We passed a strip club parallel to the airport’s landing strip, and the words “The Landing Strip” glowed from the neon sign.
“My club.” Angelo eyed my chest beneath the baggy weight of my oversized Blink 182 tee. “You’re welcome to visit if you’d like. I’m sure you would fit right in, darlin’.”
I ignored him, looking out the window as the driver cruised past rows of large Victorian-style homes. It seemed like time had touched nothing in Devils Ridge, and had it not been for the very twenty-first-century car we rode in, I’d have thought someone trapped us in the mid-1800s.
After the car passed a double set of looming iron gates and made its way down a tree-canopied driveway, Angelo passed something black, plastic, and rectangular to me.
I took it from his outstretched fingers, taking painstaking care not to touch him. “What’s this?”
“A pager.” A sneer curved his thin lips. “Signore Vitali said you’re to have no contact with a phone, and I’ll need a way to contact you.”
I pocketed the thing, amusement consuming me as he eyed my sweats with a curled upper lip. Only a fool looks at strength and sees weakness. Maman had first told me this when I missed the growth spurt all of my peers seemed to share at the same time. She was right.
By middle school, I reached my growth spurt and boasted cascading brown hair with natural waves, which bounced like Victoria’s Secret models’ when they strut down runways. My eyes boasted a shade of amber I liked to call evil, but Maman always referred to as rapturous. And eighth-grade boys referred to the slight Italian accent which adorned my voice as “exotic.”
I hated the attention. Hated the way it made girls scowl and boys stare. Hated the way my teachers thought differently of me. Hated the expectations looking and sounding like I did came with.
As soon as Maman let me, I started dying my hair a simple blonde, adopted a flawless General American accent, and found a pair of mousy, prescription-free glasses I occasionally wore. When I left junior boarding school and entered boarding school, I no longer had to build pretend friendships. People overlooked me, just like I had intended.
And now, sitting beside the head of the De Luca family, I knew he overlooked, too. Angelo’s leery gazes and rough touch were an intimidation tool. But in doing so, he’d laid his cards out for me to see. He thought I was weak. Too weak to earn anything more than brute intimidation tactics when subtlety would have worked better.
He was a fool, and I didn’t need other people to validate my strength. I’d get through this exile with my head on my shoulders by being overlooked and savvy. There was no other way.
The driver opened the door, shooting a gust of hot Texas wind at me. I took his offered hand, righted myself, and stepped as far away from Angelo as I could without being too obvious. I followed Angelo up a set of stone stairs to a giant Victorian manor that had probably been built somewhere around 1850, like most of the houses in Devils Ridge.
The white trim stood out amongst the near-black stones. When I entered through the double doors two butlers held open, I saw that the dark wood floors matched the gloomy exterior. The house looked cold, like despite its age, it hadn’t been lived in.
Angelo led me past a spiral staircase and into a hallway. He opened the second to last door but stayed at the doorway. “This is your room.” He stepped to the door across my new room and opened it. It led to an honest-to-God bathing pool, like the ones in public bathhouses. “This is the East wing bathroom. The house is pre-Victorian, and the plumbing reflects it. While it’s been renovated twice, once to reflect late Victorian-era homes of the time and more recently to introduce modern amenities, we couldn’t add more bathrooms without altering the historical integrity of the home.” He nearly growled at his own words.
Right. Because I was supposed to believe Angelo De Luca cared about ‘historical integrity.’ We stepped out of the bathroom, and he closed the door. I waited for him to say something else.
Instead, he leaned a hip against a wall, crossed his arms, and stared me down. “I don’t want you here. I don’t like your family thinking they run the five syndicates.” We did run the five syndicates. At least, it was our duty to police them. “And I certainly don’t like the idea of you spying on us. There’s nothing to see here. Nothing to report.”
I considered my options. I could lower my head and act meek. That was usually my go to, but I doubted it was the best option here. If I pushed over, Angelo would continue to stomp over me, and he didn’t seem to have that filter in him that made good decisions—like not laying a hand on me.
So, I tilted my head and chilled him with a condescending smirk. “That’s not why I’m here.” My strong, level voice held no inflection. “Remember your place, De Luca. Behind the Vitali. Behind the Romano. Behind the Andretti. Behind the Rossi. Behind the Camerino. What’s it like to stand firmly at the end of the five syndicates?"
He raised his finger and waved it at me. “Now you watch your mouth, you little slut.”
I looked down at my attire, my body language clearly uninterested and unfazed. “I don’t think slut means what you think it means, Angelo.”
He opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and closed it. When he opened it again, he was no less calm, but he had a satisfied smile on his face as he seethed, “You’ll share the bathroom with my son, Damiano, whose room is beside yours.”
Wait.
Angelo De Luca had a son?!
* * *
Whether it’s a friendship
or relationship, all bonds are
built on trust. Without it,
you have nothing.
Unknown
* * *
Like any sane person, I spent as little time as possible in Angelo’s mansion. It used to feel like mine, too, back when Mama was still alive. Nowadays, I spent more time at the local strip club than I did in my childhood home. Not that strippers were my thing. Networking with the people who worked there and those who enjoyed their services, however, was my thing.
