Page 9 of Luciano

That was gone the second Vito called.

Control?

I’d never had it to begin with.

Revenge?

I didn’t know

In the end, I took a breath.

And I took his hand.

Chapter 5

Ava

I didn’t even know Vito had a son until the year after he murdered my mother. I met him one afternoon when I got home from school.

Vito was in rare form, grinning like I’d never seen before, proud as he introduced his boy—Luciano. He was beautiful in that cold, dangerous way. All sharp lines and quiet intensity. Green eyes that didn’t blink much.

He didn’t say a word. Just nodded once, like that was enough. There were bloodstains on his sleeves—not the smeared kind from a fight, but streaks, like he’d wiped his hands clean and kept going.

I’d seen violent men before. But it didn’t look natural on him. There was something different in his eyes. Something detached.

That made me curious—about him, about the blood on his sleeve, about where he’d been, about why he looked like he needed a hug.

And when his eyes locked on mine, he didn’t just look at me. He was dissecting me. And I let him.

His mouth twitched into some version of a smirk that made the hair on my arms rise.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Vito shift. His posture stiffened.

Then his hand clamped down on Luciano’s arm, too tight to becasual.

“Come on,” he said low.

Luciano didn’t argue. He let himself be pulled away.

But his eyes stayed on me until the hallway swallowed them whole.

Later, I pieced together what I know now from the housekeeper and some of Vito’s staff. Apparently, Luciano and his mother had been kidnapped by a rival family after Vito killed their boss’s son. They locked Luciano and his mother in a room for days, forcing Luciano to watch as they did unspeakable things to his mother. Eventually, her body gave out. When they were done, they dumped Luciano at Vito’s doorstep.

He was never the same after that. He was "touched," as the chef put it. They sent him to his grandmother in Sicily to "fix" him, but you can’t fix what’s already broken. Ten years later, after his exile, Vito brought him back to groom him to be his successor.

After that day, Luciano and I existed in the same spaces, passed each other in the hallways of the house, breathed the same air in a world thick with violence, whispered secrets, and dirty money. But we never talked or touched.

Not until Tommy Dorn’s nose met my fist.

That day stayed with me for years, stitched into my skin like a tattoo.

Tommy was the kind of boy who thought the world was his for the taking. St. Augustine’s was full of them—spoiled, rich, untouchable. Vito said he had sent me there hoping it would refine me. That was ironic.

Vito didn’t care about refinement.

He cared about my silence. The campus locked down most of the school day. Filled with students who hated me for being differentand a strict routine that kept me under his thumb. After school, I was in his home, where he could watch me.

Tommy was a bully who paid way too much attention to the way my uniform skirt clung to my hips. My mother’s curves had settled beautifully into my frame. And Tommy noticed.

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