Chapter 2
“What the fuckdo you have to say for yourself?”
Matthias Luchetti was not one to be fucked with, and yet here was one of my father’s henchmen, pushing his buttons. That tends to happen when you lose a deal for my father, which in turn loses his money and his respect. Anyone who knew my father knew you didn’t get a second chance. He didn’t believe in them. Once you crossed him, you never saw the light of day again. It’s what made him one of the biggest and most influential crime bosses in Boston. He had one living soul who rivaled him, but he wouldn’t let it stay that way for long.
Standing at six feet tall, with a cleanly buzzed head and a Boston accent, my father had the ability to scare even the strongest of men. He sure did scare the piss out of me and my brothers when we were all growing up whenever we got in trouble. Even now, towering over him at six foot two, he still intimidates me.
We used to joke around that my dad was a giant teddy bear who was stern when he needed to be, but ever since our little sister was murdered several years ago at just twelve years old, he started to reserve that softer side of himself for my mother. He lost the best parts of himself when Ava passed away.
To be fair, I think we all lost a bit of ourselves when she died. Besides my mother, she was the sunshine in our otherwise dark lives.
“Well?” Matthias’s voice boomed, his impatience growing for the man kneeling before him. My older brother Finn had already begun to dish out his punishment, if the guy’s bloody lip and blooming black eye had anything to say about it. Finn had inherited our father’s temper, that was for damn sure. He wasn’t afraid to show it either.
The man spit blood before he finally spoke, looking my father directly in the eyes. “I’m sorry, sir.”
Wrong move, you stupid son of a bitch. Never admit your wrongs.
“Unfortunately for you, I don’t have time for sorry,” Matthias said, before pulling out his handgun from his side holster and shooting the guy point blank, splattering his brains all over the floor of the living room we’d turned into a place where we held all our business meetings. I flinched internally, but kept my features schooled. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a light snuffed out before my eyes. I was no stranger to death, nor was I a stranger to bringing death to someone’s doorstep by my own hand.
As a Luchetti, you either kill or be killed. Don’t waste a second on a decision.
That had been ingrained in my brain since I was born. I didn’t know anything else.
“Clean this filth up,” my father said as he lazily shooed at his men surrounding the room. “And let this be a lesson.”
I swiped my hand down my face and walked over to the table to the side that housed our best bourbon. After pouring myself two fingers worth, I brought the glass to my lips and turned to face my father. The alcohol didn’t even burn when it went down my throat anymore. Bourbon ran through my veins.
“Where were you tonight, Kade?” Maverick, my youngest brother, asked.
“I was on the East Side with Smith, closing another deal. What’s it to you?” I growled. Maverick may be younger, but he always thought he was my boss.
“He was supposed to be with you,” he said, pointing to the bloodstain on the floor—which was all that remained of the man whose name I didn’t even bother knowing. I only knew a few of them by heart, and that’s only due to the fact that they’d been with us for so long—by some stroke of luck. Not dying by my father’s hand or due to some deal gone sideways in this world is a skill all its own. Dangerous business, the crime world is.
Numbing business, the crime world is.
I shrug my shoulders. “Not my fault.”
“You’re such a prick,” Maverick grumbled, thinking since he’d turned his back to me, I couldn’t hear him. He’d come a royal pain in my ass ever since he turned sixteen and my father believed it was time for him to entire our world. Eight years later, soon to be a college graduate and he still acts like a damn child.
“You better shut that smart mouth up before I do it for you,” I snapped, pointing at him over my bourbon.
“Oh, yeah?” He replied, turning quickly, and making his way towards me from across the room.
“Boys,” my father said with a deadly calm. Maverick and I both straightened up, knowing he wouldn’t ask so nicely again. Even though we were his sons, we weren’t given second chances either.
I glared at Maverick to communicate to him that it was best to drop it. For once in his life he actually listened and flopped on one of the leather couches.
Better mark that on the calendar.
Finn looked between us with a smirk, as if he fully expected our spat and it surprised him none. He was the oldest and had come to expect and find laughter in our banter.
Even though he could handle us and our bullshit, he was unhinged when it came to anyone else. His emotions were so up and down, and he could snap in an instant. He may have had our father’s temper, but when it came to putting it into action, that was another story entirely. He didn’t know when to pump the brakes or turn it all the way up. He was a loose cannon, and it made for a dangerous heir to the Luchetti throne.
He was too soft when he needed to have a heavier hand or he was too heavy-handed when he needed to ease back. There was no grey area or happy medium with Finn anymore.
Done with my brother’s bullshit and my father’s violence, I downed the rest of my bourbon, placed the empty glass on the table, and walked out of the double doors to my car without so much as a backward glance.
It’s a quiet ride home,and before I know it, I’m pulling up to the gates of my house. I nod to the security guard as he lets me in and pull up to the garage. My mansion was modest in comparison to my father’s, but a big house nonetheless. I walked through the side door from the garage and into the dark silence.
So much house. So much emptiness.
My mother, Elizaveta Luchetti, had been nagging me for years to finally settle down and fill the house with grandkids. My younger brother Sawyer was the only one who was married, so he didn’t get the marriage lectures anymore. He did get the baby lecture though. My mother was dying for one of us to breed.