Miriam stood in front of me, clad in cheap lingerie and too many bruises to count. I eyed them, cataloging each and every one of them before meeting her eyes. “He’s hitting you again, Mir.”
Miriam had become my dad’s consiglieri’s mistress around the same time my balls dropped. Angelo’s advisor beat his wife, so the eggplant-colored bruises lining Mir’s tanned skin didn't surprise me. Expecting this didn’t mean I accepted it. It pissed me the fuck off, but one day, I’d be in charge of the De Luca syndicate, and these problems wouldn’t exist.
“Don’t worry your handsome face about me, Damian. I’ll be fine.” She normally never spoke this freely, but the private room in The Landing Strip gave us some protection from Angelo’s goons, which I’d hoped would open her up.
“Why’d he hit you?”
Her head lowered, another punch to my gut. Battered women reminded me of my mother—and every time I stood by and watched her get trampled by my father and come back begging for more. Helpless to stop it.
I stepped forward, placed two fingers beneath Mir’s chin, and tilted her head up as gently as I could. In her glassy powder blue eyes, I examined my reflection. Neat gentleman’s cut. Dark eyes. Aquiline nose. Sharp classic Italian features. A hint of stubble I’d shave tomorrow.
My muscular six-two frame towered over her, too, so I worked to soften my expression as I spoke to her. “You can trust me, Mir. I’ll protect you.”
“Your father—”
“My father is a dinosaur. Have you seen the arms on a T-Rex? They can’t reach far. He can’t touch you, Mir. I won’t let him.”
She smiled and breathed out a short laugh. “You’d make a great boss for the De Luca syndicate, Damiano.”
That was the plan.
She shook her head, and fear widened her eyes. “I shouldn’t have said that.” She looked around. “I-I didn’t mean that. It’s so easy to forget what to say when you’re so nice.” Her eyes closed before opening again. “Angelo De
Luca is a wonderful boss. You won’t tell y-your dad I implied otherwise, r-right?”
“Mir, I’m not my father. You don’t need to watch your words. You don’t need to be scared. I don’t like seeing bruises on your skin. I don’t like the way your hands shake when you speak to me. None of this is right. Do you understand that?”
She nodded her head. “I don’t know what to do, Damian. I can’t run away. My whole family lives here. I can’t leave them!” Her father was a low ranking De Luca, but a loyal one who’d never leave De Luca territory. “I can’t do anything.”
Pressing her would do neither of us any good. So, I nodded my head and put a comfortable amount of distance between us. “If you need anything, you can come to me, Miriam.”
“Thank you. You’ve been a good friend.”
That was the point. Don’t get me wrong. I genuinely cared for Miriam, and her safety genuinely concerned me… but despite being low ranking, Mir’s dad had a wide network of friends in the De Luca syndicate. He’d be the perfect ally to help me dethrone my father.
Miriam patted my cheek and left. I stayed a few minutes in the room, ruffled my hair so it looked like I’d fallen out of bed, and scrunched my plain t-shirt in a few places to form wrinkles. One task down. Another to go.
Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out a Gurkha Black Dragon cigar, unrolled it, and pulled out the sheet of paper hidden in it. A twelve-hundred-dollar cigar ruined. Just like that. An unknown benefactor had been sending me cigars with hidden messages in them for the past year. Did I like being uninformed? Hell, no. But I wasn’t in the position to deny help.
This time, I read the message, my feelings more mixed than normal. Befriending Miriam to use her later felt dirty. Necessary, but dirty. Would it have felt less dirty if it hadn’t been a suggestion from The Benefactor? Probably. Either way, I couldn’t change these things, so I focused on my next task.
Unseat the consiglieri.
I rolled my eyes. Not as easy as it sounded, but hell, I’d try. Anything to get my dad off that throne and away from my people. People who deserved better than the best Angelo could give them, especially since he gave them the worst.
The keys to my matte black Range Rover clanged in my pockets as I left The Landing Strip, nodding my goodbyes to everyone as I walked out. Most of the De Luca members gathered here in between work, which made it the best place to network. Baby steps in my master plan.
By the time I reached my hallway, Angelo had left for dinner, just like I knew he would. Seeing him as little as possible helped maintain my sanity. Araceli walked down the hall with a pile of sheets in her hands, which was odd given the hour. The housekeeping staffed usually retired to their quarters by now.
I thought she’d step by me, but instead, she smiled, dipped her head in a polite bow, and eyed my body like she’d been doing for quite some time now. I arched a brow. “Yes?”
Her face flushed, and she looked around—probably searching for something sensible to say—before her eyes returned to mine, and she whispered, “Have you met the Vitali girl? I’ve never met a Vitali before. She’s kind of… frumpy?”
I paused at her words, my eyes narrowed and head tilted. “Vitali girl?” I racked my brain for any gossip of her I could remember, surprised by how easily it came to me.
Renata Vitali. Sixteen. Only child. Daughter of Margot Vitali and the head of the Vitali. Supposedly smart. Last photograph I saw of her was of her before she left for boarding school at age eight.
Araceli’s frown creased the skin between her brows, and she dropped the flirting. “You didn’t know she was coming?”
