Those were the memories that reverberated in the bone, echoed inside of veins, stuck to the inner walls of the soul.
And that was how I was handed the title of the future king of the Faustifamiglia. My brother renounced his birthright while my father looked on in disappointment. He was not disappointed that I was to rule, but that my brother and I would not rule together.
I was the son who had lived by Fausti law. I was the son thefamigliacame to when there was a problem that needed to be solved in the strict manner my family was known for—I knew rules and knew them well. However, my brother was not raised in our family, yet it was as if he was with us his entire life. The art of our language was embedded in his tongue, and his heart ran with passionate and ruthless blood. All his passion was inspired by his wife, as was his ruthlessness. He did not move unless she did.
My brother was, as they say, a wild card.
Together, me as the face and brain, my brother as the body, we would rule as our father had. Even more powerful thantheFausti, Luca Leone Fausti. It would take two men to rule as he had.
My brother did not want it. He had always been satisfied by the outskirts of our family.
My wife craved it as her heart craved blood, and when the right landed on my head, her head had become possessed.
The future had gotten inside of her and took over. All she could see was the throne, she and I sitting side by side, and thefuture throne, when our son, Massimo Leone Fausti, would sit in my seat, the wife we chose for him next to him.
However, the future was not ours to rule.
My brother’s son, Matteo Leone Fausti, had the right to rule after me. This was going to cause a war between our sons until one fateful night in Paris, of all fucking places, we were led to an apartment where my son fell in love with a woman from Louisiana. Chloe was an artist who had gone to Paris to study and had gotten into trouble there.
My son stole the man’s heart who had hurt his woman and sent it back to his people—the Russians—still warm.
My wife.
My wife.
She would not stand for the match. Would not even consider that it was not my son’s choice to make: my son had no choice but to bow to love.
My wife rebuked this truth and slapped a label of weakness on it. Massimo would be the future king of the Faustifamigliawhether he wanted the title or not—whether he would have to kill my brother’s son, hiscugino,for it. It was not unheard of in our family for two branches to war over the throne. Men killed for much less. However, after Brando Fausti entered our lives, our cluster of the family was never the same. His wife was touched, too much empathy, and we became closer than what was normal in ourfamiglia, though if we were stripped down to the bones, we were who we always were.
A Fausti.
Our rules were our rules.
Our way of life was our way of life.
And the woman by my side. Rosaria Caffi, on paper only,my wife.
She became even more ruthless against the power of love.
She was no longer an ice queen but a woman who would set fire to those closest to us and laugh while they burned in the name of sovereignty.
She became so calculating, her eyes were as sharp as daggers laced with poison.
Her tongue was a deep well of insults, reflecting the truth of her heart.
She would stop at nothing for our son to rule after me.
I did not recognize my first-born son. My Massimo. His mother was destroying his life with her thirst for control. For her thirst to suck love dry in our family.
My son had found what I had always craved, and that was enough to make my struggles worth all the precious blood I had lost over the years, and not just physically. The wounds on flesh had healed. The ones that went deeper were still gaping open, the blood loss weakening my heart, confusing my thoughts.
I did not recognize my life. I became a shell of my former self.
I became quieter.
Even more ruthless.
Feeling warmth in my chest less and less. The metal chain with the lion pendant around my neck turning hotter and hotter.
