Chapter 1 #2
I couldn’t see the sun from where I was standing, but I still recognized that medallion on sight.
Only the members of the inner circle of the De Luca crime family were permitted to wear them.
But none of the De Lucas were supposed to be here.
Not in my father’s opera house. The De Luca family was the enemy.
Our main rivals for decades. No matter how many other criminal organizations we managed to crush or take over, we could never get rid of the De Lucas.
My family’s territory might have been bigger, but the De Lucas ruled New Jersey with an iron fist. There was no getting around them when we wanted to do business in Jersey, and we had lost out on a ton of money because of them.
And that was just the start. In addition to them grabbing onto Jersey and making a dent in our finances, they had also managed to kill some of our allies over the course of several decades, including my father’s best friend.
Then there was the car bomb that had gone off a year ago.
Even though the car had been empty, it was one of my father’s cars.
A clear message from the De Lucas that they could harm us whenever they pleased if we kept trying to push into New Jersey.
My father and I had retaliated by setting one of their Newark businesses on fire, amongst other unpleasant things.
Both families had been on the brink of war ever since.
Now one of them had dared to set foot in my father’s opera house. Which could only mean one thing: We were all in danger.
~~*~~
LIGHT GLINTED OFF THE medallion, a dangerous reminder of what our enemies were capable of.
Hands shaking, I tore my clutch open, desperate to reach the small pistol inside.
It didn’t seem possible that my father’s men could fail to protect me and Frankie on our own turf, but if for some reason they had dropped the ball, I was determined to save us all by myself if necessary.
Heart pounding, I reached into my purse, my fingertips finding the hard metal of the gun.
Suddenly, I heard Frankie’s voice behind me. “What’s going on, cousin Lena?” he asked, grabbing onto my elbow.
“The De Lucas,” I choked out under my breath. “I think they’re here. I don’t know how they managed to get in—”
“This place is like a maze,” my cousin said, his voice sounding deceptively causal to my ears. “I swear sometimes it plays tricks on me.”
“Frankie—”
“Your eyes are playing tricks on you as well, Lena, that’s all,” Frankie said, brushing me off as he tugged at my elbow to steer me back to the end of the hallway. “Let’s get you to your father. Can’t keep him waiting any longer.”
For the first time in a long time, I could feel myself unraveling.
Nothing around me was making any sense, and as Frankie hustled me past the hallway exit, something resembling panic seized me.
This wasn’t right. For one thing, my cousin was acting suspiciously.
Then there had been that man in the shadows.
Not to mention my father’s decision to come down here to meet me, instead of the other way around. It was like I was being ambushed.
I opened my mouth to protest again, but I suddenly found myself on a balcony overlooking the opera’s outdoor courtyard. My father was standing by the railing, a stern expression on his weathered face.
“Papa,” I said, stumbling toward my father.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Frankie said behind me. I heard my cousin’s footsteps get fainter and fainter, then came the sound of the doors to the balcony closing shut.
“Papa, we’re in danger.” I reached for my father, desperately grabbing onto his arm. “The De Lucas are here. I saw one of them in the hallway.”
To my surprise, my father lifted his shoulders in response. Shrugged and then turned to look out at the courtyard below. My father had always been a calm man when we worked together. He was never rattled or fazed by anything. And yet, his manner was far too relaxed, even for him.
“Did you hear what I said?” I demanded, my chest tightening with apprehension.
Something was going on. The sense of uncertainty that had gripped me all night now seemed more frightening than the De Lucas’ sudden appearance out of the shadows.
Because I couldn’t shake the feeling that everyone around me knew something that I didn’t.
From my father’s henchmen to Frankie, to my other family members.
If I was going to be the last one to know something, what chance did I have of becoming my father’s second-in-command?
“I heard you,” my father replied smoothly in placid tones. “But there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“I wasn’t seeing things,” I insisted, remembering Frankie’s earlier dismissal.
