Chapter 32
Marcus stalked the study, pacing the rug with the grim focus of a man waiting for his own execution. Midnight ticked closer in the grandfather clock and in his molars. The house sighed. Somewhere downstairs, the music from Frankie’s club drifted up, carrying her laugh all the way to him.
He’d expected to come home and find her gone, or at least frosty.
His plan, should she still be there, had been simple: act needy, make excuses, bumble so spectacularly she’d leave to escape the disaster.
But then he’d seen her smiling and his brain had short-circuited, or rebelled, or maybe his traitor heart had taken over.
He really hoped it wasn’t the last. There was no way she’d ever love him back.
Having no idea what to do next, he opened the brother group chat and hit video. Four tiles blinked to life.
Giovanni wore his chef coat, steam curling behind him, tasting spoon gripped like a gavel.
Antonio sat in perfect lighting with a branded mug, mood boards pinned in a meticulous grid over his shoulder.
Lorenzo was framed by three glowing monitors and a headset, code marching across one screen.
Luca lounged in a team hoodie, one shoulder taped, hockey stick balanced across his knees.
Antonio’s gaze went surgical. “You look like a man who was just told off by a woman as she was walking out of your life.”
Luca’s grinned followed. “Scoreboard says: Frankie one, Marcus zero.”
Giovanni’s spoon hovered like a gavel. “I didn’t know if you had it in you. Proud of you bro.”
Lorenzo kept typing. “Start from the top.”
Marcus let out a breath. “You’re all fucking wrong. Bad Boyfriend was a bust. I had to implement the nuclear option. Which was also a bust, because I’ve been invited back to her bed for a fucking do over.”
Silence. Then the screen erupted in chaos.
Antonio: “You did what?”
Giovanni: “You actually did it?”
Lorenzo: “Please confirm this is a joke.”
Luca: “Fuck, man!”
Marcus stared at them, jaw tight. “Why do you all sound like I just admitted to being Santa Claus?”
Giovanni groaned into his spoon. “Bad sex was never actually on the table.”
Marcus’s head snapped up. “Come again?”
“It was a deterrent,” Giovanni said.
“Deterrent to what?”
“To your taking the nice guy approach to being a bad guy.” Giovanni shrugged, as if it went without saying. “To your not giving the bad date thing everything in your arsenal.”
“Are you saying you didn’t trust me to get behind the assignment?
” Marcus couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
He’d only had eight years as a DeLuca, but a boy could learn a lot in that time.
They carried out assignments. Distasteful or not.
Sure, he was young when that had been drilled into him. But it had stuck.
“Nope,” Luca said.
“And it sounds like we were right to worry you couldn’t pull off bad boyfriend,” Lorenzo added.
“If this is your idea of a joke, I’m not laughing.”
Antonio leaned closer to his screen, expression razor-sharp. “Walk it back for us. What did you do exactly?”
He wanted to hang up. Or fake a Wi-Fi outage. Instead, Marcus muttered, “Showed up late, talked about my ex-girlfriend, made her buy her own popcorn—”
“Not the bad boyfriend shit, the bad sex shit,” Antonio cut in.
Marcus gritted his teeth. “Perfunctory thigh kiss. No foreplay. Stiff eye contact. No momentum.” His voice dropped an octave. “She produced a vibrator shaped like municipal equipment and told me to sleep it off.”
Lorenzo pinched the bridge of his nose. “And?”
“And…nothing?” Marcus offered weakly.
“Wait. You didn’t cry or say I love you?” Luca asked, smirk practically audible.
Marcus’s face went hot. “It was bad enough without those caveats.”
“Props, dude, for taking one for the family like that,” Giovanni said.
Marcus cleared his throat, praying for lightning to strike the Wi-Fi router. “Did you hear the part where I said she’s invited me back to her bed for my ‘last chance.’”
“The tears and premature I love you,” Luca said, grinning, “would’ve sealed the deal.”
Giovanni groaned into his spoon. “I don’t know why we thought you could pull off bad boyfriend. Honestly, this one’s on us.”
Marcus threw up his hands. “Of course it’s on you guys. It was your dumbass plan.”
“No sense in pointing fingers,” Lorenzo said, sounding unnervingly like Gi Gi handing down judgment from the grave.
“I’m going to her bed,” Marcus said. “And I’m not failing at sex. Just want you to know that up front.”
“I mean, hey, you’ve come this far,” Giovanni added, “you might as well stay the course, finish the job, be the worst lover in the States.”
“Not happening.”
Luca twirled his hockey stick like it was a pointer. “It just so happens we do have another plan. One I pushed, but these idiots argued that it would be unethical if it didn’t come from a place of authenticity.”
Marcus cocked his head. “I’m listening. It better be—”
“Marcus,” Antonio cut in, “are we all correct in our fear that you’ve fallen hard for Frankie Peterson?”
He thought of Frankie dancing, the sound of her laugh, the crook of her finger pulling him in. His throat tightened. “I don’t hate her.”
“Do you love her?” Giovanni pushed.
“I like her a lot,” Marcus replied.“I say that’s good enough,” Luca said.
“Would someone just tell me what in the hell the plan is, and I can be the one to decide if the trigger’s getting pulled,” Marcus snapped.
“It’s time to turn one-eighty,” Antonio said.
“Become the best lover on earth. Ridiculous effort. So good that when she discovers you’re Mr. Uptight, she won’t turn you into content on the nightly news.
She’ll crave you so much she’ll refuse to cross the line, because she won’t cancel her subscription to the best booty call man in Manhattan. ”
Marcus stared at his reflection in the window. “Why the hell didn’t you lead with this? Do you know how fucking humiliating it was to be an ass?”
