Page 67 of Vicious Heir

The house suddenly looms over me, enormous and heavy, like it’s about to collapse on my head.

“When?” I whisper.

“Right after you left. They think it was his heart. Oh, Adriano, I’m sorry.”

She wraps her arms around me.

I let her hug me tight, but I can’t feel it.

I can’t feel anything.

The Don is dead.

My father is gone.

And now, long live the Don.

Chapter 23

Adriano

The sun is vicious on the day my father’s lowered into the ground.

Half the city is at the service. My hand hurts from shaking. My face aches from keeping it composed.

I haven’t cried. I doubt I ever will.

The numbness I felt when Lucy first told me still hasn’t gone away. I keep waiting for life to turn back on, but it hasn’t. There have been too many arrangements to make. Too many official documents to sign. Father left me everything: all the businesses, his bank accounts, his money. There’s so much to go through. I’m lucky the Famiglia has so many good lawyers.

“He was one of the best,” Donatella says. She’s in all black and looks dignified beside my father’s gravestone. The priest finished speaking a few minutes ago, and now they’re lowering him down into the hole.

“He was good to me,” I tell her. My voice sounds a mile away. “Even when he was sick, I kept thinking he wasn’t completelygone. Even though I’ve been doing his job for a while now, at least he was still there.”

“I know, honey, I know.” She squeezes my shoulder. “Your father loved you. He was proud of you too.”

“I know.”

“Good. Hold onto that then.” Her eyes move to the side. She squeezes my shoulder one more time and moves off.

I look over as Lucy comes toward me. Even here, in this place, she takes my breath away. She’s in a black dress, conservative and funeral-appropriate. Her eyes are red, and her cheeks are pink. When she leans against me, I feel a glimmer of something in my chest—a hint of life still locked in the cold, dead cavern of my heart.

I struggle to kill it.

“The service was nice,” she says quietly. “Do you think he would’ve liked it?”

“I’m sure he would’ve had some choice words.” I smile tightly. “My father was a hard man to please, but when he liked something, he always went overboard with his praise. I remember going out of my way to make him happy just to hear him go on and on about what a good job I did.”

“That’s actually kind of sweet.”

A dozen men in black suits linger nearby. I know each and every one of them by name. They’re the inner circle of the Marino Famiglia, the important Capos. Vittorio’s there with some of the younger men. Frank’s standing in the middle of a cloud of cigar smoke as the older generation remembers their lost Don. Marco moves between them, bridging the gap.

“They’re going to look to me now,” I say very quietly so only Lucy can hear.

She looks over at the group. “You’ve been doing the job for a while now, though. Not much will change.”

“I know, but when my father was alive, I wasn’t technically Don. Now, though, it’s like—I struggle to find the words. I feel both broken and relieved at the same time.”

She hugs me tighter. I hold her like that until my father’s casket hits the bottom of the grave. Then Frank comes over, looking grim and hard, chewing the end of his cigar.

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