1
LUCA
New York. Seven years away. It still feels like I left yesterday and yet a lifetime ago.
I navigate through the familiar streets noting how everything looks the same, yet different.
They say you can’t go home, and when I was forced out, I accepted that mantra. Made my own way in Chicago.
Something legitimate on paper, but brutal beneath the surface. My empire. Mine alone.
So why the fuck am I home?
It’s the letter. Two lines scrawled in a hand I couldn't place.
Don Dante is dead. The family needs you.
No signature.
No explanation beyond the newspaper clipping of Lorenzo Dante's assassination that fell from the envelope when I opened it.
My father. Dead. The words still don't feel real.
I pull up at a red light, watching people cross the street. They don’t give a shit that my father is dead. Why should I?
Traffic moves again. I follow the route to the family home, each turn bringing back flashes of memory.
My father's stern face across the dinner table, my brothers pissed off at me, my sister telling me I’m an asshole.
Katerina's face the last time I saw her.
Fuck.
I push that thought away. Can't afford to go there. Not now.
I roll my shoulders, not wanting to acknowledge the growing tension. Whoever sent that letter knew exactly what would bring me back.
The only thing that could.
Family.
But returning to New York with Lorenzo Dante in the ground means walking into a power vacuum. Into suspicion. Into danger.
My brother Alessandro will have taken control. He'll see me as a threat. The others will have chosen sides already. And somewhere in this city, someone arranged my father's murder.
I turn onto the private road leading to the estate in Long Island, the gates looming ahead.
Seven years of exile end with this drive.
I’m walking into the lion's den on nothing but a nameless summons and the pull of blood loyalty.
The guards spot my car. I see them reach for their weapons, faces hardening with recognition.
Welcome home, Luca Dante.
I’m let through the gates, but once I park among the line of sleek black vehicles and step out into the chilled air, two security men approach.
"Arms up," one barks, rough hands checking my ankles, my waist.
