Chapter 609: I Was Just Her Son
"To her, I was just her son. She didn’t understand why a ten-year-old needed to know how to take a beating properly. Why pain was treated like a lesson instead of something you protected your child from." His eyes dropped. "I watched it kill her every day. She couldn’t take it anymore." Luca drew in a slow breath.
"So during a famiglia meeting, she begged publicly to leave with me. She wanted to take me and Marco away from all of it." He leaned back slightly against the sofa. "I was Don’s son, but that didn’t automatically mean I had any future leading the famiglia. Not yet. But Don was always impressed with me. Even then."
His mouth twisted. "So Mum saw it coming. She saw exactly what was going to happen if she stayed. Eventually I would grow into someone capable of taking over. And she wanted me out before that happened. She thought she could leave."
There was bleakness in the way Luca said it.
"She thought being the woman Don loved would make her different. But she didn’t understand that nobody was exempt from the rules of the famiglia. The famiglia called for her death. Especially with Vittorria fanning the flames. She knew too much. She had seen too much. And the first step to treachery was asking to leave."
"Don ordered her death. And he was supposed to kill her himself," Luca said. "His own woman." He gave a bitter little smile. "Imagine killing the one woman you ever loved. But it didn’t matter. Because he was Don first. So I stepped forward and promised my entire life to the famiglia." Luca looked away for a moment, remembering a room full of men who had seemed impossibly old and powerful to a ten-year-old boy, all watching him decide the shape of the rest of his life.
"My every breath, my blood, everything would belong to the famiglia." His mouth curved faintly. "Everyone loved me anyway. Some of them were already calling me the future Don." He gave a quiet chuckle. "I was... let’s just say, brutal."
"That surprises absolutely no one."
He looked up at her.
Vee’s mouth twitched. "What? You expect me to believe you were some sweet little boy picking flowers?"
"I could have picked flowers. Probably ended up stabbing someone with the stems." Luca laughed and turned serious again. "Mum didn’t know the details of what I offered. She only knew that I had done something for the famiglia to change its mind. I guess Marco told her years later."
His fingers moved absently along her waist. "Anyways, they accepted the trade. They let Mum go. She moved to Singapore, and she asked Marco to stay with me."
That made sense now. So much of Carol’s love for Marco had always seemed deeper than affection. Marco had not simply been around Luca growing up. Carol had placed him there, trusted him there to protect her son and in doing so, Carol owed Marco.
"She asked him to look after you," Vee said.
Luca nodded. "And he did."
Marco had stayed through everything.
But Luca became the man his mother had tried to prevent him from becoming.
"So years later, when I tracked Mum down and she found out I was leading the New York outfit..." Luca shook his head. "She almost disowned me."
Carol discovering that the son she had nearly died trying to save from the mafia had grown up and voluntarily planted himself right back in the centre of it.
"I only went to see her again after we met."
Her fingers resumed their slow movement through his hair as she absorbed every word.
Luca had told her stories about his childhood before, pieces here and there, but this was different.
This explained something fundamental.
"I have to do the same again."
Vee’s hand stopped. "Your life for Marco’s this time."
"Yes. I hope Don will spare Marco if I tell him I will take over the famiglia."
"I know you don’t want to," she said.
"I don’t. Which brings me to why we have to make this decision together. This isn’t only about me taking a title, Bambola. It changes everything."
"I know."
Luca held her gaze. "You have to think about it, Vee. Really think about it. If I take over the famiglia, I cannot pretend our children are outside of it. They will be Genovese children. Don’s children. And I will have responsibilities to them that I may not like."
Vee’s fingers slipped from his hair to his cheek.
Luca covered her hand with his. "I cannot take over and then raise weak heirs."
"Luca..."
"I need you to understand what I’m saying before you agree to stand beside me." His eyes never left hers. "You have to think about it, Vee. Really think about it because I will raise our child, our children the same way I was raised."
Vee sucked in a breath.
"I will have to punish them for things that, in a normal world, deserve no punishment. I will have to train our children—male or female—to take down an adult in a fight before they even hit puberty. They will have to understand weapons, survival. Things children in normal families should never have to think about."
Vee’s hand instinctively moved to her stomach.
"I will have to teach them to kill before they learn to write their names. They will break bones," he continued. "There will be training that pushes them too far. There will be times they are pulled back from the verge of death."
"Luca..."
"I need you to hear all of it, Bambola. Your entire life will be one of constant worry. Every time they leave for training, every time something happens inside the famiglia, every time one of them gets hurt, you will wonder whether we have gone too far. And sometimes, we probably will."
Vee’s eyes dropped.
"But I cannot do this if you are not right there with me." Luca reached for her hand. "Because there is no life worth living without you in it."
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