Page 79 of His Dark Vendetta

“It’s not just my mam. Or the food. It’s—” I waved a hand through the air. “It’s all the stuff underneath that gets me riled up.”

“I get that,” he said dryly.

The corner of my mouth lifted. If anyone understood layers of trauma, it was Luca. I tilted my glass and traced the rim of its base on the marble, swirling the wine inside as though the words I needed might materialize in its legs.

I knew why I stayed in Ireland so long, why I wanted to quit Terme and run away. Why I put on a strong front and made sure everyone knew I had my shit together and could take care of myself. But speaking that truth, sharing that part of myself with another person made it real, made me vulnerable. It’s why I never said it out loud before.

“I don’t feel safe,” I said quietly into my glass and raised my eyes.

Luca’s pouty lips pressed into a tight line of displeasure.

The water reached its boiling point. The ripples stole his attention, and he resumed dinner prep. Without those devastating eyes focused on me, my truth bubbled over. Apparently, I’d reached my boiling point as well.

“I haven’t felt safe since the shooting. But the men who shot me weren’t the only ones responsible. My family and the men in my life did the rest of the damage.”

He shot a glance over his shoulder, hostile and protective, then tossed the diced shallots into the saucepan. They sizzled in the hot oil.

“Life went on. No one thought to treat my trauma. Mam wanted to pretend like nothing happened. Talking about it meant admitting her family was the cause. So she went about her business as if nothing had changed. Kept cooking the meals she’d always cooked, refusing to acknowledge I couldn’t eat half the things she prepared. Eating was a nightmare, but the actual nightmares were worse.”

Luca’s penetrating stare drew my eyes up from my wine. His burned with understanding, an empathy that only came from shared experience. I didn’t know his demons, but I knew what it was like for them to keep you up at night.

“I lost all sense of safety, inside my house and out. If I ate the wrong thing, I was miserable for hours, sometimes days. I became scared of food. If I left my house, who knew what might happen. Southie felt like a warzone. Walking to school meant risking my life. I was terrified to leave my house. And no one cared. The only person I trusted after that was myself. So I left.”

“You might as well not have had a family,” he said with a bitter edge and took the pot off the stove.

He poured the boiling water and noodles into the colander. A mushroom cloud of steam erupted from the sink. On the stove, the sauce simmered and grew fragrant. My defective stomach rumbled with hunger.

“Why did you come back?” he asked. “After all that time.”

I shrugged. “Mam’s hip surgery. Da’s dementia. Someone had to take care of them.”

His forehead scrunched, and with a disapproving shake of his head, he added the pasta to the pan.

A wry smile captured my lips. “Italians don’t have the corner on macho, alpha-male attitudes, you know.”

He snorted and turned the noodles over in the sauce.

“Rory—my brother—he wasn’t about to take responsibility. God forbid anyone ask the prince to help out around the house. And Ciarán…” I sighed. “In all the years I lived in Ireland, Ciarán was the only person who visited. But he wasn’t going to take care of my parents. He’s the boss, and a boss shouldn’t have to worry about things like that. He offered to hire someone, but…” I shook my head. “I couldn’t do that to them.”

“So you came back.”

“So I came back. And unknowingly landed a job with an Italian Mafia don.”

He snorted and placed steaming plates of lobster carbonara on the island. “He wasn’t a don when you started working for him.”

I shoved my nose into the steam, closed my eyes, and breathed in the savory aroma. “This smells amazing.”

“I know,” he said atop the rattle of the utensil drawer.

I huffed. “I mean, I didn’t know he was connected at all, not until you took me upstairs at Vesuvio. It took me a few days to piece together your names with what I heard growing up. The next week, Marco called me into his office and told me that whatever conclusions I’d drawn, I should forget them. That he wasn’t involved, and he kept his distance.”

He placed cloth napkins and utensils next to our plates.

“He also reminded me of the NDA I signed when I started,” I added dryly.

Luca chuckled. “Him and those NDAs…” He sat next to me and lifted his glass. “Buon appetito.”

I clinked my glass against his. We drank and dove into our meals.

---