Chapter 23 LUCA
LUCA
The house has gone completely quiet by the time I finally get Nora to stop fussing and climb into bed next to me. Three days of forced bed rest does weird things to people. It turns a stubborn London woman into a bossy nurse who thinks she knows better than my doctors.
She punches two pillows behind her back against the headboard like she owns the place. "I read the doctor's papers. Twice. You are supposed to keep these cuts dry for two more days, you stubborn idiot."
I shift my weight against the mattress with a quiet grunt. "I washed with a wet cloth. I followed your silly rules."
She glares at me over the edge of the blanket. "You tried to hang from the bathroom door frame yesterday morning. Matteo caught you red-handed."
"Matteo talks too much and needs to mind his own business."
I ease my shoulder down until the pull along my ribs stops burning. "And I have dealt with way worse than this. A gunshot shoulder and a few stitches don't bother me."
She jerks the blanket smooth across her knees with sharp, quick tugs. "That is not something to brag about, Luca. It just makes you sound like a stupid kid who thinks hurting makes him tough."
I watch the stubborn tilt of her chin. "Pain keeps you sharp. Being sharp keeps you breathing."
"Coffee keeps you awake. Being smart keeps you breathing. Being an idiot just gets your cuts swollen and leaves me yelling at you at midnight."
I look down at the thick white tape covering my shoulder, then look straight back into her hazel eyes. "You have seen me without a shirt for three whole days. If you wanted to complain about my life, you should have made a list."
"Don't give me ideas. I make lists for men with way fewer problems than you." She leans over the empty space between us and pokes the clean white edge of the bandage. She watches my face to see what happens. "Does that hurt?"
I clench my jaw so hard my teeth ache. "No."
"Bullshit." She rolls her eyes toward the dark wood ceiling and pulls her hand back to her lap. "Your whole neck stiffened the second I tapped it. You are the worst patient on earth."
"I run hundreds of men and a dozen docks, Nora. Lying is part of my day."
"Well, you suck at it in bed. Put that on your resume."
She lets out a quiet puff of air that sounds like a half-laugh and leans back into her pillows.
The soft smell of fresh soap and citrus drifts between us, warm and clean.
The bedside lamp throws a yellow ring across the floor.
For a long moment neither of us says a word, and the silence doesn't feel like a fight for once.
Nora picks at a loose stitch on her blanket. "Enzo told me you used to check on him every single night. Years ago. He told me you would stand by his bedroom door in the dark until you heard him fall asleep."
My back goes stiff against the pillows. "Enzo runs his mouth when he wants attention."
She turns on her side to look at me, resting her cheek on her arm. "Enzo loves you, you idiot. He wasn't showing off, he was trying to explain why you guard this house like a crazy person. You don't have to change the subject every time someone brings up that year."
"I'm not changing the subject."
"You just blamed your little brother for talking too much."
"That's just a fact, not an excuse."
She taps her knuckle against the sheet. "You've run away from this conversation for years. I know when people dodge questions. You can't fool me."
"Sounds like a tiring habit you ought to drop."
"It keeps me sharp while I'm stuck in this house with a grumpy mob boss." Her lips twitch with a small grin, but her eyes stay right on mine, calm and steady. She doesn't push or fidget. She just waits for me to break the quiet, the same way she waits people out in boardrooms.
I could stop this right now. For twenty years, I've given people two cold sentences before walking out of the room. But lying here on my back with shot shoulder and half a roll of tape holding me together makes it hard to put the walls back up.
"It happened on a Friday," I say, the words dry and scratchy in my throat as I stare up at the ceiling beams.
Her hands stop moving on the blanket. The teasing look fades off her face, and she goes completely still, listening closely.
"I remember the day because my mother cooked the potato gnocchi she only made on Fridays," I go on, my voice dropping low in the quiet room. "I complained about the cheese. I whined that I wanted steak instead, like an ungrateful little shit."
"You were eleven," she whispers softly, watching my side profile. "Eleven-year-old boys are always rude about food."
"I left half of it on the plate," I add, staring straight up. "That's the part I can't shake."
She moves a little closer until her shoulder brushes mine through the blankets. "How old were the kids?"
