Page 11 of The Last Vendetta

RENZO

Renzo

The ballroom was still crowded when I insisted on taking my father home. Many soldiers remained, both to clean up the scene and to begin handling the investigation. Multiple leaders within the Bernardi Family would supervise. Among them, answers would be collected. No stone would remain unturned.

One way, sooner or later, we would know who'd dared to kill Luka tonight. At his own fucking wedding.

As I escorted my father to the large mansion he called home, I let all the emotions run through me. Anger. Worry. Anxiety. Hatred.

Sadness, too, but it wasn’t as deep of a feeling. Luka and I were never close. Two years separated us, but it could have very well been twenty years.

Since birth, we were treated differently. He was the eldest. He’d carry on the family name. Everything fell on his shoulders, not mine, and as such, we weren’t raised the same. We weren’t expected to grow up as brothers, as siblings. With his status as the heir, he had to be taught from the beginning how to behave, and his upbringing made him an asshole.

I didn’t want to speak ill of the dead—even the newly dead—but there was no love lost between us.

Still, it was a loss. His death was a shocking crime, and it would hit us hard.

I glanced again at my father as I parked. Drivers stood at the ready, but I told them all to leave us. I’d wondered if he’d speak on the ride home, but no matter how many times I checked in the rear mirror, he remained still and zoned out in the backseat.

Once we arrived home, he moved with more effort. He still seemed to be in a trance, not completely with it and alert after seeing his firstborn dead.

“Gio,” I said, calling him as he preferred, always by his first name.

He held up his hand as he stalked toward his study, warding me from speaking.

I knew better than to leave his side. Without anything being said, he expected me to follow him. After such a night, I didn’t want to have him face this loss alone. It was just the two of us now, and we would stick together.

But I had nothing to offer him. Luka was his son. I was his spare.

Or I had been until tonight.

Gio and I were never close, and it showed in how stilted we were in his study.

I didn’t know what to say. I hardly knew what to think.

Did he want comfort? I doubted it. Was he waiting on me to take action? I never had before.

All I could do was struggle with every sentiment that hit me.

I was furious that someone had dared to kill a Bernardi groom at his wedding.

I was worried that Gio would expect me to step up in my brother’s place.

And I was impatient. I had to figure out where to hit, how to strike back. Luka and I were never close. We weren’t traditionally sentimental as brothers, but he was one of my family members. I would avenge him. No matter what.

“It’s on you now,” he stated gruffly as he reclined into his leather chair near the fireplace. No flames roared there, not in the summer heat we suffered now. Regardless, it was his place. His throne, I used to think when I was younger. The place where he’d sat on countless occasions to order Luka around.

Now it was my turn.

My turn that I thought I’d never have. Never wanted.

“You are my son, Renzo.”

I remained locked in place, biting my cheek. He didn’t add now. I was his son now, and he’d treat me as the next in line.

“You will need to step up and take the responsibility that Luka always had.”

I exhaled, trying to keep my breath steady. “He’s only been dead for a couple of hours.”

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