Chapter 10 Luca #3
The first few days yield nothing interesting. Alessandro goes to work, has lunch with business associates, visits Giulia at the mansion. Normal activities for a man in his position. But then, on the fourth day, something changes. Sal calls me at two in the morning, his voice urgent.
"We've got something," he says. "You need to see this."
I meet him at a safe house in Brooklyn, and he shows me photos of Alessandro entering a warehouse. And with him are three men I recognize immediately—Marchesi soldiers.
The Marchesi family has been trying to gain a foothold in Ciresa territory for years. They're ambitious, ruthless, and willing to do whatever it takes to expand their power. And Alessandro is meeting with them in secret.
"How long was he in there?" I ask, my voice deadly calm.
"Two hours. They left separately, but we got photos of all of them."
"Run a deeper background check," I tell Sal. "I want to know everything about Alessandro's family. And I want to know if there's any connection to the Marchesis."
"On it."
He calls me back six hours later, and as we go through everything he’s found, the pieces start to fall into place.
Alessandro courted Giulia under his mother's maiden name—Ferrucci. Alessandro has been using that name to hide his true allegiance. The plan becomes obvious once I see it clearly.
Marry into the Ciresa family. Gain their trust. Learn their operations, their weaknesses, their secrets, and then destroy them from within.
It's elegant, really. Diabolical. A long-term strategy that could actually work if no one caught on. But we caught on.
And now Alessandro is a dead man walking.
—
I bring the information to Romeo and Dante the next morning, with Sal to back me up.
We meet in Dante's office, and I lay out everything we've found: the surveillance photos, the background check, the connection to the Marchesi family.
Alessandro is a younger Marchesi son, not the heir, and he used his smaller position in the family to move on us.
Dante's face goes white, then red, then settles into an expression of cold fury that I've only seen a handful of times. "That bastard," he says, his voice shaking with rage. "That fucking bastard got close to my daughter. Was going to marry her. Was going to—"
He can't finish the sentence. Romeo is calmer, but I can see the anger in his eyes. "We need to eliminate him. Tonight. Before he realizes we know."
"No." Dante's voice is sharp and decisive. "We're going to use this."
"Use it how?" I ask, even though I'm afraid I already know the answer.
"We let the wedding continue." Dante stands and starts pacing.
"We let the Marchesis think their plan is working.
We gather them all in one place—the wedding, the reception—and then we destroy them.
All of them. We show the other families what happens when someone tries to plot against the Ciresas. "
The words hit me like a punch. "You can't be serious," I say, and I don't care that I'm speaking out of turn. "You're going to let Giulia marry him? Let her walk down the aisle to a man who's planning to destroy her family?"
"She won't actually marry him," Dante says dismissively. "We'll stop it before the vows are complete. But we need the Marchesis to think it's happening. And then we strike."
"What about Giulia?" The question comes out more harshly than it should, but I’m not thinking straight—I can’t. "What about the trauma this will cause her? She's already being forced into a marriage she doesn't want, and now you're going to turn her wedding into a bloodbath?"
Dante turns to look at me. His eyes are cold. "Giulia will do what's expected of her. She's a Ciresa. She understands duty."
"She's your daughter." My hands clench into fists. "She's not just a pawn you can move around the board. She's a person. And this will destroy her."
"That's enough, Luca." Romeo's voice is quiet but firm. "The don has made his decision."
"This decision is wrong." I can't force myself to back down. "We should call off the engagement immediately. Tell Alessandro we know what he is, eliminate him, and be done with it."
"And then what?" Dante's voice is sharp. "The Marchesis will know we're onto them. They'll scatter, regroup, and come at us from a different angle. This way, we end the threat permanently. We eliminate their leadership in one strike."
"At what cost?" I demand. "At the cost of your daughter's sanity? Her trust? Her—"
"The don's word is final." Romeo cuts me off, and there's warning in his eyes. "Stand down, Luca."
I want to argue, to keep fighting. I want to make them see that this is wrong, that using Giulia like this is monstrous, that there has to be another way.
But I can't. I'm just a soldier. Just an enforcer. Just a man who has no right to care this much about the don's daughter.
"Understood," I say. It feels like it chokes me.
Dante nods, satisfied. "Good. We'll proceed as planned. We’ll move up the wedding a bit, but not by too much. That gives us time to prepare, to position our people, to make sure we're ready when the moment comes. Three months, maybe.”
Three months. Three months of watching Giulia prepare for a wedding that will end in blood, of knowing what's coming and being unable to stop it. Three months of being complicit in something that will break her.
"You're dismissed," Dante says, and I leave before I say something that will earn me a bullet in my skull and a trip to the bottom of the Hudson.
I sit in my car, and I think about Giulia walking down the aisle in three months. I picture her in that lace dress, her face pale and resigned, walking toward a man who's planning to destroy everything she loves.
I can see the moment when the violence starts, when the carefully planned wedding turns into a massacre.
When she realizes that her father used her as bait, that her marriage was never real, and that everything was a lie.
I can imagine the look in her eyes when she understands what's been done to her.
And I feel sick, because there's nothing I can do to stop it.
I'm bound by duty, by loyalty, by the oath I took when I joined this family.
The don's word is final. And Giulia is walking toward a wedding that will end in blood, and I'm going to stand there and watch it happen.
I'm going to be complicit in breaking her.
And there's nothing—absolutely nothing—I can do to save her.