Page 12 of Luca

She nods quickly, scrambling to open the back door of her car. “O-okay.”

When we get settled in the car, I feel her eyes boring into the back of my head, silently trying to telepathically communicate something along the lines of what the hell’s going on right now? “Luca busted me, and we came to an understanding. He wouldn’t let me go alone, so here we are. It’ll be totally fine,” I tell her.

Bianca scoffs. “Yeah, showing up with a bodyguard to a party in the middle of the woods won’t look weird at all.”

She’s right. Luca’s shoulders are tense as he maneuvers the car back onto the road. There’s no chance he’ll blend into the crowd at a high school party. Hell, I don’t think there’s a crowd anywhere he wouldn’t stand out in.

“Can you not look so…” I try to think of exactly how to put my thoughts.

“So what?” he asks, never taking his eyes from the road or looking like anything other than an intimidating killer behind the wheel. Shit, he probably is, for all I know.

“So murdery,” I finally finish.

“No,” is all he says as we drive in silence.

I can tell Bianca is unsure if going to this party is still a good idea.

“Hey, look at it this way.” I smile widely and turn in my seat to face her. “At least we have a DD for the night.”

“Don’t push it, princess,” Luca says.

Okay, so maybe this isn’t one of my more brilliant ideas, but the night is young. As I’ve told Luca and Bianca, I’m sure everything is going to be fine.

Chapter five

Luca

I’m at a fucking high school field party. Well, not a field exactly. We’re in the middle of the woods, but it’s pretty reminiscent of the few parties I went to in high school, right down to the giant bonfire in the middle of the clearing that’s filling my nose with the scent of burning wood. I wasn’t much of a partier in those days, knowing my coach would have my ass if I got busted for underage drinking, not to mention I didn’t want to disappoint my dad. I was one of those people who never wanted to disappoint anyone, really. Always believed in staying aboveboard. That was my old life, though. The one I rarely think about, aside from reminding myself why I go through the hell of having to face the man who had my parents killed on a daily basis.

Finn’s plan for me to introduce myself to Carlo and, by extension, his father took about a year to come together. I spent time hanging out in the few bars frequented by that asshole, Carlo, and found my in one night when a fight broke out. I was there in time to save Carlo from getting stabbed. Of course, I took a slice to the ribs, but after getting stitched up by the “family” doctor, Carlo decided to repay me by asking if I needed a job. Said he’d made a few calls and liked what he heard about me. It didn’t hurt I’d made friends with a couple of the guys I knew who did some penny-ante work for him. I was their “muscle” a few times when shit went sideways. It took nearly six months to get an introduction to Carlo, and then another six of drinking with him and stroking his inflated ego like all the other wannabe gangsters he surrounded himself with before I saved his ass in that fight. He was in need of a few guards at his house and asked if I wanted in. He appreciated that I was willing to put my life on the line for him. Said if I wanted to make some real money, he would see to it that I would get on a crew if I proved loyal. I guess when you beat a man bloody with a knife sticking out of your ribs, you prove your worth.

And somehow, that led me to a high school party in the middle of the woods on a Saturday night.

When I caught Giada trying to sneak out of her room a couple weeks ago, I never in a million years imagined she’d try again. Would it have changed my decision not to tell her father? No. If I’d told him, he would no doubt tell her brother, and Carlo is an asshole of the highest order. He couldn’t give two shits about his sister. And Francesco is about as checked out as a father as I’ve ever seen. There’s no one who actually cares about that girl in the house. Not saying I do, but I know a desperate girl who hates the confines that her position as Francesco Cataldi’s only daughter has her tied in. It’s a fucking shame what they expect of women in this life. Finn swears up and down it’s not like that in his family, and I have to believe him. Not like I’d know any different.

I’ve met plenty of Francesco’s capos through the last few years and their wives as well. Most of them are shadows that trail their husbands at parties. The same husbands who I’ve seen at the brothels when Carlo needs an extra body to follow him. It’s not often I leave the grounds, Francesco and Carlo have had the same personal guards since I’ve been here, but there’s been a handful of times. And that was plenty for me.

