Page 3 of Damiano De Luca (The Five Syndicates)
My heart was calm as I accepted the inevitability of discovery with grace.
My heart was calm.
My heart was calm.
My heart was calm.
Until I saw him for the first time, and it wasn’t.
Only one deception is possible in the infinite sense—self-deception.
Soren Kierkegaard
Sixteen Years Old
You’re a fighter, Renata.
Maman had drilled that into my head at a young age, and I’d always agreed. Never felt like there was another option. After all, why be weak when I could fight?
How arrogant of me to think I would always have the luxury of choice.
Angelo’s secret son—and I just knew it was him—had swung the door open, his eyes landing on mine in an instant. If he was surprised, he didn’t show it.
But I sure did.
In a so-cliché-it-decimated-my-ego moment, my eyes widened, and my lips parted. Choice had been ripped away from me. There was no fighting my reaction, because I wasn’t equipped to handle this. To handle him.
Suddenly, I understood what Monet had felt when he’d destroyed his own art because it wasn’t perfect enough. I’d laughed it off in Art History class, but staring at Angelo’s son, I wasn’t laughing anymore. Every boy I’d ever lusted over proved inadequate preparation for this moment. He was the indescribable, the je ne sais quoi people sought but didn’t dare imagine.
Angelo mentioned we’d be attending the same high school, but looking at him, I could hardly believe we were close in age. He towered in the door frame, his body already well above six feet. His muscles were lean but sinewy, and calling him a high school boy would be like calling my dad’s yacht a boat. Damiano De Luca didn’t look like a high school boy. Heck, he didn’t even look like any man I’d ever seen.
While the boys at my former Connecticut boarding school wore spiked hair slathered with layers of gel, his head boasted a simple gentleman’s cut, hair buzzed short at the sides and left longer at the top. Prominent cheekbones and a strong jaw lined his face, along with a hint of stubble, which made him appear older than he was.
And his eyes… Something about them shook me. Screamed at me to pay attention. I was sure those haunted, panther-black eyes played a good game of poker to everyone else, but to me, they were splashing limbs, begging for a life raft. And I wanted to throw one to him. Wanted to reach out and save him from whatever pained him, but they hardened a second later and cut me out.
He took me in, and I swore, he saw past my façade. Saw past the frumpy attire I had curated for my meeting with his father. Saw past the shitty, dark blonde dye job I’d touched up on the flight; the un-plucked brows; the bitten finger nails and chipped, mismatched polish; and the baggy tee and sweats, which hid my curves.
I’d done this for the past five years, altering my appearance because I saw more worth in slithering under the radar than drawing attention. He was the first to give me this look, one that dared me to question him as he saw past my lies.
At eleven, I’d asked my mother why she never bothered with the spa treatments and pretty dresses the other moms would fuss over. I knew she was pretty. Papà always made sure I knew he would never marry a French commoner had it not been for her beauty.
But as the years passed, the layers of her beauty slipped away like water leaking past a broken dam until only the fractured foundation remained. Maman moved to the Hamptons in New York while Papà remained in Italy, and I wondered why she never tried harder.
When I asked, she laughed, poked my side, and said in her pretty French accent, “I’m going to poke you again. Dodge it.” Minutes passed, and she tried again, but I was ready and easily dodged it. “With warning, your ears are perked, and your eyes are ready. But silent threats do not warn you, ma petite guerrière. They attack, lethal and unapologetic.”
I wanted to be lethal and unapologetic.
An hour later, a screech tore past my lips when she pinched my hips out of nowhere. The next day, I traded my pretty dresses for loose band tees and baggy jeans that hung on me like an oversized condom.
But now, sitting before this stranger, I saw no worth in my mother’s wisdom. My trusty barrier crumbled, and I scrambled to build new ones as his lips curled into a sneer and he eyed where my body pressed against his bed.
“If you want to sleep with me, you’ll have to try harder, Princess.”
Princess.
I hated that word. It reminded me of the role I played in the mafia world, one which included enduring torment from a tyrant father. Petty jealousy came from all sides, and I fielded it like a press secretary at the White House.
I’d been prepared for my mafia princess status to cause friction in De Luca territory, but I hadn’t been prepared for the goosebumps Angelo De Luca’s son elicited when he called me such a ridiculous name in his sparse Texas accent.
