37. Luca
LUCA
Matteo and I have an official appointment, because with the seemingly never-ending shit storm that has become our lives, it’s the only way to corner him for this talk I’ve been wanting to have for months.
As I stroll into his office, one look at my eldest brother slumped at his desk just cements this truth: I can’t saddle him with my problems. He can’t know about Milana’s baby.
He can’t know I’m going to breach the contract and take her to Russia.
And the last thing he can know is that I’ll potentially be putting my life on the line for her.
Matteo stands and walks around his desk, indicating I should take a seat on one of the sofas in his office. “Is it too early for a drink?”
“Yes. Watch that shit, Matty. You don’t want to develop a bad habit.”
“Right. Fuck it. Do I call Rosalia for coffee?”
“I’m not going to be long.” This is in and out. The longer I stay, the greater the chance that I waffle and say something I shouldn’t. I don’t even bother to sit.
“Okay,” he says, with a sigh. “This talk—”
“Yep. The one I wanted to have months ago.” I take a deep breath, steeling myself. “I fucked up.”
Matteo drops into the leather sofa, and it gives under his weight with a slow huff. “You? Fucked up? How?”
The man who never comes out except as his brother’s doppelg?nger has very limited opportunity to ‘fuck up.’
“I have a child. A four-month-old.”
His eyes go wide as the words register, and then he shoots up and circles the small space, hands on his hips.
“What the fuck, dude?” We’re eye to eye now.
“Didn’t we teach you anything? Jesus Christ. Who’s the mother?
For fuck’s sake, Luca! Does she know who you are?
That you’re an identical twin? In the fucking Mafia? The risks—”
“Matty,” I interrupt him with a hand on his chest. “It wasn’t exactly planned, okay?”
“I’d hope not. Jesus, dude.” He drops back onto the seat and digs his fingers into his hair. “Talk. Just fucking explain yourself. You know the risks for us when people get too close. When women—” He breaks off.
“Yeah, you’re one to talk.”
Tasha, the woman who was never to be touched by any of us, is now married to him, and Gabi got shot in his apartment. We’ve basically crossed the whole spectrum of risks in two minutes when it comes to women. Still, I take a breath and launch my spiel. This is all for a very good reason.
“The mom was from Canada. New Brunswick. We met on a few road trips I did north on my bike to Maine.”
He’ll buy this. I was testing my long-trip setup for months, planning for the longest time to hit the road and rough it, never looking back. Look at me now, feeling like I’m in the principal’s office, admitting to having played the semen part in a teenage pregnancy.
“Was? Like in past tense?”
“Yeah.” Fuck, this is maybe more complicated than necessary. But having a mother who isn’t American should make things more difficult to trace. With his current mental load, Matteo isn’t going to dig too deep for the truth behind my tale. “She passed away. A medical emergency that went wrong.”
“What sort of emergency?”
“Fucked if I know. Small town Canada, shitty rural services. I don’t have details.
I mean, I knew about the baby and was doing all the right things.
So many times I wanted to let you know, but fuck, the time was never right and it isn’t something I’m proud of.
She chose to keep it. I didn’t interfere beyond paying my dues. ”
“Fuck.” He’s shaking his head, disgusted.
Now he’s riling me up. There are worse things out there, plus my feelings for Milana are like a burning heartbeat in my center, always there, aching with emotions I’m still grappling with.
To talk like this, stoic about a fictional woman I randomly fucked on a few consecutive weekends in a dark room at a sex club up north seems so cold-blooded and cruel, in total contrast with this thing blooming in me.
This urgent need I have to be a father isn’t something I expect Matteo to understand—I don’t even understand it.
I basically vowed to never have children because of our own fucked-up dad, but I can’t push away this nagging need to hold my baby in my arms. To be a protector, a provider.
It’s so fucking primal, it scares the living fuck out of me, but God knows, I’ve tried to suppress it without success.
Here is Annushka, not of my blood, but a child all the same.
She’s the one chance I get to prove to the world I’m not my father’s spawn, that I’m more than his fucked-up son.
I might be the shadow man, the brother who hasn’t earned his stripes, but I want to be something to someone.
