Page 21 of Damiano De Luca (The Five Syndicates)
Why did it have to be him who lured me in with late night conversation that felt less like a tentative truce between enemies and more like a flirtatious argument between friends?
Why was it him who felt like the answer to my loneliness and I to his?
Maybe it was not choice but fate.
At least, that was what I told myself when I returned to the library the next night, and we read Infinite Jest together and argued over the psychological consequences of having absent parents.
I wondered what he told himself.
We are never so easily deceived as when we imagine we are deceiving others.
Francois de la Rochefoucauld
The Present
Damian observed his half-sister, a look I’d never seen in his eyes as she made her way to Lucy Black. Two women sitting at her table argued with the blonde. I saw the slap from the blonde before it came and studied Damian as he watched his sister stop it midway.
Pride.
That was the look on his face.
Jealousy.
That was the feeling it kindled inside me.
Stupid, right?
But as silence descended in the bar, and Ariana released the blonde’s wrist, regret over the happiness Damian and I could have shared eclipsed the impassivity I had tried so hard to build during our time apart. It dawned on me that these weren’t the feelings of someone who had initiated a breakup.
Silence remained in L’Oscurità as Ariana passed the blonde off to security, and Bastian reached Ariana. I noted their intimate body language, how in tune they were with one another’s body. Either they were sleeping together, or they would be soon.
The volume rose to normal levels as security spoke with the blonde at the door, and Damian stared at Bastian and Ariana until the two parted. He wanted to talk to her. Bad idea. For both of their sakes and mine.
The bouncer kicked the blonde out, and Ariana skimmed her eyes across the bar before following. A minute later, Bastian followed her, and Damian followed him.
I eyed the tap beer Damian had mixed with my Macallan. “Oh, what the hell.” Reaching over the bar, I downed a fifth of the gross concoction and followed the four of them, well aware of how ridiculous this situation was—me following Damian, who followed Bastian following Ari, who followed the blonde.
These men walked like panthers as they pursued Ariana and the blonde. I paused for a few seconds to slip off my heels and rounded the corner into the alleyway with lighter steps. The shadows hid me as I paused at the entrance. I could barely make out Damian or Bastian, but I knew both had guns drawn.
Moonlight lit the blonde as she swiveled and faced Ariana. “Stop following me!”
“Monica—”
“How do you know my name?!” Her features were unreadable from this distance, but horror seeped into her voice. “You’re from the bar. You’re one of them.”
Ariana took a step closer, and the girl—Monica—yanked a gun from her waistband. Her hands shook as she pointed it at Ariana. I pulled mine out from my thigh holster as Bastian’s dark shadow reached the edge of the light. His gun raised midway, Damian stood just far enough behind him to hold the advantage in a gunfight between the three of them.
The small gun wavered in Monica’s hand. “Don’t move.”
Less than a foot separated Monica and Ariana. If I were Ariana, I would have latched onto the gun, twisted it down and away from me until Monica’s finger b
roke in the trigger, and grabbed the gun. But the difference was, I had Vitali training since a young age, and she’d never been inducted into the De Luca fold to be trained.
Yet, that was exactly what Ariana did, her movements swift, clinical, and practiced. Monica screamed and clutched her broken finger to her chest.
“Calm down, Monica.” Ariana held the gun to Monica’s face, and just as Bastian broke past the shadows with his Smith & Wesson pointed at Monica, she added, “I’m with the FBI.”
What the actual fuck.