When Carlo found some diary his sister was keeping, he read it out loud in front of me. Giada had a crush on me when I first came to the house, made evident by what she wrote. Watching her grasp for the notebook Carlo held over his head as he read its contents out loud told me everything I needed to know about what kind of brother he was. He didn’t care that doing that to a sixteen-year-old girl was probably one of the cruelest, most embarrassing things to have happened to her in her short life. I thought it was a dick move, and it put me in a position I never wanted to be in. Of course, I knew she had stars in her eyes. Giada wasn’t as adept back then at hiding her feelings as she is now. And I reacted the way I knew a man in this life would be expected. I laughed and acted like she was a stupid little kid, saying things about her to make her hate me and make her brother think I was a heartless bastard like him. She was crushed, and I felt like a complete asshole.

Ever since that day, she’s barely looked at me unless it was to sneer at me behind her brother’s back. She’s gotten pretty damn good at hiding her true feelings under the mask she wears in front of her brother and father. Good for her. She should hate me. She should hate every man in this life who would treat her like a nuisance or a person who doesn’t deserve respect. She’ll likely be married off to some asshole who isn’t much better than her brother or father, but I like seeing that rebellious fire in her eyes. It’ll be a sad day when it goes out. And it will. It looks like it has for just about every wife or girlfriend I’ve met in my time with the Cataldis.

That’s probably why I’m standing in the middle of the woods keeping an eye on Giada and her friend. Let her think she has a say in her life while she’s still young. I don’t need to be the one to burst her bubble when she realizes how short-lived this part of her life is going to be. It won’t be much longer, a few years maybe, before her father signs her life away in a marriage contract. Knowing what I do of the Cataldi men, he’s simply waiting until another family makes him an offer that’s too tempting to pass up. There’s already been a couple, but nothing that comes close to benefiting him in the way he thinks marrying the only daughter of the head of a powerful Mafia family should.

Hopefully I can bring the old man down before it comes to that. I thought being in the house would clue me in how to make that happen, but I haven’t been able to find anything I can take to my cousin yet. I’m still earning my stripes, as they say, and haven’t been privy to the private meetings in his office or overheard any useful information. But I’m patient and know that at some point, I’ll be moved to a crew. Then I can start digging in. Not at first, though. Nothing says mole like being the new guy and things going to shit from the start, but eventually, I’ll start hitting these fuckers where it hurts—their wallets. Spending time in the house, it’s become more than apparent the only two things that hold any merit are money and power. Without the money, they don’t have the considerable power they’ve amassed throughout the years. So, that’s where I’ll start.

Giada and her friend are in a circle with a couple other girls, talking and laughing. I told her and Bianca under no circumstances were either of them to drink any alcohol tonight, and thankfully, I haven’t had to knock any cups out of their hands. The last thing I want to worry about is if Giada can get back into the house undetected or her friend driving home drunk. There were plenty of mumbles in the car about me being a wet blanket and maybe trying to take the stick out of my ass for once, but I just turned my hard stare at the girls and they both shut the hell up.

My gaze sweeps the crowd again. No one has paid me much mind. It’s not unusual for these kids to be around security since this is a party of kids who attend Giada’s overpriced and privileged-as-hell private school. I’m the only guard in attendance, but everyone here is so accustomed to seeing bodyguards they look right past me as though I’m simply part of the scenery. Rich little pricks.

When my eyes land on a group of boys Giada and her friends were talking to earlier, I catch one of the little punks drop a tablet in a beer he just poured from the keg and swirl it with his finger, a smarmy grin covering his smug fucking face.

Oh, fuck no. I don’t care who the intended target is; that shit will not be happening on my watch. I begin to make my way over to the little asshole who’s about to feel what it’s like to have his jaw broken when he beelines toward Giada and her friends. I watch as he walks straight up to her and tries to hand her the cup. She shakes her head, not accepting it, but he’s a persistent little shit and tries again.

I see fucking red.

“Come on, babe. Just have one drink with me.”

“I’m not drinking tonight, Tyler. I already told you.”

---