I knew as well as my other brothers that if we didn’t hurry up and get married, she’d do it for us.
I made my way up the stairs, fingers loosening the tie at my neck, my footsteps echoing throughout the empty house. Today hadn’t even been that long of a day, but regardless, I felt the exhaustion deep within my bones.
I was tired of this life that my father had built for us. I was tired of the crime and the blood on my hands. Sure, the money was great. The amount of women begging for me to fuck them wasn’t a downside either—unless you’re like me and had had your fill.
Fill of death.
Fill of money.
Fill of someone making my choices for me, and watching my every move.
I was sick of looking over my shoulder in case some bastard decided he was brave enough to kill me as revenge towards my father. I couldn’t imagine how paranoid Finn must feel, being heir to the crime throne and all.
I stripped my clothes off and stepped into the steaming shower, letting the stream of water burn my skin, willing me to feel something.
It had been so long since I’d felt something other than anger that I wasn’t sure there was anything else left. I’d been turned into a vicious killing machine who was finally growing tired. I wanted to know what else was out there before I didn’t have the chance to know any longer.
I’d been at this for thirteen years. Ever since the night of my fifteenth birthday, when my father decided it was time for me to become a man by placing a Glock in my hand and making me pull the trigger on a man I didn’t even know who’d evidently wronged him.
It was the first and last time I cried myself to sleep, knowing there was no way I could do it again. But it didn’t take long for me to realize that I had to. I had to bottle everything I’d ever feel on the inside if I wanted to survive the life that was being built for me without my permission. I had to turn the switch off on the pesky emotions that threatened to seep through.
I stepped out of the shower, skin thoroughly scorched by the heat, and wrapped a towel around my waist. My phone vibrated on the counter and I made my way over to it to figure out who could be texting me at almost midnight.
Sawyer
You’re needed back at Matthias’s.
You’ve got to be shitting me.
I could throttle someone. I was so irritated with the fact that I couldn’t hop into bed right now with a book. It had become my nighttime ritual to help calm the voices raging inside my head and even then, sometimes they were just too damn loud to let me get any meaningful rest.
Just because I was a trained killer didn’t mean I wasn’t able to enjoy a good novel or two. I’d never tell my brothers about it though. They’d tease me about it endlessly—more than they already did when we were growing up.
We all had our talents; my brothers just saw mine as weaker. My father wasn’t afraid to let me know how displeased he was with my hobbies either.
“Put that pussy shit away. We don’t become crime lords by reading fairy tales,” He told me once. As if all books were fairy tales. As if he had never read a book before in his life and forgot that he was the one to get me into reading.
That’s what scared me the most. Knowing how much this life had changed my father, and knowing if I let it, if I let the darkness in, it would destroy any scrap of light I had left. No matter how little.
After throwingon a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, refusing to put a suit back on to endure whatever level of bullshit this was about to be, I made my way back to my father’s. I seriously considered pretending I never read Sawyer’s message, but we were at our father’s beck and call, and all that would get me was a beating.
Twenty-eight years old and still getting disciplined by my old man.
Yet another reason I was desperately hoping for some sort of escape from the world I’d grown up in. Maybe if my father didn’t have me under his thumb anymore, he’d start seeing me as a son again. Maybe we could actually have a relationship that consisted of more than just money and blood and death.
“What was so urgent we had to come back so soon?” I ask, waltzing in without a care in the world. Sleep deprivation made me brave. And stupid.
“Check your attitude, boy, before I check it for you,” my father said in a calm tone. I wasn’t to be fooled into thinking that he was actually calm, and that there wasn’t a threat laced in those words. I took a seat in between my brothers and gave him my full, undivided attention.
He took a moment to look at all of us and the handful of men he had in his meeting chambers before he spoke again.
“I brought you all back here again because I’ve been informed of a… situation,” he began, a smirk gracing his lips. It caught me by surprise. My father found nothing amusing, so I knew what he was about to say would not be good.
“Lilah Canella’s men have been spotted putting their noses where they don’t belong. This is not a new problem, but this time it’s over by the new turf by the harbor. Good turf—which means good business and good money. What should be ours, Canella has decided, should be hers, due to the proximity of Vincent Peirano’s territory, and the fact that her daughter is married to his son.” He paused, folding his hands in front of him and giving a dark chuckle before continuing.
“Anyone with half a brain cell knows any harbor land is ours. But we also know Lilah lacks reason when it comes to money and turf. So, tomorrow evening, we will be meeting with the Canellas and the Peiranos on neutral ground, per their request, to see if we can come to a peaceful agreement.”
He looked at each of us again, staring us down and penetrating us with his gaze. “But be warned, all of you know by now that Luchettis don’t go down without a fight, and we aren’t ones to give things that belong to us away peacefully.”
If this meeting was happening at neutral ground, and wasn’t happening here, then that meant we were traveling into the den of the viper who called herself Lilah Canella.
I took a moment to look at my father then. To truly look at him and see if there was any of the man I once admired left inside. But all that stared back at me were blank eyes. Not a trace of the gentle side that I missed.
At this moment, I vowed that this business with the Canellas would be my last. After this, I was wiping my hands clean of all future wrongdoings. I refused to lose the tiny spark I still had left inside me that kept me human.