Ruthless Empire: A Dark Mafia Collection

“All right, you can go. Keep me posted.” I stood up, but Luca held a hand up. “Sandro, can you stay?”

I let out a long sigh, and Luca slammed his hands on the desk. “Fuck! Can I have ten fucking seconds without a fucking attitude from you?”

I dropped back into the chair and looked at him. I wasn’t about to let his adult temper tantrums suck me into his vortex of darkness. He looked at Gabriel, who was halfway up out of his seat, watching the scene nervously.

“Get out!”

“Right, sorry!” Gabriel skittered from the room, slamming the door behind him.

Luca started to drum his fingers on the edge of his desk. I was thinking about how nice it would be to

be a normal person in a normal family. If I had a fight with my brother, I could tell him to go fuck himself, and then I could go pick up the love of my life and take her to dinner. A brother living in California would only be a brother living in California, and I wouldn’t be worried about my family imploding.

“What?” I asked.

“Do you really think Molly could have told someone?” he asked, and his voice was angry but inquisitive. I sat up, not expecting the question. “I shouldn’t have told her.”

And now, coming to the stage, with his headlining performance of Act Like a Dick and then Make You Feel like a Dick, Luca Varasso. “Dude. You know good and damn well that Molly wouldn’t turn on you. Even if it was out of fear. She loves you and Anna. She wouldn’t risk all of that.”

“What if it’s a situation like Marco’s? What if it’s the only choice she had?” Luca asked.

I shook my head. “Molly would go down for you, and you know that. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have even asked the question.”

“I have to ask her, don’t I?” he asked me, his voice totally different now, strained and frustrated with himself.

“Dad would,” I replied.

Luca nodded with a gentle snicker. “Yeah. He would.” He sunk further into his chair, letting his head rest against the back. “Sorry I snapped at you. This is all much more stressful than I thought it would be. I thought I was so ready. I was not ready.”

“How does one be ready for something like this?” I laughed. “Can you imagine if you had, like, a fucking day job or something? You got up at nine, punched in a clock, worked, celebrated some jackoff’s birthday, a guy who you don’t even like, just so you can get a piece of cake, then punch out, and go home?”

Luca grinned. “The shit Molly and I would argue about wouldn’t be how we ran drugs through the wrong channel, or I came home with blood on me again when we promised we wouldn’t let the kids see it. We’d argue about… I don’t even fucking know. What do regular, domestic people argue about?”

“I don’t know, man. Plates?” I started to laugh, and Luca joined in. I imagined walking into some house with Willow inside, and she started screaming at me about plates. Tears started streaming down my eyes. “Imagine Molly, just fucking…plates!”

Luca’s laugh got harder too. “Fucking! Plates! Plates!”

We were both doubled over in our chairs, crying, laughing about plates, and definitely losing our collective minds. What were we even doing? What was all this amounting to? Willow was right, there was nothing but pain in this life.

“Have you ever thought about it?” I asked. “Hanging it all up and going straight?”

Luca shook his head. “No. I’ve never thought about that. Dad made sure we lived and breathed this for a reason. He always said there was no way out.”

I hated feeling like that was true. “Marco’s out.”

Luca tilted his head at me. “Is he?”

The more I thought about it, the clearer it got. “No, I guess he’s not.” Mysterious letters saying to watch your back didn’t happen to just anyone.

“Face it, brother,” Luca said, calming down from his laughing fit. “This is our life, and it’s our life, for good.”

11

Willow

I hadn’t been able to get Alessandro out of my head for one second. Despite my better judgment, I decided not to buy a ticket back to California yet. I’d prepaid the rent on my apartment through the end of the year, and I could always suspend my utilities if I thought I was going to be staying in Philadelphia longer than I was planning. California would still be there when I got back. I had an opportunity to see if Alessandro was willing to make good on all of the stuff he’d said to me, or if he was going to abandon me the same way he had years ago. I’d only agreed to dinner, and I enjoyed Alessandro’s company. Maybe, when all was set and done, I would have closure on this situation, and I could go back to California without anything hanging over me. I could know I gave it the second chance that it deserved and let it go for good.

All that in mind, I still hadn’t heard from Alessandro yet. It would be just my luck that he would make some random decision between that morning and now to let me go. I hadn’t reacted the best to him leaving. I refused to sit around like some lovesick schoolgirl, so I made myself a promise that if I hadn’t heard from him by the end of the day, I would buy a ticket back to Cali and wash my hands of this.