Chapter 65
MARCELLO
As a child, I was like Alex—a free spirit without a care in the world.
I wanted to be like my mother and spent most of my time painting and studying art in her studio.
My mother lit up every room with her smile and made people feel something with her paintings.
She was the only good thing I had in my life.
Hell, she was the good in all of our lives.
My father was always cruel and cold, but he hardened with each passing year since her passing.
Luca was like him in many ways and adapted easily to the changes in our house.
I spent more time painting and sketching in my mother’s studio until my father was in a mood one day and ended my dreams of becoming an artist.
It was the fifth anniversary of my mother’s death, and my dad was a complete disaster.
I was in her studio, kneeling before a canvas with a rigger brush cradled between my fingers.
My father swayed into the room with a bottle of Macallan in his hand, muttering curses under his breath in Italian.
His eyes traveled across the room, shifting between her paintings and me.
He clenched his jaw when he set his hardened gaze on me.
I shivered from the intensity in his deep brown irises, hoping he wouldn’t start another fight.
When I was younger, he saved his punishments for Luca, taking out his anger on him.
Luca didn’t mind learning his lessons and took them in stride.
But the hell with that shit. I wasn’t a psychopath like my brother.
I wanted to get out of this house and as far away from the violence as possible.
But I never had a choice.
Dad stopped at my mother’s self-portrait and pressed his hand to the wall beside the framed oil painting as he sipped from the bottle.
I could hear him speak to my mother in Italian, his words muffled.
We all missed her, my father most of all.
She was the glue that held our family together.
Without her, each of us was falling apart in our own ways.
My father dived headfirst into work while Luca tried to learn the family business.
A natural genius, my older brother spent most of his time with his nose in a book, devouring its contents.
One day, Luca would take over for my father and run Salvatore Global.
He was more suited for the role, and I was glad I didn’t have to take on the responsibility.
I preferred to be left alone.
After Dad finished staring at my mother’s portrait, he strolled across the room, downing the rest of the scotch.
His eyes were red-rimmed and glassy. I wondered if it was from the alcohol or if he’d cried over my mother.
Not once in my life had I witnessed him showing a single emotion.
On the day Luca found my mother on the floor of her studio, with her head turned to the side, her lips as blue as the ocean, my father shed a tear—just one.
Dad glared at me, his mouth twisted into a scowl. “What do you think you’re doing, Marcello?”
Confused, I stared up at him. “I’m painting.”
He shook his head. “I told you not to come into this room.”
“Sorry, Dad. I just wanted to be closer to her.”
My hand trembled when he bent before me, and I dropped the paintbrush on the tarp.
“She’s dead! You hear me, Marcello, dead. Nothing can bring her back. So when I tell you to stop with this nonsense, I mean it. No more painting. It’s time for you to act like a man and learn the business.”
He swatted the paintbrush from my hand. Paint splattered on his black Brioni suit, my T-shirt, and the floor. His eyes glazed over as he took in the sight of the red acrylic paint. I was trying to recreate one of Mom’s paintings and failing miserably. My talent didn’t even compare to hers.
The empty bottle in his hand crashed on the floor, shattering into pieces.
He reached down and gripped the collar of my shirt, choking me with the fabric as he pulled me up from the floor.
I was a teenager, almost as tall as him, and gaining more muscle from playing football.
Even at his age, the old man was still as strong as an ox.
He blew out a deep breath while I held mine, terrified of what he would do this time. His punishments were harsh and painful, reminders that would strengthen my brother and me.
“Look at what you did,” he shouted, his face inches from mine.
It was his fault, but I knew better than to talk back. I wasn’t Luca. I would never challenge my father the way my older brother did.
“I’m sorry, Father.”
He tightened his hold on my throat, and I gasped for air.
“Dad,” Luca said from behind him.
I had never been more thankful to hear my brother’s voice.
“Stay out of this, Luca,” he boomed. “This is between Marcello and me.”
