The time Lev had ripped me out of bed on the night my parents died.
The time that I usually wake from a nightmare now, or some push from my paranoid subconscious.
It’s gotten a little better over the last couple of weeks, due mainly to the exhaustion from Lucca’s ruthless combat training.
Sitting up, careful not to jostle him, I settle against the pillows and enjoy my chance to stare at him like a creep without him catching me. Those thick eyelashes I covet, resting on his sharp, high cheekbones. All the parts of Lucca are sharp and angular, his jawline, his nose, his hard sculpted body, everything but those lashes and his full, soft mouth. I love the way my lips sink into his plush ones. With the white sheet only half covering his gloriously naked body, the parts bared to me are like living art, the moonlight slips over his colorful tattoos like ghostly fingers.
I tiptoe into the bathroom, trying to tidy up a bit before my walk of shame back to my suite.
My walk of shame. Why would that make me smile? It feels like such a normal thing. Something that a girl not raised in a Bratva would do. A girl who can make choices for herself.
His bathroom is spotless, his towels crisply folded, and no soap smears on the granite counter. Opening a drawer, I find his cologne, the scent of cedar, rum, wintergreen, a sharp bite of coffee. Very him, though there’s always something slightly salty in Lucca’s scent, too, like seawater.
Creeping back into the bedroom, I try to dress silently over by his desk. There’s a scatter of framed photos there, a few with Konstantin, and just one of a younger Lucca and a beautiful woman, his mother, I’m guessing. She has a warm smile, exactly like his when he chooses to offer it. She’s hugging him with an arm around his shoulders and he’s leaning away, playfully, like boys do in their early teens when getting embraced by a parent is just so mortifying.
“I look more like my mother,” his voice is deep and a little raspy from sleep. “My other brothers are all the spitting image of my father.” I hear the rustle of sheets as he rises, walking across the room to me, flagrantly naked.
“She’s really beautiful,” I offer, “you have her smile.”
He takes the photo from me, looking down at his mother. “I’m pretty sure my father already considered me a disappointment by the time they died, but she didn’t.”
I’m silent, barely breathing while I listen. The way he speaks… looking down at his mother, long gone except for the echo of her in the photo, I don’t think he’s ever talked about this with anyone else.
“She told me it takes some people longer than others to find their place.” He chuckles mirthlessly, “She told me I was a leader. Giovanni told me I was a fuckup.”
Instantly, I despise Giovanni. “He’s your oldest brother?”
“Yes, now that Dante’s gone.” His amber gaze moves to me. “Giovanni killed him.”
“What?” It’s not like fratricide was unheard of in our world, heck, it was more commonplace than anyone wanted to admit. “Why did he kill him?”
Lucca puts the picture of his mother down gently. “Dante was part of the group that killed my parents at that party. They were trying to kill the heads of some of the other families, too. Mariya’s brothers almost died there.”
“Oh… I’m so sorry. It must have gutted you to discover that.”
He shrugs, his expression indifferent. “He was trying to pull ourfamigliainto the Red Trade. He deserved it. He left a long trail of fuck-ups behind him for my brothers to clean up. I wasn’t much help.”
“That was… what? Four years ago? Five?” I asked, “You were a teenager trying to deal with losing your parents.”
“Oh, I was an asshole,” he said, walking over to the window. He has a view of the waves crashing against the cliffs, too. “A couple of DWI’s, once I fucked one of our Capo’s daughters. I didn’t know who she was at the time. The only reason I wasn’t forced into an arranged marriage with her was the fact that she was cheating on her boyfriend.”
“Do you think that’s what she was trying for?” I said.
“Probably,” he said, staring at the waves. “I got kicked out of my prep school for running an on-campus gambling ring.”
This time, I dared to laugh a little. “In our families, that’s usually a point of pride. I don’t even want to know half of what my brother Ilia did here.”
“However, the breaking point for Gio and my other brother Dario was some financial records our Consigliere discovered. It looked like I’d been siphoning money fromthreefamigliaaccounts. That’s when Gio called for me, Dario standing by him, looking all stern and disappointed. They set me aside.”
“What does that mean, exactly?” I asked.
“That’s as bad as it gets in the Mafia, the only thing worse would have been to kill me.” He looks at me, his sharp gaze glinting, wolf-like. “They sent me here to make something of myself,” his tone is viciously sarcastic, “and at the end of four years, they wouldconsiderallowing me to be a Toscano again.”
I try to picture a younger Lucca, standing in front of his brothers, his identity taken from him. “Why do I not believe that you embezzled that money?”
His fists are clenching, knuckles bulging and white. I’m not sure he knows he’s doing it. “Because I didn’t. It was Dante, my oldest brother. I caught him funneling money from my trust fund just before our parents were killed. He told me he was trying to create a side business that would make our father proud of him, he said he couldn’t get the money any other way, but that he would pay me back. I always knew he was a fuck-up, but everyone thought I was, too. I told him to go ahead and pay it back later.”
“That’s pretty noble to forgive your brother for stealing from your trust fund,” I said, my disgust for his family growing.