No, I hadn’t.
A powerful unknown entity had entered my territory, and I didn’t know. My jaw ticked. It was just like dad to keep something like this from me. I wanted to brush it off. I wanted to push this information aside and focus on dethroning my father… but something in my gut told me this changed everything.
* * *
Trust is earned when
actions meet words.
Chris Butler
* * *
Sometimes, you know when catastrophe is about to strike you. A screech of tires. Oxygen masks shooting at you from above your airplane seat. The numbness spreading across your face before a stroke.
There were no warning signs for me.
My heart was calm when Angelo De Luca turned the corner of the East Wing hallway, seconds after showing me what would be my room for however long Papà’s punishment for me lasted.
My heart was calm when, not a minute later, I darted to the room next to mine, and my fingers twisted the door handle without a moment’s hesitation.
My heart was calm as I eased my way into the bedroom. The one that belonged to the secret De Luca son. Damiano, his dad had called him, not an ounce of affection in his voice.
I should have known better.
In this world, there was only one reason to hide a child if you were a mafia boss for one of the Five Syndicates. The thought of learning firsthand what was wrong with Angelo De Luca’s secret son should have scared me.
But in the rare moments I’d seen my father, he had taught me that fear was weakness, and weakness was death. It wasn’t a quaint lesson, nor was it a father’s honorable attempts at keeping his daughter safe.
It was a warning.
Against him.
He was the threat in my life. Always would be. I’d been here less than an hour, but every second I spent in Devils Ridge, Texas reminded me of that.
Don’t be weak.
You’re a Vitali.
Vitalis don’t feel fear.
Christ, a whole continent away, and Papà’s voice still plagued my mind. Usually, he inspired anger. Today, determination darted from my head to my toes as I began my search for a cell phone or landline in Damiano De Luca’s room.
Like my room next door, this room felt un-lived in. Unlike my room, someone had been living in this one for longer than all of one point two seconds.
Telltale signs of neglect painted the room. Crisp, clean sheets—untouched for who knew how long. Aged air—stale with a fading hint of aftershave. A sole eighteenth-century dresser, coated with a fine layer of dust.
I should have considered what that meant. That even the maids hadn’t entered this room in some time. I didn’t. Maman deserved to know that I’d seen Papà pounding into his secretary before he sent me to Texas to live with the De Lucas—without a phone and beleaguered by explicit instructions never to be in contact with one, lest I be given an opportunity to tattle to Maman.
I wasn’t the type to listen, but people were like scampering rats when it came to my family. Or maybe they were cult followers—frail and obeisant, followers begging for a command, all too happy to hide the electronics from me. This meant searching for a damn phone in foreign territory proved nearly impossible.
It startled me how much control Papà had over people, even an ocean away. As the head of the Vitali family, Papà was il condottiero. The leader. In layman’s terms, if the syndicate territories across the world were states and their bosses governors, the Vitali family would be the federal government. And Papà? He’d be president.
Still, he may have made the rules for the mafia underworld, but I made my own rules. Those included doing all I could to defy his. Like finding a phone. I scoured the room, optically tracing every inch.
My heart was calm as failure met my eyes. There was a neat stack of laundry on the desk, a journal that peeked out from beneath the pillow-top mattress, and a box with north of twenty-three grand worth of Gurkha Black Dragon cigars tucked away in a built-in humidor beside the Alaskan king-sized bed. But no phone.
Murmurs sounded from the hallway, and still, my heart was calm as I searched the room for a hiding place. Locked closet. Bathroom across the hall. Curtains tied so tightly together, even my thin waist couldn’t hide behind them. Four-poster bed with a bottom blocked off by 18th century wood.
Silly, naive Renata Vitali.
Would I ev
er learn to plan for the worst?
Yet, my heart was calm when the handle to the bedroom door twisted, and I realized there was nowhere to hide.
My heart was calm as I perched myself in the center of the bed, looking as ready for my first encounter with Damiano De Luca as I could in old designer sweats stitched for rebellion and a samurai bun that weathered the eight-hour private flight from Italy to Texas.
My heart was calm as I accepted the inevitability of discovery with grace.
My heart was calm.
My heart was calm.
My heart was calm.
Until I saw him for the first time, and it wasn’t.
* * *
Trust is like an eraser.
It gets smaller and smaller
after every mistake.
Unknown
* * *
I prepared myself to meet the Vitali girl, but I didn’t prepare to meet her in my room. My eyes landed on hers the instant I swung the door open. Surprise journeyed through my body, but I tamped it down and studied her laying on my bed.
Shock flexed her fingers and widened her eyes, which told me all I needed to know. She’d never seen me before. Never even heard of me. This was confirmation that I was the De Luca syndicate’s best kept secret. If a Vitali hadn’t heard of me, no one had.
Renata’s lips parted, and the urge to slip my thumb between them and stroke her tongue had my fingers itching. This. This reaction to her was the opposite of what I needed. Not now, when everything in my plan was starting to come together.
This made no sense. Her dark roots stained the edges of her shitty blonde dye job, she wore designer sweats like she starred in one of those rich housewives shows, and she’d piled her hair up in a lopsided ball on top of her head.