Page 54 of Damiano De Luca (The Five Syndicates)
“I think I more than like you. If things weren’t so complicated, I could see myself with you forever.”
“Like when a princess and prince marry and live happily ever after?” I yawned and closed my eyes.
“Yes. Just like that.”
“I’d need a ring.” I snuggled deeper into the covers. “The princess always has a ring when she lives happily ever after.”
Some shuffling interrupted my near slumber, and when a hand touched mine, I opened my eyes. The edges of my vision blurred, but I could see Damian crystal clear.
With the Sharpie in his hand, he drew a ring around my wedding ring finger. “And we lived happily ever after.” He popped the cap closed, blew cold air onto my finger, then kissed the top of it. “Sweet dreams, Princess.”
When I woke up, a thin black line drawn across my finger caught my eyes. I didn’t know how it got there, but it felt important.
Deception is one of the quickest ways to gain little things and lose big things.
Thomas Sowell
Eighteen Years Old
Post-prom bliss.
It was a real thing. Not just something made up in movies. I knew this, because I felt it. Was I angry about Laura? Furious. But prom was my first real high school memory, and I wanted to cherish the things I remembered about that night. Like dancing in the library with Damian and my first kiss.
We’d shifted that night. Our nightly library dates turned into heated make-out sessions until the sun started to rise. We’d spend lunch at school in the library, reading beside one another and stealing kisses, because not a damn teacher or librarian would dare say anything to me or Damian. And we drove his Range Rover instead of being chauffeured, so we could spend car rides to school alone together.
We didn’t put labels on our relationship, but the school year had already ended; as an adult, I could leave without legal repercussions; and it occurred to me that, if Maman were to finally find a way to reach out to me, I didn’t want to leave.
I grabbed my henna pen and touched up the line I had woken up with the day after prom. I’d been doing this regularly since, and I couldn’t explain it. The henna didn’t feel permanent enough, but the next step would be a tattoo.
How could I tattoo something I didn’t remember to my body just because I felt an inexplicable connection to it?
Answer: I couldn’t.
I slipped a ring over the henna to cover it up. Though it looked ridiculous, I added rings on all of my fingers because I didn’t want to explain the henna.
Angelo cornered me when I left my bedroom to meet Damian in his room.
I eyed Damian’s door, urging it to open, before flicking an unfazed glare at Angelo. “Yes?”
He rested a hip against the wall and leaned closer to me. “You and my son seem close lately.”
“Hmm…” I examined my nails. “When I last dined with the Romano boss, he had more important things to deal with than who his son chose to spend time with.” Snapping my gaze to him, I smiled. “When was the last time you were invited to dinner with the Romano boss?” I laughed. “… or any syndicate head?”
His beady eyes narrowed, and the way he towered over me could easily be construed as a threat. “Have you heard of my grandfather, Ludovico De Luca?”
Who hadn’t?
Crazy ran in the De Luca family, and it started with a man who’d kill his own child. In a world where loyalty and honor knew no bounds, the De Luca family held no place. Damian’s sanity was nothing short of a miracle.
I measured his unspoken threat. “I know infanticide gets you off, but if not for dignity, try to have some self-preservation in that witless skull of yours. When you run this family to the ground, the only person in this town capable of rebuilding it is in that room behind you.”
“Don’t test me, Vitali. Don’t be stupid.” He leaned into my face, and his rancid breath seeped into my nostrils. “You should fear me.”
I laughed, harsh and in his face. “You’re unworthy of my fear.”
It was true. But when Angelo pushed past me, and my hand connected with Damian’s doorknob, I froze as Angelo’s crazed laughter sent chills through my body. The frequent threats. The back whipping. The unhinged behavior. I shook my head and cleared all the ugliness out of my mind.
Angelo wouldn’t kill his own son if I stayed.
