Brutal Vows (Mafia Vows #5)

Luca

Everything is prepared and ready. Every last detail in place, just waiting for the go-ahead. I’ve planned this road trip for years, ready to run it as smoothly as any operation in Il Consiglio.

Since Matteo gradually took over from the Don ten years ago, I’ve been in the wings, watching, learning, implementing, always cleaning up, but I’ve taken the rigor with which my eldest brother rules our organization and applied it to every facet of my life.

Now my bike is ready. So am I—the only cog no longer wanting any part in this crime machine.

For months—secretly for years—I’ve been plotting to get out of the fucking Mafia.

Leave Boston and Il Consiglio behind. The old Don is dead, but Stephano, my identical twin, got married and is now living in Italy with his equally Mafioso wife.

The backdoor finally stands open for me.

I’m no longer needed as a prop to be pushed around on the stage of his life to cover for him.

Here’s another truth: if I don’t take the gap now, I’ll be strapped back in for another wild ride because this is how it works. The shit never ends.

I run my hand over the high-gloss fuel tank of my Ducati.

She’s a beauty. Upgraded with everything a man could need on a long road trip.

My reflection in the black mirror-like surface arrests me even though it shouldn’t.

Twins, so identical it takes people months to learn how to tell us apart.

To be honest, Stephano’s marriage to Gigi is the break I’ve needed.

“When are you going to stop touching that thing as if it’s a woman’s ass? Just go get laid already.”

Benedict is standing in the doorway of the underground bunker where we slave our days away in the shadows. Incognito has always been the only way we functioned. He and I don’t know anything else.

“This is my deep cleanse, bro,” I throw out, glancing up at him. “Told you I’m done months ago.”

With women. With Il Consiglio. With the lifestyle I can now, in retrospect, see I was steered into by our old Don, Guiliano Scalera—my father and a fucking psycho. That shit runs in the family, and well, I’ve had it. I’m getting out before it rubs off permanently.

This road trip I’ve been customizing my bike for is more than an escape, more than my freedom. Personally, I hope to find I have some soul left and pick it up along the way.

“When are you going to tell him, Luca?”

Several beats of silence stretch paper-thin between us as we just stare at each other. There’s never a good time for bad news. Matteo isn’t going to like it.

But leaving means leaving Benedict too. He will manage our various business affairs alone. We might have streamlined them to the point they hardly need more than a daily check-in, but there’re always risks. Risks he will carry alone going forward.

Fuck. Part of me turns to stone when I think of putting Benedict in danger…and yet—

Our baby brother will manage. He isn’t the brains for nothing.

“You might have noticed that we’re stuck in a shit storm? And Matteo has been a bit distracted.”

Benedict snorts. “The Don’s dead. Matteo is in charge. He’s getting laid all the time. Life’s good.”

“Yeah. It’s the other shit I’m talking about.”

First, there was Gigi, then Ariana, but finding our ‘stillborn’ sister Gabriella in the mix was literally the last straw. What else is going to crawl out of the woodwork in the aftermath of the Don’s death? I shudder at the thought. Humans. Just collateral in his system.

And then everybody’s hooking up as if we’re fucking normal.

Aren’t they petrified they’re going to turn out like him?

And treat wives like our deranged dad treated our mom?

Jesus. Another reason why I have to leave.

I can’t stand around and watch them procreate and have the one thing I want more than anything else but will never allow myself to have.

Some genes should not be passed on, and I’ll never allow any part of Guiliano Scalera to continue to exist now he’s gone. Not even in the kids I so desperately want. I never thought of myself as a family man, but lately, it’s almost all I can think of.

It was an unspoken vow between us brothers to never become fathers, because we’ll all be shit at it with the example we’ve had. It’s easy to commit to a childless life when we’re all living like playboys and love isn’t part of the equation.

But now… We might be able to say no to ourselves, but I bet Matteo, Stephano, and Dominic are all going to cave in if their women start getting broody.

Fuck. Broody. Don’t I just know that feeling. This gaping hole in my life only one thing could fill: a wife and kids. I don’t get it. With the way we grew up, a wife is already pushing it, but kids? Kids are literally the last thing in the world I should hanker after.

It’s a fucking midlife crisis. That’s what I’m having. Mafia style. At fucking twenty-nine too. A tad early, I’d say. Jesus.

My phone vibrates where it’s shoved in my jeans’ ass pocket.

“Speak of the devil,” I mutter, my gaze locking with Benedict’s after glancing at the screen.

He hitches a brow, crosses his arms, and leans against the doorjamb, ready to listen in on our conversation. We don’t have secrets between us. Not between Benedict and me and the way we’ve been pushed to this underground existence in Il Consiglio.

“Matty,” I answer on speakerphone. Matteo has always been Matty to us younger lot. Now that he’s Don, it’s more Matteo than Matty, but nobody cares here.

“We need to talk.”

Right, no preamble. And about time too.

I’m so ready. I’ve hinted for months that I need to speak to him about something, but the time was never right. Yet now everything’s in place, it’s as good a time as any.

“Yeah? Sure.” It’s late morning. My need to defect out of the Mafia isn’t exactly a conversation I plan to have after hours over a beer either. “You know I’ve been wanting to talk to you for months.”

“This is business, not a social call.”

“Jeez, okay. What’s wrong? Is it Steph?” Surely, I would have heard something. Felt something. That sixth sense we both have, tuned into each other since conception.

“No, it’s something else. Haul your ass up here, lil brother. Not over the phone. And Benedict, you stay down there.”

