Page 51 of Sinful Mafia Prince

“Of course we will be. Don’t worry. Everything will be okay, and we’ll be going home soon.”

He hated lying but knew it was for the best. This was the moment his father had always talked to him about, becoming a Rossetti male. He would take on this burden for her now, until it was time to tell her that their mamma and baby Giuliana would never be coming home again.

THE SOUND OF water lapping at the edge of the boat was all Dom could hear as he stared out at the sailboats up ahead.

He felt numb, completely devoid of any emotion, as he tried to process a memory that he’d buried deep for over two decades.

“Dom…”

His name in that soft voice made him shake his head and fight off the feelings now threatening to crash in.

“Dom.” Luca placed his hand on Dom’s leg.

Dom slapped it away. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” Luca asked. “Touch you?”

“Feel sorry for me. Pity me.”

“I…I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to stop that. What you went through—what your family went through—was horrific.”

Dom whirled on him, grabbing Luca’s arm and hauling him in close. “And your father caused it.”

“No.” Luca shook his head. “My sperm donor, maybe, but you know that monster isn’t my father. I would never do what they did. Take a mother, take an innocent baby from their family like that. I’mnothinglike them.”

Dom felt his temple pounding as he stared into Luca’s earnest eyes and felt the overwhelming grief bubble up inside him.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you. It must’ve been an incredibly difficult and painful time for you all.”

“It’sstillincredibly painful and difficult. It never stops.”

“I can’t imagine.”

“No, you can’t.” Dom tightened his fingers around Luca’s wrist, and that perfect face began to blur. Shit, now he was crying.“I watched the strongest man I know crumble and fall that day. I watched him be brought to his knees by a piece of shit Fiore who was scared of someone smarter and more sophisticated moving into his town. But he took it too far. He went after the one thing every family knew was off-limits—the innocents—and for that he was given a death sentence.”

Luca nodded. “That I can understand.”

“Can you?” Dom released him with a light shove. “Can you truly understand the soul-destroying vengeance that takes hold of a man when his wife and child are blown to smithereens right before his very eyes?”

Dom turned back to Luca. “You willneverunderstand that pain, that drive, but that’s why we’re all here. Why we’re in this fucked-up predicament we now find ourselves in. Fiore took our family that day, he destroyed it, then he sent you away as a safety option in case my father decided to retaliate.”

Luca blinked, the wheels turning behind those intelligent eyes. “But that wasn’t the plan?”

“No. My father was smarter than that, and we were more determined than ever to avenge my mother and sister. He wasn’t going to retaliate until he was ready. Until he knew we could win.”

“And that time is now.”

“It was, until you showed up.”

As Dom’s words landed between them like the bomb that had first set off this war, the two of them fell silent. The implications of everything that had just been revealed were alarming and horrifying.

Dom was a Rossetti and Luca was a Fiore, and nothing—not time, not a place, not a different fucking name on a passport—would ever change that.

CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE

AFTER ARRIVING BACK at the villa later that evening, Dom headed straight for the shower. He’d said too much today, practically cutting himself open and bleeding out in front of Luca, and he needed to scrub off any of the feelings that had caught.

Why had he brought up the past? He’d never actually told anyone that story before, but Luca and all his fucking questions… God, it was infuriating the way he was able to get under Dom’s skin. He just wouldn’t take no for an answer.

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