Luca hated me until my mother died. He treated me like I was another responsibility for most of my life. But after my mom was gone, he often stepped in front of me, defending me against my father’s attacks. I could handle the pain. It was something we had grown accustomed to over the years.
My brother moved toward us with a purpose, dressed in a navy blue Brioni suit and brown wingtips. For someone in high school, Luca already looked like a man, like the leader of our family’s company.
“What did Marcello do?” Luca said.
My dad spun around, pointed his finger at the paint on his clothes, then waved his hand at the mess on the floor. “Marcello was about to accept his punishment.”
“Dad,” Luca groaned. “Not today, of all days. Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”
“Don’t challenge me, son.” He gritted his teeth, nostrils flared. “Your brother disobeyed my orders, and he will deal with the consequences of his actions.”
Luca stripped off his suit jacket and handed it to me. He held my father’s gaze as he unbuttoned his white Oxford. “Then let me take it. Let this be an example for Marcello not to do it again.”
He was right. Every time Luca accepted the punishments on my behalf, I never repeated the same mistake. I didn’t want him to suffer for my actions.
“Marcello, you should go,” Luca said as he stripped off his shirt.
His chest and back were scarred beyond repair, much worse than mine.
“No,” my father said with a bite to his tone. “He has to watch. That’s his punishment.”
I took Luca’s shirt from his hand and sighed.
We should have been celebrating the life of the greatest woman ever.
Instead, my father was only proving how much he was fucking up our lives.
He’d adopted Bastian and Damian, who were probably snapping the necks of rabbits in the backyard.
They were just as fucked up as my father and Luca.
The four of them were like peas in a pod.
I was the one who didn’t fit into the equation.
As my father stripped off his Fendi belt, Luca knelt on the floor.
I wanted to be as fearless as he was. Luca looked up at me, his eyes never leaving mine, as the belt cracked open his skin.
He balled his hands into fists and clenched his jaw.
Not even a single sound escaped his mouth as if he had trained himself not to feel the lashes.
My stomach ached as he tore open old scars, making new ones.
And by the time my father was satisfied, a proud smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, I wanted to punch him in his smug fucking face.
I would have run from him if he weren’t one of the most powerful men in the world.
I would have stolen enough cash to leave this stupid town and never return.
But I would never leave Luca. I owed him for enduring most of my punishments.
Whatever deal he had made with his mother was unbreakable in his mind, so I vowed never to step out of line after that day.
For Luca, I promised never to cross my father.
It was the least I owed him for coming to my rescue.
My father rubbed his hand over his face, storming from the room. I handed Luca his shirt. He winced as the fabric molded to his back, clinging to his open cuts.
“I’ll do whatever he wants,” I said. “You won’t have to take another punishment for me.”
Luca yanked his suit jacket out of my hand and slipped it on without a word. He stared at me for a long, hard moment, his lips parting. Then he closed his mouth and ran a hand through his black hair. A moment of silence passed between us before he spoke.
“There will come a day when I need something from you,” Luca said in a hushed tone. “Something you won’t want to give me, but you will do it anyway.”
“Like what?”
He shrugged. “You’ll know when the day comes.”
After that day, my father had the staff cover the furniture and easels with tarps. Then they locked the door and threw away the key. No one had entered the room again until Luca brought Alex to the house to see my mother’s fresco. She was the first person to enter the room in nearly ten years.
My eyes snapped open from the nightmare, my heart racing. I thought about Luca and what he had done for me so many times over the years. When Carl Wellington offered Alex a choice between us, I understood what Luca had meant that day in my mother’s studio.
That was the day.
The second he glanced across the room at me, shooting daggers in my direction, I felt it deep in my bones.
I had to bow out of the contest gracefully, but Luca would never treat her right if I handed Alex to him on a silver platter.
So I pushed him to the limit and made him think I would steal Alex.
Eventually, he would come to terms with his feelings for her.
Everyone knew how much he cared about her, even if he had yet to understand the true extent of his love for our queen.