Page 3 of Luca

“Who?”

“Francesco.” He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees with his head hanging low. His fingers link together as though he’s praying, asking for absolution.

He won’t find any with me.

“Francesco Cataldi was not a good man. He demanded absolute loyalty from his men and anyone in his organization. If he thought anyone was lying or would possibly betray him, he’d send me in to take care of them. He would blame it on a rival organization, usually the Irish, so he wouldn’t have to face any backlash from the other families or alert his capos. It was a way to foster the hate between our two organizations. Of course, there was never any proof it was the Irish, but he whispered it in every man’s ear. We were always on the brink of war because of his lies, but he never gave the go-ahead to go after them. Obviously, I knew the truth, but I was loyal to the man. And so was your father.”

“Then why the hell did he have him murdered?” The yell bursts from my mouth before I can contain it. Not that I care to try.

Frank looks up from his hands. “He met your mother and things changed. He had to keep her a secret, but he was so fucking in love with her.”

“How would you know that? You said you’d never met her.”

“When Francesco came to me and told me Elio had betrayed the family and I needed to take care of him and his side piece, I did some digging. I followed him around for about a week until he led me to her. To you.” He closes his eyes again. When he opens them, he grabs the bottle and takes a long pull. “I went back to Francesco and told him Elio had a baby with the woman. He didn’t care. He convinced me that Elio was funneling information to the Irish. That he was a rat. That was the worst thing to be accused of in our life.”

“What do the Irish have to do with anything?”

“Your mother was the sister of Maeve Monaghan, wife of the head of the Monaghan family. They were our enemies. Having anything to do with anyone associated with that family meant death, in Francesco’s mind at least.”

“So my family are nothing but killers and criminals on both sides. That’s just fucking great,” I say with a caustic laugh as I run my hands through my hair, yanking on the strands. God, what I wouldn’t give to go back in time and believe my dad was a normal working-class single father who missed my dead mom.

“I couldn’t argue with Francesco. I knew if I did, he’d have me killed without question. He wanted it to look like a home invasion since he knew the Irish would be out for blood. That night, I knocked on the door—”

“Excuse me, Frank, if I don’t want the details of how you murdered my parents.”

He inhales a sharp breath. I’m not sure if it’s a result of me calling him Frank or calling him a murderer.

“When I saw you alone after…what I’d done, I couldn’t do it. Fuck Francesco and his bullshit reason for wanting your parents dead. I wasn’t going to hurt a child. I never had, and I wasn’t going to start then. You were crying so hard, but the second I picked you up, you looked me in the eye with those big blue ones of yours and just stared at me.” He smiles and it does nothing but make me angrier that he’s thinking about it as some twisted bonding moment instead of the bloodiest night of my life by his hand.

“I didn’t know what to do,” he continues. “I knew Francesco was out of town, but his wife, Rosa, stayed behind. I called the house, and thankfully, she picked up instead of one of the guards. I told her what was going on, what I’d done, and what I couldn’t do. She was a devout Catholic and told me to meet her at the church and to bring you.”

“You put an awful lot of faith in the wife of the man who ordered my parents’ murder.”

Frank nods his head in agreement. “I did. I don’t know, maybe I thought she knew a family who would take you in. I thought she could help me figure out a way to disappear. Rosa had a goodness in her that wasn’t tainted by the life we were in. I knew in my heart of hearts she would help me. I’d done something I never thought I’d do. I was betraying my boss, and I knew what the consequences would mean. I wasn’t exactly in my right mind that night.”

I look back at the picture of my real father with Frank and Francesco. They looked like friends. How the hell could one friend order the murder of another?

“She showed up at the church but made her guard wait outside. She was beyond distraught at discovering her husband ordered the murder of an innocent child, especially since she had a child at home. She told me Francesco was well on his way to turning her sweet boy into the ruthless man he wanted to take over for him someday. Honestly, I think if she could have run with me, she would have, but there was no way Francesco wouldn’t have hunted us down and made both of us regret ever having attempted it. She brought me all the baby supplies she had on hand and a wad of cash. Told me to get as far away as I could. She said God must have put me in your path and this was my chance to make amends for all the heartbreak I caused. That getting you away from that violent and bloody life was my chance at redemption.”

“I’d say taking off to the other side of the country was a good plan then.”

He nods. “I was so fucking scared those first few days. Hell, the first few years. I knew there was no way Francesco wouldn’t be looking for me. I kept checking online for reports of what happened to your parents. But there was nothing. No news reports or anything. Between the cash Rosa gave me and the money I had in my safe, I set us up out here with new identities.”

“Why didn’t you go to the authorities? If you really regretted what that guy was going to make you do, why didn’t you call the FBI or something? Turn him in.”

“There was nothing witness protection would have done for me that I wouldn’t be able to do for myself. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to incriminate myself to get them to cut me a deal. Disappearing in the wind was the best option as far as I could see at the time. And I believed Rosa when she said I was meant to raise you to be an honorable man with no ties to our life. That wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t disappeared.”

“Why didn’t you take me to my mother’s family then? You could have disappeared on your own and been done with the whole thing.” The only thing I keep thinking over and over is how fucking crazy this all sounds.

How is this my life?

“I thought about it so many times. There were days I was sure you should be with your mother’s family, but then I’d think about another kid being raised to live a violent life. I couldn’t imagine putting you there. I didn’t know the Monaghan’s that well, but everything I knew, everything I’d been fed about them, told me they weren’t any better than the life I took you from. I don’t know; I just couldn’t imagine you growing up to be a killer like me. I wanted to protect you from that life. Something intrinsic changed in me the first time I held you, Luca. It was impossible to ignore and even more impossible to explain. I never gave much thought to God or a higher purpose, but between the way you looked at me that night and what Rosa said in that church, I just couldn’t hand you over to another criminal family.”

“Why tell me now then?” I yell, the numbness I was feeling moments ago morphing back into anger.

“Because I’m dying. Because I feel guilty for leaving you with no one. Because I’ve raised you to be a good man, and I believe you’ll make the right choices with your future. Choices you wouldn’t have had if I’d left you on the Monaghan’s doorstep. I don’t know, son. The reasons change minute to minute.”

I bristle at his use of the word son but don’t comment.

---