That’s new. Unease crawls down my back as he rings off.

Benedict smirks. “Well, that’s a first.”

“Have I fucked up?”

Impossible. I don’t have the scope or freedom to fuck up in the traditional sense of ‘fucking up.’ That ball landed in Stephano’s court, and he hogged it for years, never allowing me a brotherly turn.

“You never fuck up,” Benedict says, reading my mind.

“Uh-huh.”

I only kill on clear instruction. I play my part to perfection, following the stage director’s every cue. I’m a pro at making money, laundering it, ensuring the coffers are always lined. And now this…what the hell?

“You know what they say. Never say never.”

“Yeah. Good luck, bud,” Benedict says as he makes space for me to walk past and gives me an encouraging pat on the shoulder.

I retaliate with a mock punch to his gut which he feigns hits him so hard, he doubles over.

“I’ll come tell you all about it.”

I’m going to miss him more than anybody else.

Steph might be my twin, but Benedict and I have been closeted together for a long time, twins in another way.

He might have freedoms I don’t have because he isn’t the incognito doppelg?nger, but he always stuck around for me even if he didn’t have to, and this has made all the difference.

I make my way to the ramp and the steel door blocking entry to this part of the bunker from the rest of the underground parking garage and do a retina-scan-fingerprint combo to exit.

The security who always monitors this area deep under the high-rise Il Consiglio owns gets a wave on my way through.

Matteo’s elevator hauls my ass up to his penthouse suite in less than a minute.

The front door already stands open, my eldest brother waiting for me in his usual tailored suit, charming, handsome…frowning and with a weird pull to his mouth. He probably doesn’t approve of the jeans and black T-shirt I’m wearing.

“Come in. To the office with you.”

The fuck? “Jesus, Matty, you’re freaking me out here.”

“Yeah. We’re sitting down for this.”

I sigh. Here we go again. “Who fucked up and how do I fix it for you? Where do you need me to stand? Who do I smile and wave to?”

He just shakes his head as he leads the way to his office where two glasses, filled at least three fingers deep with honey-gold liquid, already wait on his desk. Bit early in the day for whiskey, isn’t it? Something’s wrong, someone fucked up, and guess who has been called in to mop up.

“The answer to all of your questions is at the altar, actually,” Matteo says as he drops back into his seat behind the desk, his gaze pinning mine down.

“What?” Is this figurative, or…? The altar is so far off my radar, I must have misheard. “Come again?”

“I just got off the phone with Ivan Petrov. That after I spoke to Dominic, who in turn spoke to Gabi.”

My stomach sinks. One name churns in my head. No…no-no-no-no. Not our long-lost supposedly stillborn sister. She should never have gone to the fucking Bratva Pakhan’s house. I still have no idea how the fuck that happened or why Matteo and Dominic allowed it.

“Is she okay? What the fuck’s going on?”

“Gabi’s fine, according to her. But we want to make sure she stays that way. So, you, Lucky Luca, have been chosen as our champion. You’re volunteering as tribute.”

I sink into the chair across from Matteo, refusing to digest his words. My stomach is turning too, which is never a good sign. What the fuck will I have to do this time? “As what?”

“Groom. To Milana Petrova. Ivan’s sister.”

“Jesus… What?”

I can’t be hearing right. I’m not volunteering to be an offering at any freaking altar, in marriage or as meat.

“Just an arranged marriage to make sure Gabi stays happy.”

A sardonic little smirk lurks in the one corner of his mouth and, as his words hit home, I just want to wipe it off his face. Preferably with a punch to that smug mouth, but I know my place. Fucker’s got it all worked out, expecting me to fall in line, as always.

“Wait—”

“And to give Milana an out,” he continues before I get another word in sideways.

“I’m not sure why she needs an ‘out,’ but Gabi has pleaded her case and actually, it’s a brilliant idea.

I can kick myself for not thinking about this before.

I’m not used to having a sister or any useful woman in our family.

That day when she went off with Petrov in Central Park fucking killed me.

But now you’ll be in charge of his darling little sister, and the playing field is even again. It’s the perfect solution.”

Stunned would be putting it mildly. Can he just listen to himself for a second? Useful? Gabi isn’t a thing. She’s a human. A woman. And what about Petrov’s sister? Is she just a commodity? Meat? Is this how we’ve vowed to treat women? After Mom— Fuck!

Silence stretches as he reaches for his whiskey and takes a tentative sip, his eyes never leaving mine as he waits for my reaction.

“Is this your idea?”

This doesn’t have Matteo—my protective eldest brother—written all over it, but it has Don of Il Consiglio scratched all over like a bad fucking rash. Fuck my life. This is another reason why I had to get out—to be gone before Matteo turns into our father. Power tends to fuck people up like this.

“It came to me out of the blue. After I spoke to Dominic. Stroke of genius. Wish it happened sooner, but—”

He thinks this is a good idea?! Jesus.

“Hang on. You want me to marry some random woman to even the fucking playing field? With the Bratva?”

I repeat what he said to make sure I got it right. This is the stuff of nightmares. This is the rug being pulled from under my feet. This is my newfound wings being clipped. I’ll never get out of the fucking Mafia if I—

“Not a random woman, and no, I’m not wanting, I’m demanding. Or rather, I’m informing you that this is going to happen.”

Right. It’s a done deal, then—another one in which I had no say. Whichever way I look at it, I’m probably screwed.

A laugh tumbles out. Dry. Sharp. Deadly. I’m screwed. Always have been, always will be.

“Fuck me. When?”

“Friday. You have two days to let the idea grow on you.”