“Oh, no Valentina, I wouldn’t ever assume that,” my father said, placing a hand on the railing. “If you say you saw one of them, then there is no doubt.”
The calmer he was, the more frantic I became inside.
But I couldn’t give in to fear right now.
Scared as I was, I had to keep the panic in check.
Keeping a cool head was the only way I was going to protect my family.
Besides, none of my male cousins ever showed distress.
That meant I was going to have to be ten times tougher than them.
I swallowed hard, fighting to regain composure. “We need to get out of here.”
“The De Lucas wouldn’t dare hurt us here,” my father said.
“They also wouldn’t dare show their faces here in our territory, and yet, they have,” I said.
“If they wanted to hurt us, they would have done so already,” my father said.
Those words reassured me. If my father was sure that we were safe, then I had no reason to doubt it. I never doubted my father, not ever. But his demeanor left me with more questions than answers. His summons was still hanging over me and I was determined to find out exactly what was going on.
“Are you expecting them?” I asked suddenly.
Maybe our enemies had overplayed their hand and my father had found a way to deal with them.
He hated the De Lucas even more than I did.
Which meant that there was a good chance my father had laid a trap for them.
It would explain all the secrecy. While I didn’t like being kept in the dark about something so important, a secret plan to destroy our enemies would have been a good reason for the summons.
“Yes,” my father responded, giving away nothing else.
“That’s why you came down here,” I said, understanding it now. “We’re not the ones in danger. The De Lucas are.”
My father snorted. He was usually very well-mannered. Grandfatherly at times, with a twinkle in his eye. At least, he was that way with his family. His enemies got a very different side of him. With the De Lucas under our roof, that side was likely going to come out now.
“Papa, are you going to...” I paused to pull my hand away from his arm, taking a moment to really look at him. Despite how relaxed he seemed, it was very clear that something out of the ordinary was happening tonight.
His graying hair was thinning at the top and with my heels on, Papa was shorter than me.
To anyone who didn’t know him, my father was just a mild-mannered businessman.
But I obviously knew better. While he was calm with his family, when he was facing down our enemies, my father became a different person.
I had seen him order hits before. Seen him take on men twice his size.
Once, I watched him smash a man’s legs with a mallet.
So, I was well aware of what my father was capable of.
And he was well within his rights to go after his enemies.
The De Luca family had not only tried to kill him, they had actually succeeded in killing my father’s best friend back when I was a kid.
Our family had retaliated for that by getting rid of some De Luca associates, but we had never been able to get close enough to Don De Luca or his inner circle. Until now, it seemed.
I cleared my throat, and then leaned in close to whisper a question, “Are we taking out the De Lucas?”
My father didn’t respond immediately. All he did was look at me for a long moment without saying a word.
A sadness flashed in his eyes then, a lifetime of pain flickering so briefly that I very nearly missed it.
But even though that show of emotion vanished quickly, I knew my father well enough to see when he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Whatever came next, he wasn’t doing it lightly.
Maybe he regretted that I would have to see him commit yet another act of violence. Maybe he was thinking about his best friend Tony. They had been so inseparable all their lives that they might as well have been blood brothers. Only death could separate them, and thanks to the De Lucas, it had.
My heart ached for my father. And the truth was, I felt a pang in my heart for myself.
Tony had meant so much to me and I missed him terribly.
He was the first major loss in my life and his murder that knocked the air out of me that first year he was gone.
My grief, however, had given way to anger and a thirst for vengeance against the De Lucas.
One way or another, I intended to make them pay for everything they had done to us.
“No, we’re not taking them out,” my father finally answered.
“Then why are they here?” I asked.
“We’re all here to celebrate.”
My heart pounded again. This was it. My father was finally going to make me his second. Anticipation coursed through me. “Celebrate what?”
What he said next left me so unbalanced, that I reached out my hand to grab hold of the railing to steady myself.
“Your engagement, Valentina,” my father said. “You’re going to be married.”