Page 10 of Forbidden Vengeance

My driver is waiting when I deplane, the black SUV’s engine already running. Let Matteo’s spies report my movements. My brother’s threats mean nothing compared to the game Elena’s playing.

“The Midtown route,” I tell the driver. Then, because I’m feeling particularly reckless, “Actually no. First, go past the DeLuca compound.”

We drive through the city I still know better than my own heartbeat. Every street corner, every building holds echoes of who I used to be. Before exile. Before betrayal. Before I became the monster my brother always feared I would.

We leave the city and head towards the suburbs where old money rises with its stone walls and security gates.

The compound appears through the trees—Matteo’s fortress, where he plays happy family with his wife and unborn twins. Where Bianca probably still has nightmares about the warehouse where I held her at gunpoint.

The memory triggers another, older and sharper: being eight years old, Giuseppe’s latest “training session” about to begin.

“Family tradition,” Giuseppe said, his gold rings catching the light as he checked the ropes binding us to our chairs.The basement air was thick with fear and anticipation. “Every DeLuca son must learn to escape any situation. To survive any trap.”

Matteo sat in the chair next to mine, his face already set in that determined expression I’d grow to hate.

He was better at this—always had been. His fingers were longer, more nimble. He could work the knots faster.

“First one free gets this.” Giuseppe held up a thick envelope. “Second one…” His smile was cruel as he pulled out his belt. “Well, we need motivation, don’t we?”

The ropes were tight enough to cut off circulation. Professional knots, the kind Giuseppe learned in his less legitimate business dealings. I worked them until my wrists bled, but Matteo was already slipping free.

Always fucking Matteo, perfect son, perfect heir.

The belt came down and I didn’t scream. I never screamed. But later, in the darkness of the basement where losers spent the night, I promised myself that one day I’d make them all pay.

“Weakness must be burned out,” Giuseppe would say while training us. The bruises and broken bones were lessons, he claimed. Making us stronger. Better. Worthy of the DeLuca name.

But somehow, it was always Matteo who earned that worthiness. Matteo who got the praise, the rewards, the recognition. I got the basement, the belt, the constant reminder that I was second best.

We return back to the city and the car drops me at Elena’s Upper East Side building—all prewar luxury and old money pretension. The doorman’s too easy to get past; I’ll have to talk to her about security. The lobby’s Mediterranean stone floors reflect the glittering chandelier, wealthy residents in designer clothes barely sparing me a glance.

They have no idea a predator walks among them, wearing civilized clothing like a costume.

In the elevator, I study my reflection in the mirrored walls. I look like them, in my custom suit and Italian leather shoes. But underneath, I’m still that boy in the basement, turning pain into power, weakness into weapon.

But I see what they don’t—the street fighter Giuseppe DeLuca carved out of his bastard second son through blood and pain.

The elevator opens onto Elena’s floor. The hallway stretches out in elegant cream and gold, plush carpeting muffling my steps. Her door is ridiculously easy to breach—Giuseppe’s lessons still serve their purpose, even if thinking about him makes me want to put my fist through a wall.

Inside, the faint smell of Chanel No. 5 assaults my senses. My mother’s signature scent, before she decided being Giuseppe DeLuca’s mistress wasn’t worth the consequences and abandoned her bastard son to his tender mercies.

The legitimate Mrs. DeLuca—Matteo’s precious mother—had made sure I never forgot my place. The whore’s son. The mistake. Right up until the day of her “tragic accident.”

Giuseppe and Matteo never figured out who had tampered with her brakes. They blamed another family, launching a war that reshaped New York’s underworld.

By the time Sophia appeared in our lives, the blood had barely dried.

The apartment is exactly what I expected from surveillance photos—vast and bright, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. Swedish furniture in cool grays and blues, original signed fashion photographs on the walls.

Very Elena—elegant but with hidden edges.

The Italian marble dining table catches my eye, specifically the bullet holes marring its surface. A souvenir from Johnny Calabrese’s failed attempt to use Elena as leverage.

Shame Bella got to him first—I would have made his death so much more creative.

I run my finger over the chips in Elena’s marble table, remembering how Matteo’s first wife had looked at me with the same contempt as his mother. Like mother, like daughter-in-law.

Both of them so certain of their position, their superiority.

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