Page 4 of His Dark Vendetta

I sat on my father’s lap. His arms wrapped around me. I held his thick thumb in one of my little hands. The other held onto Gina standing to my right. I had a big gap-toothed grin on my face; I’d lost my first front tooth days before. Papà told me that if I smiled nice for our family picture, he’d take me to Mike’s Pastry for cannoli. Marco stood behind and to the left of my father, resting his hand on my father’s shoulder. Nonno e Nonna stood behind them.

The DeVitas. Complete with two Morettis. Our family.

My throat constricted, and rage clawed its way up from my chest to blaze through my eyes. I gritted my teeth, trying to cage my emotion, but the loss was too profound.

Mamma Gina squeezed my arm. “Come on, Luca. Let’s get you to bed.”

Marco’s hand on my father’s shoulder filled my vision and swelled my anger. It was bad enough I’d lost my father to Pádraig Shaughnessy, but to lose my foster father to a rat?

Siobhán Connelly—SiobhánShaughnessy—had destroyed my relationship with Marco. She’d broken our bond with her scheming.

I’d known she was a liar, leading me on with that fake fucking accent. Irish, my ass. But a fottuto Shaughnessy? A maledetto rat? She’d lied to me and my family for the last time.

My vendetta wouldn’t be complete until both crimes were avenged. Lucky for me, there was one Shaughnessy whose life would pay full price.

ChapterTwo

Siobhán

Boston, Massachusetts, April 2024

The scene played out like a meet-cute from one of those feel-good, made-for-TV movies. You know the ones. The ones your mam used to watch on Sunday afternoons. The ones that made you roll your eyes while you secretly dreamed it would happen to you. The ones with the happy endings.

Eyes catch across the room. Time stops. Everything in the shot fades to background. Everything except the leading couple. Their stunned faces remain crystal clear while the rest of the world goes about its out-of-focus business, oblivious to the two souls destined to find love at the end of ninety minutes.

March 20, 2022. The first day of spring. Pretty messed up I remembered the exact date we first laid eyes on each other. We exchanged one look, stolen across the Terme di Boston lobby, but that one look changed everything. The proof? Two years later and Luca Moretti still held me captive every time he smiled at me, his sleepy eyes and pouty lips a Technicolor version of Marlon Brando inA Streetcar Named Desire. But now I’ll never see his handsome face again or get the chance to change our movie’s finale.

Our relationship unfolded per the script at the beginning. But we never recovered from our “dark moment,” and the rest of the tale played out the opposite of happy. A Moretti and Shaughnessy? Might as well have been a Montague and Capulet. I’m not sure I’d go so far as to call our story tragic, but some days my heart ached like the ending had been that cruel.

I cleared the lump in my throat and put on my game face. I didn’t need to drag Anna into my melancholy, especially given the news I planned to drop. But brooding was par for the course over the past month; nostalgia claimed my mood with the simplest, most innocuous trigger.

Today’s bout hit as soon as I walked through the copper-clad doors of the spa. It had been my refuge for the past two years since moving back to the States and working at Terme di Boston. I’d hoped the soothing atmosphere would make the conversation with Anna easier to stomach. Instead, I got a trip down memory lane.

My first few months back in Boston had brimmed with promise, not just for my career but for the budding, screen-worthy romance. I should’ve known better; fate was never that kind.

“Are you glad to be back?” Not the question I wanted to ask, but the one that came out of my mouth. I wanted to ask about Luca. I needed to know he’d met with a quick and painless end.

Anna soaked in the mineral bath next to mine and rolled her head along its stone lip to face me. “I am.” Her shy smile was a soothing balm to my preoccupied mind. I’d missed the little goose and her nervous glances and fidgety hands. “We hadn’t planned on staying that long, but after everything…”

“Tell me about it. I took a few days off myself.” It hadn’t been enough. Not by a long shot. My defective stomach ached with the stress of it all. More than usual. In the two weeks after Vesuvio, I barely ate.

“Marco had to deal with Terme di Roma and Terme di Sicilia.” Her eyes followed her hands swirling through the mineral water. “Angelo is going to manage the Italian properties for now.” She tentatively lifted her gaze to meet mine. The poor thing looked as sick as I felt.

I sipped my martini. The vodka took the edge off my nerves and abdominal pain, but I couldn’t exactly waltz through life drinking martinis to settle my stomach. I needed more than a few days of vacation. I needed to get away from Terme di Boston and the DeVitas. Permanently.

But I had responsibilities, and I wasn’t about to leave Marco high and dry while he did damage control in Italy. I was the strong one. Always. Even if it made me sick. Even if I couldn’t remember the last time I smiled. Probably sometime before the night at Vesuvio when Luca fucked things up beyond repair by trying to start a war between our families and nearly killing Anna in the process. So I forced a fake smile onto my face and powered through.

“It’s okay, Anna. You don’t have to pretend like he never existed. I’m a big girl. I can handle that he’s gone. Besides, it’s not like we were together. It’s not like we were ever going to be. We hated each other, remember?” I leveled her with a knowing look. “Not to mention, I don’t get involved with those types of men.”

She narrowed her eyes, an unspoken challenge.

I waved a hand through the air, brushing away her knowledge of my unwanted feelings. “You got lucky with Marco. He adores you. That man wouldn’t look at another woman even with a gun to his head.” I shook my head. “They’re not all like that, girl. Marco’s a unicorn.”

Lately, I had to remind myself that it hadn’t always been sunshine and roses between me and Luca. Far from it. He’d been a complete asshole for an entire year, ever since The Incident. Then again, I hadn’t been very nice either. He’d hurt me, and I’d lashed out with snide comments and death stares at every opportunity.

I was pissed at myself for ever trusting him. You don’t grow up in a mob family and not know better than to trust men like Luca. They were all cut from the same lying, cheating cloth. But I’d let my guard down, suckered by his charm and the way he smiled just for me. And I paid for that lapse in judgment with a broken heart and a friend turned bitter enemy.

Even after The Incident, even after that night at Vesuvio, a part of me that I hated remained fixed on all the wrong things, holding onto a hope that someday we’d get a second chance. It was a sickness, really. It was time I took off my rose-colored glasses and focused on the truth—Luca Moretti and Siobhán Connelly had never been destined for a happy ending. Not that it mattered; the Mafia didn’t leave loose ends. Luca was gone, dead, and we’d never get another chance.

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