Page 6 of Damiano De Luca (The Five Syndicates)
Don’t even think about it.
Keep walking, Damian.
I turned around. “What are you even doing here?!”
I’d thought she was gone. Escaped from the mafia world, like only a Vitali or someone like Asher Black could get away with. She sure as hell did a good job of staying off my expanding radar.
Fuck. My chest heaved up and down, each breath more cumbersome than the next. I needed to leave before I did something that piled on the mountain of broken glass between us.
Placid as ever, her attention wandered to a cat that sprang across the alley before returning to me. “Representing the Vitali family.”
“The same family that sent you off to boarding school at eight years old?”
She crossed her arms. “My mom moved nearby.”
I ignored her. “The same family that sent you to De Luca territory and left you there for fourteen months?”
Yeah, I knew sending people off to live in De Luca territory was considered punishment in the syndicates’ circles. After all, I knew what we’d once been. The De Luca name was a stain on the Five Syndicates. From my dad’s unhinged behavior to the notorious story of my great-great-grandfather killing my great-grandfather, we were the laughing stock, like the extra character writers threw into horror flicks for the sole purpose of killing off later.
I was trying to give the family a better reputation, but I couldn’t build a reputation on what I had yet to do. One bad deed was enough to ruin a million good ones. Unfortunately, the roads in De Luca territory were paved by bad deeds. Bricks made of poor decisions, mortared together by blood. I wasn’t sure I was capable of enough good to offset the bad.
Just one of many reasons why I was personally in New York City to attend Vincent Romano’s funeral. That, and I actually respected the man, which was more than I could say about most people.
Ren straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Papà had his reasons.” Her thumb twirled that offensive rock around her finger like a nervous tick that served the sole purpose of transferring her anxiety to me. Except I knew firsthand that she had no ticks, and if she had any anxieties, she held them closer to her chest than heat to a flame. Renata was a Vitali, after all, and she’d trained every flaw out of her body by kindergarten.
“Did they involve my father and his hands?!” I sucked in a breath and swore. I knew what had happened in the bathroom hadn’t been illicit, but she didn’t know I knew. “That was uncalled for. I apologize.”
And still, she remained unfazed. If I didn’t know her better, I’d think I stood in front of a sociopath.
“If you can’t control your emotions, there are treatments for that, which don’t involve tormenting me with your juvenile behavior. I was going to suggest a truce for this weekend, but I now see there’s little point in that.” She stepped around me like I was an overeager dog she could sidestep. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a funeral to attend and a name to represent.” Her heels click-clacked with every step she took toward the front doors.
Just like that night she’d left me, she was unapologetic.
Just like that night, she didn’t look back.
Just like that night, she smeared my heart across the pavement with each step.
And just like that night, I still wanted her.
All deception in the course of life is indeed nothing else but a lie reduced to practice, and falsehood passing from words into things.
Robert Southey
“Miss Vitali, I haven’t seen you in a while.” Frankie Romano approached me after the closed-casket viewing ended, clasped my shoulder with an over-sized palm, and kissed me on the cheek. Dark gray colored his hair at his temples, and he looked every bit the refined mafia leader he was. “What have you been doing with your time, Renata?”
Frankie led the Romano syndicate, which ruled northeast America. He was stern but fair and only resorted to violence when other options had been exhausted. I respected him for that and for leading the strongest of the five Italian-American crime syndicates without heavy bloodshed.
Dragging my eyes away from Damian, who stood beside one of his soldiers, I flashed a polite smile at Frankie and took a step back from him. “I graduated from college early through an accelerated program, and I’ve been an elementary school teacher for a while now.”
“An elementary school teacher…” I doubted much dumbfounded Frankie Romano, but I guessed the mafia princess becoming a teacher did.
“Yes.” My lips quirked upward, though I tried to smother the smile. Gosh, life outside the mafia had chipped away at my hard edges. Except when it came to Damian. Around him, I could fortify my walls quicker than a fired bullet slipped past its chamber.
“A Vitali schoolteacher.” He shook his head, but it was lighthearted teasing. We had an odd relationship. We weren’t close, and we didn’t see each other often, but when we did, it wasn’t strained. Kind of like his
brother, Vince, he adopted the father-daughter vibe with me better than Papà did. “I suppose crazier things have happened.” Frankie’s eyes drifted to Damian, and I read the subtext.
I’d been prepared for Damian’s rise. Yes, his existence had surprised me when we first met. Yes, Devils Ridge did a good job of hiding Damian’s identity under Angelo De Luca’s orders. But living in Devils Ridge gave me perspective, and I knew without a doubt that Damian would take over his father’s throne. It was never a matter of how but when.