"Enzo was eight. Matteo was ten and Sofia was four." I keep my eyes glued to the plaster overhead. "My parents drove down to Palermo for a routine business meeting with Matteo's parents and uncle Vittorio. Simple stuff on paper. They were supposed to be home in two hours."
Nora reaches across the covers and slides her fingers over mine where my hand lies flat on the sheet.
"The house phone rang at eleven," I say, the memory sharp as glass. "Adrian's dad answered it in the hall. I saw his face drop before he even took a breath. I knew right then, before he said a single word."
"God, Luca," she whispers, her fingers tightening around my knuckles.
"Let me finish." My throat feels tight, but my voice stays low and level. "If I stop now, I won't talk about this again."
She gives a single nod, keeping her mouth shut and her palm warm against mine.
"Bellini had four shooters waiting on the old mountain road.
My father never carried a gun to regular meetings because he thought it made him look weak in front of partners.
My mother was unarmed too." The words fall out dry, scraped raw from ten years of silence.
"They killed my parents on the spot. They killed Matteo's parents in the same burst. Uncle Vittorio was the only one who pulled through, but the bullets shattered his spine...
he was paralyzed for life. And my grandfather…
his heart just couldn't take the hit. Within a week, the old man passed away from pure grief. "
"Adrian's parents died right in front of me," I add, my throat tightening until it aches.
"They threw themselves in front of me to shield my body when the gunfire erupted, taking bullet after bullet until they collapsed on the floor.
Adrian and I were the exact same age, eleven years old.
He lost both his mother and father right there while they kept me breathing, and neither of us ever got to say goodbye.
That was the day Adrian stopped being just a boy living under our roof and became my brother. "
I stare hard at the ceiling, feeling the burn in my lungs. "I went down to identify the bodies alone. Enzo tried to scramble into the car with me, crying and screaming to come along. I shoved him back through the front door and locked it. I told him his only job was to keep Sofia in her room."
Her thumb slides slowly across the side of my wrist. "You were just a kid. You shouldn't have had to protect three little kids from a slaughter all on your own."
"Nobody else was lining up to do it." I turn my head sideways to look at her. "There was no time to sit down and cry. By six the next morning, three of my father's top men were already calling for meetings to see if the new kid would break."
"Did you yell at them?" she asks quietly.
"I put a loaded gun on the wooden table right next to their coffee cups and said the first man who tried to take my family's place wouldn't make it to his car."
"Nice," she whispers back with a tiny, sad smirk. "Real polite."
She watches my mouth. "Were your hands shaking?"
I blow out a long breath through my nose. "I hid them under the table until they stopped. And then they didn't shake again for twenty years."
Her eyes stay locked on mine, searching every line on my face. "You raised three broken kids and took over a huge criminal empire when you were barely old enough."
"I know how old I was, Nora. I know it was crazy."
"Crazy is putting it mildly. It's totally nuts."
She leans in just a fraction closer. "I'm not giving you a hard time. I just don't know how your head didn't blow up after three months of that."
A rough, dry laugh comes out of my chest. "I stopped sleeping more than four hours a night by that winter. My body just forgot how to rest. You've seen what I'm like."
She tilts her head up. "I've seen you walk the hallway at three in the morning like an armed ghost in a nice sweater."
I glance toward the dark window shutters. "I check the yard cameras. I'm just making sure the house is locked down."
She counts it off on her fingers. "You stop outside Sofia's room for three minutes. Then you stand outside Enzo's door for two. I've listened to you from down the hall."
"You're spying on me in my own house."
"I'm keeping an eye on the guy who locked me up. It's called being smart."
I don't bother arguing, because she's right and we both know it. She shifts her legs under the sheets until her knee rests right against mine, and the warmth of her skin keeps the cold memories from taking over the room.
I wait until her fingers give a little squeeze against my hand.
"There is something I never told Enzo or Sofia.
My dad called me twenty minutes before they drove away.
He wanted to know if I had looked over some shipping lists.
Boring stuff. I was annoyed because I was in the middle of a meeting, so I got short with him.
I told him I'd look at it later and hung up. "
"Oh, Luca." Her thumb rubs gently across my knuckles.