Page 68 of Prince of Malice

“I’m sorry, Luca, but I am just too busy to be able to divert all of my attention to you whenever you get into some trouble,” Salvatore says, talking down to him. “Anyway, you’re supposed to be an adult now. You should handle your business yourself.”

“Well, do you know who has time? Do you know who cares?” he snarls. “Dominic does. He cares.”

“Sure,” his father taunts. “And that’s notjust because he was caught up in this mess as well?”

“No,” he says definitively.

He gives me a quick glance, his eyes asking me a question that doesn’t need to be voiced. I give him a brief nod in response, already bracing myself for what’s to come.

“Because we’re dating, Dad.”

“Excuse me?”

Luca grabs my hand and holds it tightly in his own, both to keep himself calm and to try and slow the shake in his arms, but also to spit in Salvatore’s face with an act of defiance.

“That’s right,” I confirm.

“Every single time I needed someone, whenever I needed help, Dominic was the one who was there for me. Whether it was in his benefit or even if it could ruin everything for him, he came for me without a second thought,” Luca says with a strong passion behind his words. This time, however, it’s not a hot, fiery passion that he wants to use to burn Salvatore in his seat, but a warm, calming ember that he uses to keep the both of us going, caring for what we have. “And if I knewthat he was in danger, whenever he was alone and being torn down by the Grecos, I was there for him. Not a care in the world for what could happen to me or what I was leaving behind.”

“Like a business deal?” Salvatore asks, starting to connect the dots we’ve been leaving behind since this all began.

“Like a business deal with the men who wanted to tear us all apart and take everything from us,” Luca corrects him. “Why can’t you just admit that you were wrong? Why can’t you apologize for constantly ignoring my concerns? Hell, why can’t you just thank me for fixing the mess you refused to acknowledge?”

Salvatore takes in a long, slow breath, pushing down his pride with a sigh, and looks back up to us both. “Thank you, Luca.”

“Him too,” he says coldly.

His father narrows his eyes at me. “Did he do enough to earn that?”

“If it wasn’t for Dominic, I’d probably be dead on the floor of the Greco restaurant while Antonio and his son had already taken you for everything you have.”

“Is that right?” Salvatore clarifies with me.

I give Luca a look, trying to gauge from him what I should say next. He gives me a nod back, and I take that as a sign to let loose.

“That’s right. Antonio’s son had been manipulating me for months to make me look bad to almost everyone in Montcove and maybe even get me killed,” I start with the cold, hard truth before I start to allow myself to talk myself up. “When I learned what they did and thought of every time they’d gotten me into these awful situations, it made me angrier than I think I’ve ever been before.”

“Do you really think that your short temper is really the best thing to brag about right now?”

“That’s not my point, but it was the start of my plan,” I explain. “I thought that if someone who I thought was my friend was messing with me like that, how would I feel if it was my own father or son doing it?”

“So you alone managed to turn the two of them against each other?” Salvatore asks as he leans toward me.

Is he impressed with me?

“Luca was helpful. He’s really good at pissing someone off if he wants to.” I chuckleslightly, looking at him as he cracks an actual smile for the first time since getting in here. “Anyway, it wasn’t too hard. His son was showing him up to every important person in the mafia, while his father was taking all the credit for him doing so.”

Salvatore lets out a reluctant sigh. “It is difficult seeing your own son turning into a different person from you, but managing to be just as good… Better, even.”

Luca struggles with expressing his feelings, and I know for a fact that his father is even worse. So him saying that is the most he’ll ever manage.

“You know,” Luca says, “I think the Grecos saw your marriage to Sofia as just a way to make both families stronger, and in this world, something like that only makes you look weak. Telling everyone that you had no real loyalty to one another and either family would sacrifice the other if it was needed.” Luca takes a shaky breath. “But if they found out that your son and hers had been sneaking around having a secret romance, despite both of them knowing that if they were discovered they could both havebeen killed and forced to watch as their families tore each other apart…”

“No one could possibly question their loyalty,” I say, finishing his sentence. “And right now, we need loyalty.”

Salvatore folds his hands in front of himself on the desk. “What has your mother said about this?” he asks, knowing for a fact we wouldn’t have come to him first about this.

“She’s supportive,” I tell him.

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