by Haley Stuart
I motion for him to take a seat and go back to studying the plans.
“I assume you’re here to convince me to let you join me again,” I say, not even bothering to look at him.
He lets out a deep breath. “Luca, you’ve already exposed me to everything possible. I don’t see why you’re trying to make me settle down now of all times.”
“Because your sister is home and safe and she wants you to have nothing to do with this.”
“She’s my sister, not my mother. Which I don’t have anymore, thanks to—”
Before he can finish his sentence, I slam the prints on the table and look at him, letting all the anger I am feeling flourish.
“You’re right. It is thanks to me that conniving bitch is dead. And I would gladly do it again if I had the chance. But it is also thanks to me that you are alive. And as long as Elise wishes it, you will stay out of the business. Understand?” I glare down at him.
He nods slowly with wide eyes.
“If that’s all, you can go now.” I slowly take my seat. He stands to slowly leave my office. “If you want to do something, get stronger for your sister so you can help protect her if a problem arises.”
Matteo stops and turns to look at me.
“Then why won’t you at least let me train with you? Please, Luca, you don’t even have to take me with you when you go do business. Just train me, and when I turn eighteen, let me make that decision for myself.”
I study him for a moment. He has come a long way from who he used to be. He has matured. And he is in bloodlust. I can see it in his eyes. He wants conflict. He wants bloodshed.
“Let me ask you a question, Matteo. Do you know the difference between family and business?”
He looks at me in confusion and chooses not to answer.
“There is no difference. The family is the business. You do what you must to protect your family, which is the business. You should go and check on the only family that you have left. Go talk to her. My answer will stay the same until hers changes. You are not my blood to control. You are hers.”
I go back to studying the blueprints, ending the discussion. And Matteo knows it too, because he leaves my office without another word.
By the time I finish with the blueprints, my phone rings just as I set them aside.
“Yeah.”
“Sixteen.”
“What?”
“There are sixteen agents total. Eighteen if you count the two that run it.”
For the first time in a long time, some good news is coming out of this.
“The two that run it are hardly at the office. There are eight there at a time, and eight out on cases. It will be easy to infiltrate, but getting the rest of them once the job is done is going to be the problem.”
I sit back in my seat and think long and hard about the plan that is now developing in my head.
“We’re going to infiltrate it.”
“We?”
“You, me, and Nicolai. Once we get in, we need to tell the others the current location of each of the agents. Send them in twos to take them out. And we will go to finish off the leaders.” I am saying it as if it were easy, but I know once we put the plan in motion, it is going to be a bitch to execute. Not only that, but planning for this will take a while, and time is a luxury I currently don’t have since Elise is going to have the baby in less than a month.
Romelo and I have stayed on the phone, discussing the plan, for another hour and a half when Elise steps in my office. She is wearing a long dress that hugs her body but grows loose at the bottom, showing off her lovely figure. She gives me a small smile and takes a seat at one of the chairs in front of me.
“Something just came up. I’ll call you back later, okay?” I hang up the phone before he can respond, and I stare at Elise. After a moment, a blush crawls its way up her neck, and she looks away sheepishly.
“You didn’t have to get off the phone,” she all but mumbles.
I can’t help the laugh that escapes my lips. She is so adorable. “For you, yes, I did.”
She finally looks back up at me, a small smile pulling at her lips.
“How are you feeling?” I ask. It is a routine thing I do every time I see her. Her health mentally and physically is very important to me.
“I’m fine.”
My smile drops from my face as I pick up her patterns of movement. She is avoiding my gaze. There must be something she wants to say to me.
“Elise, if there’s something you need to say, say it.”
She seems to realize what she is doing and finally looks at me.
“Did you let Matteo tag along when I was missing?”
I let out an annoyed breath, leaning back in my chair. You’ve got to be kidding me. The punk has gone and snitched on me to his sister?
“Did he say something to you?” I ask, trying not to let anything on.
“No, it’s just that … he’s different now. He’s quiet, and he won’t talk to me, barely. And he has this … look in his eyes. Like he’s seen something he shouldn’t have.”
I cock my head to the side, trying to convince her that I don’t understand what she is talking about. But I know exactly what she sees. And now I am faced with the choice of lying to her or telling her the truth.
I’ve never had a problem in the past with lying to her, but now, for some reason, it is literally tearing me apart, even the thought of telling her anything but the truth.
“Damn,” I mumble aloud. And I know she hears me, because she sits back in her seat with wide eyes and looks as though she is about to cry.
“Luca, you didn’t …,” she whispers. And it breaks my heart.
“I just couldn’t leave him alone. He was a nervous wreck! And he wanted to help in finding you!” I sound like an eight-year-old trying to defend myself.
She throws her hands in the air. “God, Luca, you could have just let him tag along, not let him participate in the killing! I asked you to keep him away from this, and you promised me you wouldn’t get him involved. You promised!” Tears are spilling over, and she is looking at me with such disappointment. She drops her face in her hands.
