What? What is it?”
“You’re mafia.”
I blinked once, then narrowed my eyes. “What?”
“You’re the son of Marlo Rossini.” He didn’t flinch. Didn’t cringe or stutter. He stated it plainly, blurting it almost, like he’d been struggling not to tell me.
“I’m—” I scoffed. “I’m what?” Of all bombs he could’ve dropped on me, that was the last thing I expected him to say.
“You are mafia,” he repeated slowly. “You are the only son of Marlo Rossini.”
My heart raced. My pulse quickened until the drone of it rushed in my ears.
Mafia? What the fuck?
“Rossini?” I knew that name. Everyone did. I’d heard of the Rossinis just the same as I’d heard all about the Marchese family. Of the top players in the syndicated crime units was Marlo Rossini.
“Marlo Rossini, the boss of the Rossini family, is your father.”
I staggered back a step, knowing he wasn’t lying. I would see the deception in his eyes. I’d never known who my father was, but when I was younger, so stupid and innocent, I’d asked. Of course, I asked. Every kid wondered about his past. My mother could’ve have told me this back then?
Anger lanced through me. The idea that he—and my mother—hid this from me my whole life burned a new layer of wounds on the still scabbing-over scar of never having a father figure.
“What the fuck ?” I replied, choking on the words. “You... you think to tell me this now ?”
“I have to.” He shook his head, glaring at me like I was the one in the wrong. There was no sign of remorse or sorrow on his hard face. I wasn’t getting an apology from him for hiding this fact from me. Instead, he narrowed his eyes at me like I was the one who’d need to say I was sorry.
“I have to tell you now. Engaging in a fight with an upper Marchese-sponsored fighter—”
“For fuck’s sake!” I fisted my hands. “Is this about Orsen? What the hell? Still?”
He held his hand up to stop my outburst.
“Fighting Orsen was bad enough, but now rumors are getting out about you.”
I crossed my arms, still bowled over with the news about my father. “What rumors?”
“That you are hanging around Emmalina.”
How he was aware of her, I didn’t want to know. Nothing about this conversation could end with happy news. Thunder boomed, and with the increasing humidity of the approaching storm, I wiped my hand over my brow and cleared the sweat building there.
“Word’s spreading that you’ve been seen together at a party recently.” He furrowed his brow, digging the lines even deeper. “That you fought Orsen because she was there.”
But you haven’t spied enough on me to realize I’ve been sleeping with her the last three nights?
I rubbed my hand over my mouth and stepped away. I was tempted to punch him, to tell him to fuck off. I wasn’t going to answer to him. Emma was none of his business. I didn’t give a shit who saw her with me. They could all fuck off.
I stared absently at a crack in the sidewalk, too stunned to focus on why he thought now was the time to tell me about my father. It was the fact that he’d hidden it from me that I couldn’t get over.
And that Marlo fucking Rossini was the father who’d abandoned me and my mother.
The mafia.
It was such a ludicrous thought that my instinct was to deny it, but I had a sick, twisted hunch that it was somehow true.
“How the fuck could you keep this from me?” I whirled around to glower at him as thunder stuck down and rattled the earth again. The weather matched my mood, volatile and stormy.
“We had our reasons.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Who? We who?” I demanded.
“Me and your mother.”
I growled, pacing a few steps. She knew. She had to have known who my father was. She was involved in my damn conception. It hurt that she’d partnered with Jimmy to keep this news from me.
Was she ever going to tell me?
I never understood how Jimmy and my mother knew of each other. In the end, it never mattered. I grew up resenting my father, hating that he’d never been there for her, and I vowed from a young age that I would never leave her. I’d make sure she was taken care of. It was twisted, a son being the head of the family and caring for his mother when he was still a child himself, but that was simply how it happened.
Marlo fucking Rossini, the loaded and powerful mafia boss, hadn’t ever been there for her—or me—and I struggled with his absence.
Jimmy knew though. Somehow. And it solidified my suspicions about him. I’d always held a reservation about him, never fully wanting to trust him, and now I understood why.
“This is bullshit.”
“You don’t believe me?”
I scowled. “Why should I?”
He lifted papers from his shirt pocket. “I have proof.”
My jaw dropped for a second before I could clamp my mouth shut and grind my teeth. “A fucking paternity test?”
He nodded as though my rage was to be expected. “I had them done at your birth.”
There was another answer. Jimmy hadn’t stumbled about the truth about my father’s identity recently. He really had known all along. He’d hidden it from me for decades.
“I knew I would need the proof should anyone question it.”
I growled, so furious I couldn’t think straight. I was reeling, ungrounded with this news exploding the idea that I had no clue who I was anymore.
“Did you sleep with her?”
I grabbed the front of his shirt, ready to hit him. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t cower. I didn’t know where he found the skill to stay this chill, this unbothered, but I didn’t follow through. Hitting him wouldn’t change a thing.
“You have no right to ask me that. None whatsoever.”
“Lucas. Did you fuck Emma?”
I huffed, shaking my head as my frustration escalated. “How— How do you even know who she is?”
“It’s clear you don’t.”
I narrowed my eyes, ready to challenge him on that point. I did know who she was. She was the woman for me. The one. Emma was the woman I would grow old with. I knew it with a clarity that couldn’t be questioned. It’d happened fast, but when you knew, you knew.
“Because if you did, you never would’ve been so fucking stupid to start anything with her.”
I went still, staring at him with such rage I felt like I’d combust. “What the fuck are you saying?”
“You have to stop. Whatever you think you’re doing with her. It’s over.”
“The fuck it is,” I growled.
He was insane to suggest it.
Since I slept with her, since we caved to this desire and building love that we couldn’t deny, I couldn’t imagine giving her up. Ever.
“You are starting a war, Lucas.” He pointed at me to emphasize his statement.
I shoved his hand out of the way, sick of him using my full name like it’d make me listen. I wouldn’t. I’d never listen to anyone telling me to give her up.
“You’re starting a motherfucking war if you sleep with her.” He shook his head, serious and stern. “You can’t have her.”
Determination to prove him wrong coursed through me. “It’s too fucking late for that.”
I glowered at him.
Emma was mine.
Nothing could change that fact.
He clenched his teeth and swore as he turned away. His phone rang, and he stalked off to take the call.
“We’re not done talking about this, Luke,” he called over his shoulder.
Rain started to fall as a warm drizzle.
“Yes, we are,” I replied, too quietly for him to hear me.
I was done talking about the impossible. It should’ve been impossible for me and Emma to ever hit it off and fall this quickly into love. But we had. Nothing would deter me from keeping her.
I turned, shaking my head to clear the rain water dripping through my hair.
As I pivoted, I caught sight of Emma staring after me. She stood further down the sidewalk, mouth agape, eyes wide.
She must have heard it all.