10. The Old Luca
THE OLD LUCA
LUCA
The first flash went off before the elevator doors finished opening.
For one stupid second, my body believed I was twenty-eight again.
Not in my lobby. Not beneath the vaulted glass ceiling of the Santoro Grande, with orchids on the desk and Ava's watercolor behind the computer.
Somewhere meaner. Concrete under my boots, tape around my hands, a crowd chanting my name like they wanted blood.
"Luca!"
My name cracked across marble. Then came another flash. And another.
Men poured through the front doors like they owned the place. Thick necks. Designer duffels. Sunglasses indoors. One wore a vintage Havoc Hale shirt, with Jax on the front and my younger face printed across the back.
Security moved fast, but the sound hit first. Laughter. A trainer's bark. Palm against leather. One of them carried an open tumbler, and the stink of whiskey rode in with humid air and sweat.
My hands curled. I made them open.
"Mr. Santoro." Marisol stepped out from behind the desk, her smile professional but tight. "The Ashford booking arrived early."
Early. Loud. With half an amateur fight card attached.
I crossed the lobby before anyone could look to me for instruction and see the fighter getting there first.
"Gentlemen," I said.
The tallest one turned, grin splitting under a busted nose. "Holy shit. Santoro himself."
A phone lifted.
I kept my voice even. "Welcome to the Grande. Check-in is being handled privately in the east salon."
"Man, look at you." Another fighter dragged his gaze over my suit. "All cleaned up."
A few of them laughed.
It was nothing. Men puffing themselves up before cameras and bad decisions. I had built half my twenties on worse. Fed on noise until it turned me useful and ugly. Now every sound in the lobby cut too bright.
Someone shouted my name again, and my pulse answered before my mind could. Not here. Not in the place I had built to prove I could be more than a man people cheered for hurting someone.
I angled my body between the cameras and the desk. "Phones down in guest spaces unless media has cleared access."
One of them snorted. "Still giving orders."
I looked at him. The smile fell off his face. Satisfaction flickered through me—quick, dark, familiar. That was the problem.
"East salon," I said. "Now."
They moved, grumbling, filming anyway until security guided the mess toward the corridor. Only when the lobby began breathing again did I notice Riley near the family wing, gripping Ava's sensory bag.
Her eyes stayed on me. Not afraid. Seeing too much.
My phone buzzed. Then again.
The last flash popped before security blocked the shot, and my reflection caught in the glass.
Suit. Scars. Fists.
The old Luca hadn't entered the lobby with them. He had been waiting inside me all along.
My phone did not stop buzzing until I silenced it in the service corridor. Even then, I felt every vibration in my palm like a punch I refused to throw.
"Tell media no access beyond the lobby," I told Jose, who was already walking beside me with his tablet tucked against his ribs. "Move the Ashford group through the east elevators. No restaurant. No pool deck. Private route only."
"Already on it," he said. "But you need to see this."
"I need people doing their jobs."
"You need to see this, Luca."
That made me stop. Jose turned the tablet toward me.
Jax Hale filled the screen, sweaty and shirtless in what looked like a gym locker room, camera too close to his face, grin sharp enough to cut. Havoc. Still selling the same old poison, only now with better lighting and sponsors stitched across his cap.
"Guess who's hosting us in Miami?" he said to the stream. "Luca fucking Santoro. The beast himself. Or what's left of him."
A few voices laughed off-camera.
My jaw locked.
Jax leaned closer, eyes bright with the hunger of a man who missed being feared. "Heard he traded blood for brunch menus. Got himself a kid, a resort, probably a little white golf cart. Domesticated dinosaur."
More laughter.
The comments rolled too fast to read, hearts and flame emojis climbing the side of the video.
"Maybe I'll rattle his cage while I'm here," Jax said. "See if the old man still remembers how to bite."
Jose lowered the tablet slightly. "It's already getting picked up."
"How long?"
"Two hours. Maybe less."
I stared at the screen until my own reflection showed over Jax's face. Older. Cleaner. Meaner than I wanted to be.
"He wants me to answer," I said.
"He wants footage."
Same thing.
My phone lit again in my hand. Victor Raines.
I let it ring once. Twice. Then answered.
"Luca," Victor said, too smooth. "Interesting morning."
"That's one word for it."
"This is brand momentum."
I looked down the corridor, toward the hidden door that led back to the family wing. Toward Riley. Toward Ava. Away from every version of me that men like Victor wanted to sell.
