Page 62 of Unbound

It soon becomes apparent, though, that the only threat is going to be the older Dons talking him to death. Don Luigi comes in hard to start with, demanding the return of his hostages, along with significant financial compensation for the Firenze incursion into his territory. Even though Luca was the one who stopped that and also sent him Vincenzo’s head in an icebox. There’s just no pleasing some people.

Alfredo pushed to claim Chicago, which has apparently long been a disputed city, with both the East Coast and West Coast Coscas laying intermittent claims. This was news to me, and I felt like telling them all to back up. That Chicago is mine. But that would be overstepping in the worst of ways and possibly provoke the violence that is simmering away in them all.

Federico? He watched, listened, and then waded in with his own demand—the Firenzes paying the other Dons a “reasonable” fee to help them through this “difficult transitional period.” The other two agreed immediately, and Luigi put forward a figure of twenty percent of all Firenze profits. It was too smooth, too rehearsed. It had the feel of something choreographed, staged. Pretending to be the idea of one, when it is clearly not—these men have met before. They’ve had their own pre-meetings. They have talked, discussed the new and possibly weak head of the Firenze family. They’ve planned this strategy.

I look over at Aidan at that point, and he raises his brows a fraction in surprise. He hadn’t expected this, for the other Dons to try to extort Luca, to bully him into paying them. Basically, a street-thug protection racket writ large.

Luca hears them out, without a hint of the “for fuck’s sake” I know must be boiling away inside him.

“No,” he says simply, staying suspiciously calm. “In fact, I suggest the other way around. You should be paying me, gentlemen. If not for me, for the Firenzes and our allies, you would all have no idea that Tomasso Capelli was invading your territories by stealth. Building his own force right under your noses. I could have let him weaken you, damage you, then come in to exploit that unfortunate situation. I didn’t do that. I shared the information I had, and I will continue to, as a gesture of goodwill.”

That and the fact that we can’t possibly cover everything alone.

Luigi snorts rudely, dismissing Luca’s counterclaim with a wave of a hand. “Ridiculous, you insolent pup. We don’t need you, and we don’t need your precious Seers.”

He stares over at Donatella and me as he speaks, his eyes lingering a little on Donna. Unsurprisingly as she’s wearing a skin-tight blood-red dress and six-inch heels. Heels she must have had spelled, because somehow, they’re not sinking into the rich earth. She gives Luigi a wink, which I don’t think he was expecting. My amulet flares slightly but soon settles.

“In fact,” Luigi goes on, quickly averting his eyes, “if we are being honest, their mere presence here is an insult. Their kind has no role to play in the Cosca. Malocchios should know their place, and their place is far away from us. Just because this one has got you cunt blind doesn’t mean we should all have to put up with them.”

Oh, fuck. That was really not a very nice thing to say. I open up my mental link to Luca. “Chill,” I say. “He’s just running his mouth off.”

Luca nods, once, then shuts me out. He looks steadily at Luigi, who seems completely unbothered by his gaze. They genuinely all see him as the junior in the office, the new kid on the block. Despite his age, his experience, they don’t see him as a threat. They’re all older than him but really not that much wiser. Did they think that they were going to come here and rob him blind? Force him into submission? I’m no Cosca tactician, but even I can see that if Luca allowed that, then the Firenze would be lucky to see out another year. This game is a vicious one, and for all their talk of tradition and respect, the three other families would very clearly be happy to eat Luca alive. The issue is if they are willing to take nibbles or will try and take him out in one bite.

“You are entitled to your opinion, of course, Don Luigi, but the Vecchissime Seers are valuable tools, and they will be going nowhere.”

Huh. How romantic. Donna pulls a face at me. “At least we’re valuable tools,” she mutters.

“We will tolerate them,” Don Federico intercedes, his voice low, reasonable. “If we must. But, Luca, there is also the matter of trust.”

He raises this issue almost apologetically but has actually just insulted Luca by using his name without his title. In their messed-up world, not addressing him as “Don” is a serious breach of etiquette and was obviously very deliberate.

“The thing is,” he goes on, lighting a cigarette and taking a long drag while we all wait to find out what the thing is. Theatrical asshole. “The thing is, you call yourself a Don, but you gained that role only by usurping one of the oldest and most respected of our kind. Vincenzo was your master, and you ended him. What kind of man does that make you? Where is your honor?”

“Actually, I did not commit that act,” Luca says, his voice still shockingly calm. “But I will not dispute the point you make. Let me ask, Don Federico, would you have preferred if I had allowed things to continue as they were? For Vincenzo to have allied with the rogue Vecchissime and fulfilled his plan to take over all your courts, all your territory?”

“We only have your word regarding that,” Alfredo chimes in, his voice dripping with skepticism. “Why should we believe you? It could all have been a ploy, a ruse to justify your coup.”

“It could,” Luca responds, nodding his head, the very picture of respect. “Though the army that I told Don Luigi about was real, was it not? Anyway. That is the past. We are here to discuss the future. So, let us be clear here, between you all, you want hostages, compensation, territory, and twenty percent of our profits.”

“I think we should look at upping that,” Alfredo adds, fingering his wispy mustache. “Thirty. It’s only fair.”

“Plus Felicia,” Luigi growls. “I insist on having her.” Felicia? Vincenzo’s ex, I remember. I’ve never met her. Apparently, she’s now free to go but has refused to leave the dungeons. Says she’s been happy there for years and sees no reason to change that.

“Right. So. Hostages, compensation, territory, Felicia, and thirty percent. Could I ask what, precisely, that thirty percent earns me?” Luca asks, leaning back in his chair, looking completely relaxed. Aidan is frowning, gripping the back of Luca’s chair so hard his knuckles are white.

“It earns you the chance to survive, boy,” Alfredo hisses, some of his true nature slipping out from his genial grandpa disguise. “It means you get to live. You must know, surely, that this is a precarious time for you, for Firenze?”

“How so? Enlighten me, please.”

Alfredo adjusts his pants, crosses his legs. Gives Luca a fatherly smile.

“Well, it’s simple, Luca. You are nothing but a bastard child pretending to be a king. You are not fit to take Vincenzo’s place or to sit at the table with the likes of us. You lack … pedigree.”

I suck in a breath, and Donna lets out a little gasp. Even the other Dons look slightly taken aback. As negotiating tools go, flat out insulting somebody seems reckless. Especially when that somebody is Luca.

I wait for the explosion, the fury. For him to show any sign at all that he is reaching his limit. Nothing. His face is a mask. Only a vague chill running from my amulet gives me any indication of what he is possibly suppressing, all in the name of peace.

“I see,” Luca replies. “And is this the way you all feel? Don Luigi, Don Federico? You look at me and you see nothing but a bastard child?”