“Like we said,” Giovanni shrugged, spoon waving like a gavel. “Not an option unless you care enough about her that your heart is open to falling in love, because what we’re suggesting could result in her declaring love.”
He leaned back, staring at the frozen grid of his brothers’ faces on screen.
“Your plan has a major flaw. If Frankie and I are headed toward love, having sex with her before telling her I’m Mr. Uptight will destroy any chance I have with her.
She’s not the forgiving type. I have to tell her before we sleep together. ”
Silence. Even Luca stopped spinning his hockey stick.
Antonio’s expression hardened, not with anger, but the kind of frustration that came from too many sleepless nights.
“You think we don’t get that? You think any of us don’t wish we could live clean and simple?
” He leaned forward. “None of us chose to be born a DeLuca. But with that name came circumstances out of our control, circumstances that still exist. We don’t get the luxury of playing by everyone else’s moral rulebook.
You want to tell her the truth? Fine. But the second you do, you’re not just gambling your heart.
You’re gambling all of us. Our safety. Our anonymity.
Every quiet year we’ve managed to steal. ”
Giovanni set down his spoon, the humor gone but not the warmth. “It’s not about right or wrong, Marcus. It’s about survival. Tell her, and every camera in New York will follow the thread straight back to our door. You’ll make her a target—and us, too.”
Luca leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“If you wanted a clean chance with her, you should’ve never manipulated her in the first place,” he said, his tone gentler than his words.
“But hell, we’ve all made our share of mistakes when it comes to women.
That’s why we’re all single. Every damn one of us.
The best we can do now is learn from each other’s screwups. ”
Marcus didn’t answer. The glare from his monitor caught the reflection of four faces, older now, harder, but still the same boys huddled in the dark years ago, their birth mother’s arms around them, her voice soft with exhaustion and love: Sometimes, my darling boys, it’s okay to be afraid.
The words slid through him now, heavier with time. Maybe fear wasn’t the problem. Maybe the real danger was letting it decide who he became.
He could lose Frankie now, lose her clean, or risk her hating him forever later. If he waited until love was certain, maybe it would hold long enough to weather the truth.
A fucking jackass plan. But hope had its hooks in him.
He exhaled and rubbed a hand over his face. “Fine,” he said quietly. “We’ll do it your way.”
“Don’t look so down,” Giovanni said. “The upside of our plan includes you wowing her so completely she falls for you—hard. That way, when she eventually finds out you’re Mr. Uptight, she’ll be too in love to light the match.”
Luca leaned forward, smirking. “So…you want some pointers on how to be good in bed?”
Marcus glared. “Fuck off.”
“So, I’m hearing yes.” Luca laughed.
“Even if the answer’s no,” Lorenzo muttered, “we all know he needs help.”
Luca lifted his stick like a pointer. “Warm up, hydrate, pace yourself. Change angles. Read the hips, not the face. And for the love of hockey, don’t celebrate too early. No fist pumps.”
Giovanni raised his tasting spoon. “Mise en place. Start with an amuse-bouche, something you can do with your hands. Let it simmer, do not scorch. Sauce is foreplay. If you think you’ve used enough, add more.”
Lorenzo adjusted his headset. “Reduce latency. Ask for real-time feedback, then iterate. Eyes on the user interface, not the wall. Also, patch the ‘wrong name’ bug before deploy.”
Antonio steepled his fingers. “Three-part plan. One, presence. Make her feel like the only line item on earth. Two, ratios. Eighty-twenty, her first. Three, close with clarity. Tell her exactly what you want tomorrow, not just tonight.”
Despite himself, Marcus found his shoulders squaring. God help him, he was taking notes.
Luca smirked. “Want my conditioning routine?”
“No.”
Giovanni brightened. “I’ll courier over truffle oil.”
“No.”
Lorenzo typed. “Sending a checklist.”
“Delete it.”
Antonio nodded once, satisfied. “Good. Then go. Be undeniable.”
Marcus reached for the end call, but before he could tap it, Lorenzo’s sharp, “Wait,” caused him to pause.
“What?” Marcus asked.
“Her name is Frankie,” Lorenzo deadpanned.
Marcus ended the call before they could see the smile that wasn’t one. It felt wrong on his face, like a borrowed expression that didn’t quite fit. Maybe he was a monumental asshole. Maybe he was just a man who’d run out of right choices.
Either way, he’d do what DeLucas did best—keep moving, keep control, and pretend the world wasn’t balancing on a bad idea.
The problem was, pretending didn’t quiet the noise in his head or the ache in his chest or keep the minutes from crawling by.
The manor had been quiet since ten. He watched the clock. 11:36. 11:41. 11:44. He tried sitting, but the chair felt like a stall. Midnight was the rule. He’d never liked rules that kept him from what he wanted.
11:45.
He stripped to boxers. Honest felt better than armor. At the nightstand, he lifted the lid on a fresh box of condoms, hesitated, and brought the whole thing like an apology gift. From the floral arrangement on the table in the hallway, he impulsively plucked a pink peony.
Barefoot, he took the stairs. One step creaking. The hallway light threw a soft path. At her door, the cat waited in a cage like a tiny warden, pupils black as judgment.
Marcus crouched. “I promise I’ll eventually tell her the truth,” he told the feline. “Face the consequences for being an unredeemable asshole. You have my word.”
The cat blinked once, unimpressed.
Marcus rolled his shoulders back, set his breath, and noticed the sign on the door.