Page 7 of Luca

“You know, my first thought was to find you and kill you myself for even suggesting something so insane, but the more I thought about it, the more I decided I was willing to hear you out.”

“Okay…” I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say to that.

“So tell me who the hell you are and what makes you think you’re my cousin.”

“Just get right to the point. Alright.” I wipe a sweaty palm down my jeans and walk out to the back porch. For some reason, sitting within four walls doesn’t feel like enough room to have this conversation.

“I don’t have time for bullshit, Luca Bennetti, who lives in Atascadero, California.”

“How do you know that?” I didn’t give him any information when I talked to him last week.

“You said our fathers knew each other, correct?”

“Yes, but they weren’t friends. Not by a long shot.”

“Regardless, if your father knows mine, then I’m guessing he knows exactly who my father is and who our family is. Didn’t take a genius to track you through your cell phone number. Hell, didn’t even take more than an internet search.”

“Knew. Our fathers knew each other. Mine died.”

“Right, right. My bartender did tell me that. Sorry to hear. As far as I knew, you were dead, too, so tell me how I’m talking to a ghost.”

I fill Finn in on the things Frank told me. About who my birth parents were, how they came to die on Carlo Cataldi’s order and how my dad saved me and ran.

“My father looked for you for years,” Finn says when I finish my story. “He managed to keep the story out of the press, but he knew Cataldi had something to do with his sister-in-law’s death. My mother spent years looking into the eyes of every child she passed on the street in Boston to see if she recognized you. It nearly tore her apart. Shit, for a while there, it did. You just disappeared into thin air.”

“I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say. The people he’s talking about don’t mean anything to me. Not in any real way.

“So what do you want, Luca? Why did you decide to contact me after all this time? You knew two years ago who you were. Why now?”

“Frank is dead.” It’s a simple answer but the truth.

“Good riddance,” Finn responds.

“Hey,” I bark out. “He may not have made the right decision, but he was a good father. He did the best he could in a shitty situation.”

Finn doesn’t apologize, not that I expected him to. The man stole me from his family after killing his aunt. I wouldn’t dare think he’d be grateful to him for keeping me safe. Hell, there are moments when I’m pissed as hell at him. But he didn’t know Frank like I did. He doesn’t have the years under his belt with him that I do.

“You haven’t answered my question. What do you want?”

“I want that fucker Cataldi and his entire organization to burn to the ground. I want to stand over him while he takes his last breath and know I was the one who caused his destruction. I want revenge for what he did to my parents,” I tell him as I stand at the edge of my back porch and stare into the field beyond.

Holy shit, I’ve never said that out loud. Now that I have, it feels good. It feels like the truest words I’ve ever spoken. Maybe that makes me a monster, no better than the people Frank was trying to save me from, but fuck if I care. That man deserves everything I plan to do. Hell, probably more.

“Okay.” Finn is silent for a minute. “If that’s what you want, I can make it happen. You want the whole organization to fall, then it’s going to take work and patience. The Cataldis haven’t survived this long on luck.”

“So you’ll help me?”

“I’ll help you. But we do this my way. You don’t know jack shit about this life. And we can’t tell anyone you’re related to me or who you are. I’m not going to lie, Luca. This is going to be dangerous as shit. You may not make it out alive. I’m not going to have those old wounds opened for my mother if she finds out who you are just to have you die.”

I think about that for a few moments. It’s not like I have any family as it is now.

“Okay. So what do we do?”

“Do you know how to shoot a gun?”

“No.”

“Do you have any sort of training in martial arts or fighting? An expert thief by chance? Any skills that would make you at all desirable to a criminal organization?”

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