“She told me it takes some people longer than others to find their place.” He chuckles mirthlessly, “She told me I was a leader. Giovanni told me I was a fuckup.”
Instantly, I despise Giovanni. “He’s your oldest brother?”
“Yes, now that Dante’s gone.” His amber gaze moves to me. “Giovanni killed him.”
“What?” It’s not like fratricide was unheard of in our world, heck, it was more commonplace than anyone wanted to admit. “Why did he kill him?”
Lucca puts the picture of his mother down gently. “Dante was part of the group that killed my parents at that party. They were trying to kill the heads of some of the other families, too. Mariya’s brothers almost died there.”
“Oh… I’m so sorry. It must have gutted you to discover that.”
He shrugs, his expression indifferent. “He was trying to pull our famiglia into the Red Trade. He deserved it. He left a long trail of fuck-ups behind him for my brothers to clean up. I wasn’t much help.”
“That was… what? Four years ago? Five?” I asked, “You were a teenager trying to deal with losing your parents.”
“Oh, I was an asshole,” he said, walking over to the window. He has a view of the waves crashing against the cliffs, too. “A couple of DWI’s, once I fucked one of our Capo’s daughters. I didn’t know who she was at the time. The only reason I wasn’t forced into an arranged marriage with her was the fact that she was cheating on her boyfriend.”
“Do you think that’s what she was trying for?” I said.
“Probably,” he said, staring at the waves. “I got kicked out of my prep school for running an on-campus gambling ring.”
This time, I dared to laugh a little. “In our families, that’s usually a point of pride. I don’t even want to know half of what my brother Ilia did here.”
“However, the breaking point for Gio and my other brother Dario was some financial records our Consigliere discovered. It looked like I’d been siphoning money from three famiglia accounts. That’s when Gio called for me, Dario standing by him, looking all stern and disappointed. They set me aside.”
“What does that mean, exactly?” I asked.
“That’s as bad as it gets in the Mafia, the only thing worse would have been to kill me.” He looks at me, his sharp gaze glinting, wolf-like. “They sent me here to make something of myself,” his tone is viciously sarcastic, “and at the end of four years, they would consider allowing me to be a Toscano again.”
I try to picture a younger Lucca, standing in front of his brothers, his identity taken from him. “Why do I not believe that you embezzled that money?”
His fists are clenching, knuckles bulging and white. I’m not sure he knows he’s doing it. “Because I didn’t. It was Dante, my oldest brother. I caught him funneling money from my trust fund just before our parents were killed. He told me he was trying to create a side business that would make our father proud of him, he said he couldn’t get the money any other way, but that he would pay me back. I always knew he was a fuck-up, but everyone thought I was, too. I told him to go ahead and pay it back later.”
“That’s pretty noble to forgive your brother for stealing from your trust fund,” I said, my disgust for his family growing.
“He must have started using my identification and bank accounts to siphon money from some of the other Toscano accounts.” He’s still staring at the ocean. “When our Consigliere found it years later, it looked like my work.”
I lean in, trying to catch his gaze. “Why didn’t you tell your brothers this? Dante stole from you and left you to take the blame.”
“Because fuck them,” he said viciously, “if they could really believe that I’d do something like that, they don’t know me at all. Fuck them both. They’ve both gotten married since I’ve been gone, Gio has a baby, there are pictures all over the fucking internet of the happy, growing Toscano family and none of them mention me because I’m invisible.”
Putting my arms around him, I rest my head on his back. I don’t know what to do besides hold him, so I do. After a while, he puts his hands over mine and we watch the waves beat futilely against the indifferent face of the cliffs.
Chapter Sixteen
In which there is girl talk.
Tatiana…
“What are the five primary weak points we look for when infiltrating an organization?”
Professor Campbell is one of my favorites here. She’s younger than most of the other educators and doesn’t seem to have the same need to intimidate her students, most likely because her coursework is fun and challenging. But today, I can’t pay attention. There’s a dull ache between my legs that doesn’t seem to lessen, though I’m trying to subtly shift position every few minutes.
Meiying nudges me. “What’s wrong with you? You’re wiggling around like someone stuck a weasel down your pants.”
The image makes me want to laugh, but I smother the impulse. “Just tired,” I lied. That ache feels good in a way I can’t explain, it’s lingering proof that Lucca and I had an incredible night together. The sex was everything I could have hoped for, and the fact that he was willing to trust me with something as intimate and painful as his family’s cruelty means so much to me.
That reminds me that I need to talk to my family. Roman and Ilia both knew about yesterday’s test in Zimmerman’s class, I should let them know how well it went. Calling Lev was the first thing I did when I got back to my suite yesterday, and he was exuberant at my news in a way that was almost non-Russian.
The day before…
“I’m so proud of you,” Lev said warmly, “how’s your hand now?”
“Not broken,” I told him happily, “that’s all I care about.”
“Nobody likes a dirty fighter,” he agreed, “but it was the right move for the moment and you know those skills will come in handy in the real world, too.”
“Why do you think my mother wouldn’t let me take self-defense lessons from you?” I asked. I’d swallowed down the anger and resentment at the time, but those few hours when Lev taught me to protect myself helped pull me out of the misery after what had happened to me.
“I don’t know,” he said, choosing his words carefully. Even now, Lev was so cautious about what he said about my parents. “Maybe… maybe the lessons made your ordeal too real for her. The realization that your child can be hurt is terrifying, I’m sure.”
“So, her denial was more important than teaching me how to protect myself?” I blurted. I was shocked at my bitter tone.
Lev was silent for a moment. “The point is, you’re learning now, and you’re doing beautifully. Is the Toscano kid as annoying as he was at the start?”
I feel guilty because there is no way in hell that I can tell my bodyguard that I’ve been doing all kinds of naughty things with Lucca and very much wanted to do more. So, I lie. “It’s fine. I know he’s looking forward to being done with me. He was a good teacher, though.”
“Excellent,” he said, “even the Pakhan can’t complain about your unsupervised association with him since he’s helped you keep your place at the Academy. Have you spoken to him yet?”
Oh, good. More guilt. “No, I called you first,” I admitted, “but I will call Roman, I promise.”
“Thank you,” he said with relief. “He worries about you. They both do.”
“I’m certainly learning enough in the Spies division to know that we had a catastrophic intelligence breach,” I ventured, “what do they know so far?”
The weariness in his voice tells me that he’s been as relentless in searching for clues as my brothers have. “Multiple threats from different directions,” he said, “they’re constantly shoring up our defenses from one attack after another.”