Page 15 of Renata Vitali (The Five Syndicates)
This included turning the truce between me and Damian on and off. It’d be so simple to just hate him or like him but not both at the same time. That would be like Allied forces invading Normandy every morning and retreating every night.
It took a toll on me. I liked Damian when I shouldn’t have and hated him when I could have allowed myself to like him. It was these conflicting emotions that distracted me as I wandered into the kitchen in the De Luca mansion.
I opened the fridge, which they had built into the antique cabinets, and pulled out a travel-sized bottle of orange juice. Araceli, who I suspected disliked me, had stopped delivering my breakfast, which left me to fend for myself out here.
When I shut the fridge door, Angelo stood on the other side, leering at me. “Little Miss Vitali, growing older and older each day, I see.”
“You don’t see anything, Angelo. You’re blind.” I rolled my eyes, uncapped the orange juice, and moved to walk around him.
His hand slammed down on the fridge, his arm now blocking my path. “You little—”
I cut him off before he could spew his stupidity. “—D
o you not get it? Are you that daft? I can provoke you all I want. I can call you names. Throw punches. Hell… I can kill you, Angelo. I can reach out, grip your throat with my bare hands, and squeeze until the life drains out of your pathetic, beady eyes.” I needed to nip this in the bud, to remind him of the hierarchy with words he could understand.
He pulled his gun out of his holster with his free hand and set it on the kitchen island. “Silly, naïve girl. I can end you right now. I can place a bullet in between your demon-red eyes and end this yapping before I get a fucking migraine.”
I leaned on my heels and took a casual sip of my orange juice, which I knew would irritate him. “There’s nothing you can do to stop me that won’t end with you dead anyway. That’s what it is to be a Vitali, and that’s how little the De Luca name means.”
His eyes narrowed, and he strode toward me. I started to question how much he cared about whether he lived or died. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe I wasn’t providing a deterrent but giving him a challenge. Maybe instead of nipping this in the bud, I’d provoked him more. After all, rumors of the De Luca craziness had to exist for a reason, and he shared lineage with Ludovico De Luca.
“Your father thinks he can just send you into my territory without even consulting me. He thinks he owns the Italian mafia worldwide.”—Papà policed it, which was close enough.—“He thinks he can do what he pleases, and all the other syndicates play along because that’s how it’s always been.” His arm lowered from the fridge, and he took a step toward me. He reached out with his finger and poked me in the chest. “Well, he’s wrong.”—Poke.—“That’s not how things happen in my territory.”—Poke.—“You best tell your dad, the De Luca family answers. To. No. One.” Poke. Poke. Poke.
I tilted my head. Condescension oozed out of me with purpose as I caught his finger between my fist. “I’d be happy to tell him that if you’d give me a phone.” My saccharine smile escalated his rage.
Why wasn’t I stopping? This was crazy. Angelo De Luca was a mad man, but I was mad, too. Last night, I’d seen the way Damian winced when laying on the library’s divan. The day before that, I heard the whip of Angelo’s belt through the air vent connecting my room to Damian’s. My parents had odd ways of showing their love, but never once had they laid a hand on me.
Angelo slipped his finger from my grip and nodded at the gun. “There’s a bullet in that gun with your name on it.”
“Does that make you feel like a man? Do those threats help you sleep at night?” I took a step toward him, and I couldn’t get a grip on my anger. My dad raised me to be the stereotypical calm Vitali, but I was so far from calm, I wouldn’t be able to locate myself on a map. “Here’s what helps me sleep at night. Knowing you’re weak—”
“I’m not weak—”
“Only a weak man beats his son every night. You’re alive because my family lets you live. You’re alive because your son could beat you to a pulp but hasn’t decided to capture your throne. It’s that grace that has allowed the breath to flow through your lungs. One day, your luck will flee, and each breath you take will be a struggle. On that day, your son will lead your syndicate. I’ll be there to laugh. And the rest of the syndicates will move on with their daily operations—no changes made, because you mean absolutely nothing to anyone.”
I caught movement by the kitchen entrance. My eyes tangled with Damian’s over his dad’s shoulder. Black and red. Red and black. No way out of this stare down but to dive deeper into this mess and trust I’d find an escape.
But a part me knew there was no escape.
To be trusted is a greater accomplishment than to be loved.
George MacDonald
Tick. Tick. Tick.
I turned my metronome on and placed it on the floor in preparation for Angelo’s visit tonight. The beat helped me focus, and I liked to concentrate on it instead of the whipping. And I had no doubt the whipping would be bad tonight. Angelo had to be mad after his show down with Renata, but he’d take it out on me.
I wasn’t a push over. I didn’t usually let people treat me like this. I’d always pictured fighting back throughout my childhood, but when I finally grew big enough to throw a mean punch, I had already set my eyes on dethroning Angelo. That was a job that would take more than brute force and a few clever punches.
So, I sucked it up. I held my anger in. And every night, like clockwork, Angelo came into my room, slid his ten-thousand-dollar snake skin belt from his pant loops, and went to town on my back, stopping just before the skin split to avoid physical evidence.
The door opened. I laid flat on my bed, not bothering to look up. His belt made noise as he unbuckled it. It slid across his pants, and still, I didn’t look.
His bored tone did nothing to abate my irritation. “Kneel. Floor. You know the drill.”
I realized I must have looked absurd, too damn old and big to let anyone beat me like this and not fight back. But I did as Angelo demanded, my mind blank. My knees met the floor. The wood dug into my skin. Still, no noise but the metronome.
A whip of the belt.
