The Greatest Mind (The Greatest #1)

1. Milan

MILAN

Everyone was touching me.

Repeatedly.

Including the rain.

Though that was an illogical conclusion to come to, because the weather did not possess appendages, the prolonged skin-to-skin contact with my father’s mourners had dulled the sensations in my body so that the rain did not feel much different.

It was abhorrent and utterly unnecessary to be standing in filth for a male who had been dead for three days, but I had been informed since childhood that the death of a Don in the Cosa Nostra was when our world had to become different, and respect was required to be shown.

I did not respect Hugo Lucca, yet I was still expected to stand in the rain and shake people’s hands to accept their unnecessary, falsified grief.

Puddles spread across the sodden grass of the graveyard, each one reflecting the gray clouds above New York, but I was also visible there and so was my body’s failure to comply ordinarily and without failure.

My jaw tensed, my chest heaved, my shoulders rose and fell inside my suit as if it was too big, and my hands wrung together, twisting over and over.

These parts of me, the defective parts, had always caused me problems in this world, and I had not responded to Hugo’s corrective measures.

I knew they were faulty, but somehow, they were the only parts of me that he had not been able to claim and take.

The rest of me—my tall height, my jet-black hair, my dark eyes—those all belonged to my father, and I could not bring myself to look at them too closely.

“My socks are wet,” I muttered, attempting to fixate my overloaded mind on either the rain in my shoes, the wet fabric clinging to my shoulders, the mud sticking to my father’s coffin, or the Italian priest spouting nonsense about his life, not all of it at once.

It was proving to be excessively difficult, and I was experiencing a high level of internal malfunction.

In these moments when my overstimulation was greatest, I sought the company of my Consigliere, my advisor, my closest friend, Adriano, and I was grateful that he was close beside me, perhaps even standing too close.

He made me feel smaller than my over six-foot-tall frame, though he was a few inches shorter than me, if anything.

Ever since we were four years old, he had regulated my mind and understood me in ways that others had never tried to.

He protected me, and that made me feel…smaller.

“You can change your socks at home,” Adriano replied under his breath, running a hand through his un-gelled dark curls.

Adriano and I appeared very similar, though Adriano did not gel back his hair, and he typically dressed like a biker in black leather jackets and strange shoes. I certainly would never wear any of that, but Adriano was ordinary, and I was incapable of being ordinary.

My Consigliere was emotionally stable and did not pose a threat to my internal readings of the world.

I had studied his unfamiliar, emotional social cues until I could identify his changes in behavior and what emotion he displayed.

Many individuals were not so easy for me to read, and I could not distinguish their actions between what one would call ‘happy’ or ‘angry,’ but I could often figure it out based on Adriano’s cues.

When he spoke, his head leaned toward me, his hands remained clasped before him, and he did not blink, not once in thirty seconds.

He watched the priest gesture to the damp hole in the ground that Hugo’s remains would be lowered into, not looking at me as he spoke quietly.

This indicated that I should have been doing the same.

I found this to be nonessential.

I sighed. “That does not provide me with a current solution to this illogical ritual.”

A sound emanated from Adriano’s throat. A snort. “It’s a funeral, Milano. Just stand there, be still, and stop talking.”

“We have been standing here for thirteen minutes. This is irrelevant to Hugo’s lack of existence. He does not know we are here; he is deceased.”

Someone made a loud, unpleasant sound from the crowd behind us. I twisted to try and find them, to assess why this human being was experiencing apparent stress over Hugo’s death when they likely did not ever meet him, but Adriano’s firm hand on my forearm held me in place.

Adriano’s physical contact was the only kind that I tolerated. His presence was required for my mental stabilization, so I did not oppose it.

The sound occurred again, louder this time. It was some kind of crying, coughing noise. I turned again, trying to search for them, but it was impossible beyond the sea of black suits surrounding us.

“Milan,” Adriano grumbled.

“Why is that person making that incredibly disruptive sound? Did they know Hugo well?”

“Milan.” Adriano’s voice became reminiscent of an animal’s growl. “You are Don now, not just a Lucca anymore. You need to show up for these people, understand them and their grief, even if you don’t. That starts with understanding that they have ears and can hear you.”