“Elise—”
“Just don’t!” Her tears stop immediately, and she looks at me in anger. I am actually shocked at her. She growls aloud and stands, forcing her chair to scrape loudly against the floor.
“I trusted you!”
I open my mouth to say something else, but she interrupts me yet again.
“No! You lied to me, you—”
“Elise!” I shout.
She immediately shuts up, and that damn bottom lip begins to tremble before she takes off running out of the room. Damn. I have never felt so guilty before.
After I finish everything, I head to our room, but she isn’t in there.
I find Elise later in the living room, watching TV. Her legs are propped up on the ottoman, and there are the strangest food combinations around her. Peanut butter, pickles, mustard, bread, chocolate syrup, chips, baked chicken from the other night. And in her hands currently is ice cream. Which she is mixing with salt.
I step into the room silently, and as I get closer, I see she is crying. But when I look at the TV, The Smurfs is playing in French.
“Elise …”
She jumps but doesn’t acknowledge my presence. I let out a deep breath, trying very hard to fight the urges that are currently building up within me. I take a seat next to her, and she fidgets away from me. After a moment of silence and taking in The Smurfs, I look at her.
“Elise, do you even know what they’re saying?”
She doesn’t even spare me a glance. “Oui.” She turns her head and looks at me with an angry glare. “Vous pouves aller loin maintenant menteur.” You can go away now, liar.
I have to hide my shock. I have no idea she can speak French. Then I have to rein in my anger because of her choice of words.
“Look, Elise, I’m sorry, okay? But your being gone was a dark time for me, a
nd I wasn’t thinking straight. He said he wanted to help and he wanted vengeance, so I gave it to him. I know how I felt when I was his age, so who am I to deny him that?”
She still doesn’t look at me. She reaches out and grabs the jar of peanut butter, dipping a pickle in it and shoving it in her mouth without even flinching. I turn my nose up in disgust. I guess it is the pregnancy hormones. I’ve read something about cravings in a pamphlet.
“Elise, can you please come to bed?”
She still doesn’t respond to me, and my irritation is boiling up, about to spill over. She grabs a piece of chicken and is bringing it to her mouth, but I stop her, looking into her eyes.
“Elise, I am sorry. Please come to bed.”
She slowly brings the chicken down and stands from the couch, not responding to me, and heads toward the bedroom. Once she is out of the room, I pull out my knife and throw it at the wall, listening to the satisfying thud as it sticks. I have to rid myself of this anger somehow. Elise is playing with fire, and she doesn’t even realize it.
I take a deep breath and stand up to go to our bedroom.
It is the middle of the night when an earsplitting scream wakes me from my slumber. My eyes fly open, and I jump up, only to be punched in the nose, hard. I immediately reach for my gun and search for the threat when I realize it is Elise. She is still screaming and flailing her arms like a crazy person. I grab each of her wrists, trying to calm her.
“Elise! Elise, wake up! Wake up, baby, it’s just a dream!”
Tears are running freely down her face, and even though her eyes flutter open, she is frantically looking around, as if I were not here.
“Elise!” I shout, but it is no use. Her screams only grow louder, and her movements more frantic. Even her legs are joining the party. Her breathing has become frantic pants, and she won’t listen to me, so I slap her across the face. Her screams stop, but her breathing is still frantic as she looks at me with wide eyes.
“Elise, I’m here. I’m right here.” I try to comfort her.
She reaches out and touches my face, her hands moving down to my torso. I can feel myself immediately getting aroused but try to push that aside because Elise needs comfort right now.
“Hey, hey, I’m right here, baby. I’m right here.”
Her eyes are still wide, and she nods frantically. I slowly pull her into me, and she sobs into my chest.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I can feel her head shaking no in my chest.
Dammit, if Alexander weren’t already dead, I’ll kill him. I can’t imagine the torture Elise has gone through for her nightmares to have lasted this long. And her fears. She is still whimpering in my arms, and we both lie back in the bed, the light from the moon illuminating us.
I slowly push out of bed, and Elise cries out, grabbing onto me frantically.
“I’m just going to shut the curtains, okay?”
She nods slowly, and I walk over to the windows, closing the curtains and engulfing the room in darkness. I make my way back over to the bed and pull Elise close to me.
“Do you like it out here?” I try to start any kind of conversation so she can focus on something other than her fear.
“Y-yes.” Her voice is shaken and very light.
“Well, you haven’t been around much. How do you know if you like it?”
“As long as I’m with you, I’ll like it.” Her voice is still a small whisper.
I let out a soft chuckle. We have really come a long way from when we’ve first gotten married. There once has been a point when she can’t stand being in the same room as me. You would have never guessed a time like that has existed with the way she is now.
“Luca?” Her voice pulls me out of my thoughts.
“Hmmm?”
“Does Luciano have to be sworn in?”
The room is deadly silent.
I don’t know how to respond to her in the state that she is in.
“Yes.”
“But why?” she responds almost immediately.
I let out a deep breath. “He has to be, Elise. He’s a Pasquino.”
“But I don’t want him to be,” she all but whispers.