"No."
A pause.
"You haven't heard the pitch."
"I heard enough."
"Jax is baiting you publicly. If you handle this right, you don't look threatened. You look relevant."
The word hit uglier than an insult. Relevant.
As if my daughter's peace, my staff, my resort, my life were all set dressing around a comeback I had never agreed to make.
"Handle your own circus," I said.
"Careful, Luca. Silence tells its own story."
"So let it."
I ended the call before the old part of me could say something that would make the story worse.
I found Riley in the staff tunnel with one hand braced lightly against the painted cinder-block wall and the other held out in front of Ava like a promise.
Not touching. Not forcing. Just there.
The tunnel ran behind the main kitchen and laundry rooms, narrow and cool, carrying the scents of detergent, roasted garlic, and industrial lemon cleaner. It was never meant for guests. It was where the hotel breathed out of sight.
Ava stood beneath a humming fluorescent light, her shoulders lifted to her ears, eyes fixed on the floor tiles.
"Four blue squares," Riley said softly. "Then we turn left. After left, there are two silver doors. After the silver doors, we get quiet room."
Ava's fingers moved fast against the strap of her bag. "Too many camera pops."
"I know, sweetheart."
"Not pops. Flashes. Pops are sound. Flashes are light."
"You're right," Riley said immediately. "Too many flashes."
Something hard shifted in my chest.
Most people corrected Ava when they didn't need to, or smiled like she was being difficult. Riley didn't even blink. She adjusted, made room, kept going.
From the lobby, muffled through walls and service doors, a chant broke loose.
San-tor-o. San-tor-o. My name, turned into a weapon.
Ava clapped both hands over her ears. I moved before thinking, but Riley looked up and caught me with one small shake of her head.
Not now.
It stopped me more effectively than any security guard ever could have.
Riley crouched, careful to stay in Ava's line of sight. "New plan. We do tunnel game."
Ava's breathing came sharp through her nose. "I don't want name sound."
"I know. So we're going to give your brain a job louder than the name sound." Riley unzipped the sensory bag and took out a folded map, the one Ava had drawn last week with colored markers and labels only she fully understood. "You're the navigator. I'm terrible at directions."
Ava's eyes flicked to the paper.
"I once got lost in a parking garage for twenty minutes," Riley added.
Ava's hands lowered a fraction. "That is inefficient."
"Deeply."
A tiny crease appeared between Ava's brows. Not a smile, but close enough to hurt.
Riley held out the map. "Captain Santoro?"
Ava accepted it with both hands.
The chant rose again. My daughter flinched, but Riley shifted with her, angling her body between Ava and the distant noise, as if she could block a past I had dragged into our present.
I stood there useless in my tailored suit, watching a woman I was supposed to employ protect my child from the fame I had once fed until it grew teeth.
Riley glanced back at me. This time, her eyes were not asking permission. They were asking what I intended to do about it.
The press had multiplied by the time I returned to the lobby.
Nothing bred faster than a rumor with a camera attached.
They clustered near the entrance behind the velvet line Jose had ordered into place, phones lifted, mouths moving over one another.
Guests lingered near the bar, pretending not to watch. Staff moved with careful grace.
I stepped into the center of it. The lobby quieted in ripples.
"Luca!" a woman called. "Any comment on Jax Hale saying he wants to rattle your cage?"
A man shouted over her. "Are you making a comeback?"
"Did Havoc come here to challenge you?"
The questions hit like jabs. A younger me would have answered with blood in his teeth and a quote that sold pay-per-views. I put my hands in my pockets before anyone saw them curl.
"Mr. Hale is a guest," I said. "All guests are expected to respect the privacy and comfort of this property."
"So, no comeback?"
I smiled the way Victor had once paid media coaches to teach me. Calm. Expensive. Empty. "My comeback is excellent coffee, good sheets, and a lobby where people don't have to step over camera equipment to check in."
A few guests laughed. The temperature shifted.
Good. Control the room. Give them nothing to clip.
"And the dinosaur comment?" another reporter pushed.
"My daughter likes dinosaurs," I said. "Though she'd probably object to his lack of species specificity."
Laughter rippled through the lobby, softer this time. Less hungry.
I gave them nothing else. No anger. No threat. No glimpse of the cage Jax had rattled and Victor wanted opened. Jose stepped in, redirecting them toward the designated media area, and security closed the space without looking like force.
By every visible measure, I handled it perfectly. Which meant nothing.