My eyes narrowed on my friend. “I have shown up enough. I have stood here for fifteen minutes now, and I appeared at the church and partook in the useless prayers. If their emotions are dependent on my appearances, they should attempt better emotional regulation.” I shook my legs, and the water in my shoes sloshed. “My socks are very wet.”

“We’ll leave in…” Adriano checked his watch, the one I had purchased for his twenty-ninth birthday last year.

The aesthetic value of the gold watch was great, but this was dependent on the wearer.

I was confident that I only found it physically agreeable when possessed by Adriano.

He had black hair, black eyes, a black cross necklace chained across his neck, wore a black leather jacket daily, and I had noted how others’ chests heaved faster when they noticed him.

People were afraid of him, of his high rank in the Famiglia, but I had once heard him described as ‘sunshine.’

It was impossible for Adriano to physically embody the sun; he would burn quickly, but this descriptor had been used to indicate that Adriano smiled and displayed a high level of happiness, which he always had done. I had bought the watch in gold for this very reason.

Adriano brought me peace. He was perhaps the only human being who could appease my differences. He had never called me defective, had never brought a knife to my flesh, had never done anything but tell me that Hugo Lucca had been wrong about me.

“Five minutes,” he continued. “Just stand there for five more minutes.”

You are capable, Milano.

You are capable, Milano.

You are capable, Milano.

Forty-five minutes later, I was not changing my socks. I was standing in the dark-paneled, shadowed confines of my father’s sitting room, permitting the other four Dons of the New York Famiglia’s Five Families to clasp my shoulders and quietly verbalize their family oaths.

I attempted to focus on anything that was not the touching, like how the scent of damp earth was carried in from rain-soaked shoes, how the worn brown floorboards creaked under the weight of each guest, how red all the furniture in this home was, how I wanted nothing more than to leave and go home to mine and Adriano’s estate instead.

That was not a choice, not while these men were touching me.

There was Primo Bianchi, Giovanni Gioffre, Tommaso Bonafede, Davide Ferrari, and now me, Milan Lucca. We were the Famous Five, as people called us, the Famiglia Five, the Five Families.

More like the four most suboptimal people to lead, and then me, who was the better choice.

I knew these unnecessary gestures of touching were signs of respect, but they caused an itch in my skin, my heartbeat to become exceptionally apparent in my chest, my hands to wring, and sweat to bead on my brow.

Don had not been my title for more than three days; to conclude that I was worthy of respect after a short amount of time would be na?ve, so why did they want to respect me?

My chest hurt.

The room felt tight, claustrophobic.

It was too dark.

“What’s wrong with you?” Dad said loudly, and I flinched, but that made my clothes feel too tight and uncomfortable, and the labels itched on my neck, and I had told him I did not like suits—

Dad raised his hand, and I clenched my eyes closed as his palm smacked my face. It burned all the way to my neck this time, and I put my hands together, holding my own hand like Mommy told me to do if I ever felt alone.

“We’re not doing this shit today, Milan, do you hear me? Do you know what being like this means? Do you know what it’s called?” I nodded, knowing that I had caused Dad to malfunction as he ripped my hands apart. “Tell me.”

“D-defective.”

The dons extracted their hands suddenly, and I blinked my eyes open, realizing that I had been digging my nails into Primo Bianchi’s wrist. He narrowed his green eyes for a moment, but then pulled away like the others, joining the crowds of suited people to begin eating and drinking and communicating in conversation that made them laugh like this was not a funeral and having their noises in Hugo’s home was not overwhelming.

This was unsustainable.

My feet, still heavy with my soaked socks, moved before my mind could understand where I was going. I quickened my pace toward the stairs and then hurried up, skipping some—which I did not permit my body to do, but it appeared to occur despite that.

To go somewhere without a goal was inefficient. To arrive in my mother’s bedroom was inconvenient.

She was dead.

Being in her bedroom did not make her alive, so it served no purpose, yet I did not remove myself.

My mother had desired her bedroom to be white and clean, unlike the rest of the house.

She had repeatedly stated during her rare lucid periods that the floorboards were as dark as my father’s soul and the red wallpaper and drapes as red as the blood he spilled, so her room had been decorated with sheer white drapes, a cream quilt and pillows, and fresh flowers in the vase on her windowsill.