“There is nothing I can do about that, Elise, you know that. You know how things work with us.”
Her sob pulls at my heartstrings.
“You’re going to take my baby and train him to be a monster.” She sobs into my chest.
I decide not to respond. Even if she isn’t in the state that she is in, we both know that one day we will have to have an heir. If it is a boy, he is sworn in by blood. He is born into it. If it is a girl, she will be married off to someone of status, or since I am the capo, another capo, giving us more status. That is how we keep the crime families strong. That is how things always will be.
I can’t help it that Elise will see him as a monster. I will see him as a successor, just like my father, and his father. To train him to be strong and fearless is to groom him to be capo when it is time for me to retire. I’ve become capo at a very young age because my father has been murdered. But I am ready, because my father has made sure I am. And I will do the same with Luciano. It doesn’t mean I don’t love him; I am doing it because I love him. And Elise doesn’t understand that.
Her cries pull at my heartstrings. She sounds so sad and broken. But nothing I can say will be of any comfort, so I just let her cry on me until exhaustion takes over. She rolls away from me on her side, and I hear her mumble.
“You took my father, my mother, and my brother away from me, and now you’re going to take my son.”
* * * * *
“I like the yellow.” Elise points to a yellow quilt that is made of a very soft material. I point to it, and the employees grab it off the shelf and take it to the front. I have decided to take Elise shopping for the nursery today. She has been down lately and needs something to take her mind off things.
After her meltdown, she gives Matteo her permission to resume his work with me. She knows he isn’t happy being normal. She says she does what is best for him, what will make him happy, but I can see her heart breaking the moment she tells him the news. So I keep him on small things and haven’t let him in on our plans. He may be her brother, but he needs all kinds of training before he goes with us into the actual field.
So here I am in the nearest town, taking my wife shopping for the nursery. Matteo is even here with us, helping pick out some things for his nephew. If you watch us from far away, we look like a happy little family excited about a new arrival. But up close, we are a family of issues.
“What do you think, Luca?” Elise asks me, catching me completely off guard.
“I’m sorry, what?”
She rolls her eyes at me, showing her irritation at my not paying attention. “I said, which do you prefer? Baby blue or navy blue?”
Shit. I am not even paying attention to what she is saying, so I have no idea what she is talking about.
“Baby blue,” I say.
She watches me before finally turning away. As we walk to the next aisle, she starts talking to me.
“Luca, can you at least pretend to pay attention?”
I try, I really do, but I get distracted from the way those jeans are hugging her ass. She’s been wearing a lot of dresses lately, and today she is wearing “pregnancy pants,” so I can see every luscious curve.
“Luca!” she shouts, and I look at her, startled. Tears well up in her eyes. “You don’t even care.”
If she weren’t so upset right now, I might’ve laughed. Lately, Elise has been crying about every little thing. The other day, there is a dog food commercial on, and she is literally crying while it is on. Just a random stream of tears when she sees the food.
Not only that, but she grows very angry over the strangest things. She is watching some soap opera, and the doctor ends up kissing his patient, and she throws popcorn at the TV, shouting all kinds of obscenities. She has been a very interesting person to be around, quite honestly, and I w
onder how much of that is going to change once Luciano gets here.
Sometimes I catch her talking to him and apologizing about how she can’t save him or how she won’t be able to raise him. It really hurts me to see her so vulnerable. Not only that, but we have had two false alarms in the past three weeks. So I am literally on edge with everything. I have to execute this plan this week, or I will be screwed.
Once news hits that I have a boy, they will be all over us and we won’t stand a chance. There are just a few setbacks with the plan. If I am out of the country and Elise has the baby, I won’t be here. There are so many different things against me right now, but I need to get this done before he gets here so that while I raise him, there is no chance of him getting carelessly hurt.
Right on cue, my phone rings, and I look at the caller ID. Sure enough, Romelo is calling me. I give Elise an apologetic smile and step away from her to answer the phone.
“Yeah.”
“It’s now or never.”
“What?”
“It’s now or never, boss. When’s the soonest you can leave?” he asks.
I look over at Elise, and she is now looking at cribs. “The soonest I can leave would be tonight.”
“You gotta leave sooner than that. How long’s the flight?” he asks.
“Fuck. It’ll take me four hours to get to the nearest airport. And on top of that, the flight will take about nine hours.”
“Damn, when you said go into hiding, you weren’t bluffing. You need to leave now, or we won’t be able to pull this off.”
“Yeah, I got that. Just let me get Elise and Matteo home, and I’ll be heading out as soon as I could.”
“Okay, boss. Hurry.”
I hang up the phone, walking toward Elise. I hate to do what I am about to do to her, but this is for her safety. I touch her lightly on her back, so as not to startle her.
“Elise, baby, we got to go.”
She notices the look in my eyes and nods, not even bothering to argue with me. I look for Matteo and motion for him to come on. The drive to get home is an hour. Once I get there, I immediately begin putting the cottage in lockdown.
I’ve already explained everything to Matteo, so he begins to gather the necessary items and heads down to the bunker I have underground.