Page 31 of Prince of Malice

I roll my eyes at him. Angelo’s extracurricular activities had a tendency to go south, but at the end of it all, I’d forgotten about whatever I needed distracting from and had some fun while doing so. However, everything he’s gotten me into recently has only made things worse, so maybe it’s best to try and handle things without him for now.

“Fine, I’ll think about it.”

“Thank you. Now, I’m going to leave you to sleep.” Angelo heads for the door and waits in the open frame when a smirk starts to grow on his face. “Just make sure you’re by yourself this time.”

“Screw you!” I shout, my words are overshadowed by his laughter until the door shuts behind him.

Now alone, I lie back on the bed, wiping my face with my open hand and, letting out a single prolonged groan.

10

LUCA

Rolling out of bed, I check my watch. It’s almost midday. I’ve missed my morning classes, and I have no motivation or desire to go to any of the others I have for the rest of today.

I place my feet onto the cold hardwood floor of my old bedroom, having crashed here after last night. I returned the car after everything that happened, doing my best to clean off the backseat in the dead of night without anyone noticing, and when I was done, I just couldn’t fathom having to drive back to campus as well. Especially with the possibility of running into Dominic hanging over me.

Even knowing that my father will interrogate me about it if I’m unlucky enough to cross paths with him in the house, this will still be easier.

Standing on my feet, still exhausted from my lack of sleep, I pull on the same shirt and pants that I had worn the previous night. I stumble toward the door to my room, carefully opening it and peeking out into the hall. Scanning around, hoping I can duck out quickly, I sneak my way toward the grand staircase and take small, quiet steps as I go down to the open foyer.

The front door is only feet away from me. If I can get across the foyer and out down the driveway, I can call a cab from the street and head back to campus with no one the wiser.

“Here so early?” My father’s words taunt my failed attempt.

Halfway to freedom, I turn to face him. “My professor cut my class short,” I fib. “He was feeling under the weather.”

“Hmm…seems to be a lot of that sort of thing at the moment.” He scowls.

After everything that happened last night, I had completely forgotten about abandoning the meeting with the Grecofamily’s representative so that I could go after Dominic. “About that,” I start to explain.

“I don’t want to hear your excuses right now.” His words are curt, and I don’t need to make any guesses about how he feels about me running away.

“I’m not making excuses. The Grecos are shady and undermining us. I didn’t want any part of it.”

“And how were they undermining us?”This is the right thing to do. I will tell my dad what the Grecos want. I can show myself as a strategic leader, shut down the Grecos as a threat, and keep the Rossis around. If the Grecos want them gone, they’ll be useful to have around.

“They want you to cut off the Rossis and ally with them instead.”

He looks at me intensely, trying to discern the nature of my accusation. I stand still, trying to make it seem like I have nothing to hide. Unfortunately for me, I do have something pretty big to hide. All I can do is pray that he doesn’t credit it to the meeting with the Grecos.

“Why would they want to do that?” my father asks me.

“They claim that the Rossis are unpredictable and are unfit to align themselves with us,” I begin. “Instead, they want to stand by us, saying that our combined empires will be greater than any other.”

“I see.”

“I don’t trust them.”

He keeps his gaze locked onto me. “Well, we can see just how unpredictable the Rossis are this evening.”

That isn’t the response I want. “What do you mean?”“Did you already forget? We’re having them over tonight,” he continues. “I wanted you all to play nice, but now it has another purpose.”

I bite my tongue. Only when I actually want Dominic to stay around, my dad starts considering cutting his family.

“We’ll have to wait and see,” I say with a forced smile.

I have to make sure they all look good tonight. I also have to make sure that Dominic doesn’t find out about any of this. I don’t really know much about him, but I can onlyassume that if he were to find out that he and his family could be in danger, he wouldn’t stop at anything to get back at the Grecos. But that’s not the response we need right now.

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