25
Brando
With my arms and legs crossed, back braced against the wall, I watched as my son danced in the middle of the room to the rhythm of his older cousin, Massimo, taking swipes at him with a wooden sword.
Massimo was Rocco’s oldest son, and he was closer in age to Mia, but in terms of skill in this arena, he and Matteo matched up.
Rocco watched them from across the room. My father was in between, acting like the teacher he was when it came to this. He started them off young, and I could see the pride on his face because he knew what they would someday become—excellent swordsmen.
What he called a marriage between the romantic and the ruthless.
A dying thing in this day and age.
In my father’s place in Florence, behind his gates, it lived on—even if it was almost extinct.
The clack of wood from one male to another started to pick up. I felt eyes on my face, and when I looked up, Rocco was staring at me.
I nodded once. So did he.
We were acknowledging that this wasn’t our fight, and our sons would work it out.
Luca recognized the anger in Matteo right away. He’d left everything he’d ever known behind—this place, his family—and then almost lost his mamma.
He needed an outlet, somewhere to release the beast that had a hold of him. I could see it in his eyes: the strain to keep control of what he knew could destroy the world—at that moment, his cousin—and the human side that felt so much it was breaking him.
The Fausti family was not only well known for being ruthless, but also romantic. To marry the two, to become the legendary family they were, they found a balance so the two could coexist.
The romantic grew from honor, and the respect they taught their men to have for women—because without a woman,where would we be?—and the respect for anything smaller than us—Where is the honor in breaking that?Are you a man or a coward?Your voice does not dictate your answer. Your actions do.
The romantic had to be instilled in us.
The brutal came much easier, born in the blood, and harder to control.
In some ways, I felt what Luca said was the truth. This life we lived, the juxtaposition between romantic and ruthless, was a marriage. And like a woman, the amorous seemed to be the only thing that could tame the beast—the brutal.
My son would learn this at a much younger age than I had, but he still had miles to go.
The fight on his face to keep from destroying his cousin was one I felt in my heart. I felt the need to follow in his footsteps, to act on impulse and destroy the one man who had stolen so much from me and my wife over the years, including the son we lost.
He was on the property, so close I could scent him in the air, and it was down to hours when the juxtaposition would no longer exist, and the romantic and ruthless would come together to form something nothing in this world could stop—my hand reaching into the rat’s chest and stealing everything he had attempted to steal from me.
My life.
At times, I wondered if Matteo was like his mamma—like his sister. He could feel what the world tried to hide and was feeding off my energy. But that wasn’t it. He was using his own energy to fuel the burning pain he felt.
My wife created a replica of me, times four.
Massimo made a misstep, barely able to keep up, and fell to the floor. Matteo took the wooden sword and placed it over his cousin’s heart.
In the act of battle, he’d won it.
I didn’t see victory on his face, though. Not like I would have before. I still saw defeat.
“Again,” Luca said in Italian, arms crossed, watching my son.
Luca sensed something different in Matteo too. The hunt was not the only thing that could satisfy my son like it had before. Matteo was getting to a point, maybe because we’d been gone from Italy, that the romantic needed to start playing a part in his life as well.
Matteo was about to start walking that tightrope between the two, figuring out how they would work together in his life. How they would set him on the right path—to wherever he felt led to follow.