Prove to the world I’m capable of things our father wasn’t.
And in the process, I want to turn the fucked-up way we grew up on its head and do it right.
“Matteo—”
“Help me understand how this is now your problem? This woman’s family must be all over this to stop you from taking the baby if the mom just died.”
“It’s been six weeks. The baby is in foster care, and apparently, I’m the only next of kin. I’m on the birth certificate as the dad.”
“Fuck me. Did you give this woman your real name?”
This woman. Fuck, I hate how he talks sometimes. “No, of course not.”
“Tell me you didn’t give her Steph’s name.”
I huff out a curse. Asshole. “When I’m in a dark room fucking, it’s the only place I’m not Stephano, but I gave her a name when shit got real.
A name they found on the birth certificate and conveniently on her phone.
I wasn’t going to let this woman bear the repercussions of our actions alone.
” I swallow down my rising anger. “Don’t worry, Matteo, I’m still incognito if that’s what you’re worried about. ”
“Jesus. Fuck. No!” he grunts. “I just want to understand the bigger picture here.” He bites down on his jaw with a little shake of his head. “Sounds like you saw her more than a few times. Did you have feelings for her? I mean, this is the only way any of this makes sense.”
I look down, knowing the noose of lies is pulling tighter and tighter. I have to nip further questions in the bud. “It was four intense weeks, more than a year ago. I broke it off because—” I stall, glaring at him as I wave at the room, encompassing our Mafia existence. “Because of everything.”
“Yep.” He sighs. “Fuck it.”
“It isn’t fair on outsiders.”
“Yeah. Okay. I know. It’s fucked up. But do you really buy into her having no family?”
“Yes. I did my homework. It’s true.” Jesus, I can’t let him start digging now.
“It sounds to me like you hooked up with someone in witness protection pretending to be from New Brunswick. Maine is swamped with them, which begs the question: is this going to bite us in the ass down the line?”
I suppress a groan. My brother is filing away all these details and we’re going to have to be careful. “Not if I can help it, Matty. Not if I can help it.”
“Is it a boy or a girl?” he asks, and finally, we’re on smoother ground.
“A girl. Her name is Zoe.” The lie runs off my lips like water. I didn’t even talk this through with Milana.
“Fuck. More girls. Jesus. Whatever happens, don’t ever let her get hurt. It hurts so much more when they get hurt.”
In his eyes, there’s the flicker of the shadow hanging over his life. Alex’s death. And now Gabi. Her getting shot is shredding him from the inside out.
“Of course not.” I swallow, needing to leave. “I still have to break the news to Milana, so I’m going to get going.”
“Oh, fuck,” he says with a smirk. “Jeez, for a minute I forgot she was in the picture. You haven’t told her?”
“No, this thing is taking a shit ton of paperwork and I was waiting for some documents to come through. Milana and I, we’re…we’re still feeling our way around each other.” I felt her up, all right, and she loved it.
“Has she tried to kill you yet?” he asks, his tone teasing.
“Nope, but saddling her with another woman’s baby might push her to that point.”
“Uh-huh, I bet she isn’t going to be too thrilled. Hopefully, you’ll be spared that rite of passage.”
“We’ll see,” I say, trying to keep things light because the next thing on the agenda is something I’m telling Matteo, not asking. “Listen, I’m taking Milana to Italy before all the paperwork is in place and I have to pick up Zoe. Within the next week or so. She needs to meet Stephano and Gigi.”
Matteo stands again, his stance already telling me it’s a no. “Let them come here. With everything that’s happened—”
“It would seem we’ll be safer in Italy in Don Trapani’s compound than here.”
Matteo glares at me, seeming to size me up. My jaw ticks. He can’t contest this and he knows it.
“I miss Steph,” I say, knowing this will turn him. Alex and Matteo were so close, I bet he still feels the void every day.
“Fine, Lake Como is fine,” he says, dropping his gaze. “I don’t really care where you take her, as long as you stay safe and it isn’t to fucking Russia.”
“Trust me, I have zero ambitions to go to Russia.”
I walk out of his office, the wall of lies between us growing higher and higher.