Page 3 of Lucian

He had parents—ones who loved him very much.

There wasn’t a thing Lucian wanted for when he grew up in the Marcello home, although it took him an entire month of sleeping in a closet before he felt comfortable with the size of his new bedroom. His hesitance to trust Antony or Cecelia—Lucian’s adoptive mother—had broken their hearts, but they gave him space and time until he was ready for all that love, support, and care they gave to him.

His new brothers had been the most welcoming, and probably the most frightening. As funny as it was now, the two boys full of nothing but piss, energy, and an abundance of Italian cuss words scared the living hell out of Lucian. They liked to rough house then just as much as they did as adults. Dante was the largest of the three Marcello boys, though Lucian towered over him by a couple of inches in height now. Giovanni—Gio to his family and friends—was definitely the smartest and most cunning of the three, always leading them into some kind of trouble and then managing to get himself out of it when they were later caught.

Lucian had good memories of his later childhood. Antony and Cecelia had given him all that he lost, and even the things he didn’t have before his mother’s death.

They never hid the truth from him, either.

The mother he so adored was for all purposes, his father’s mistress. Someone he loved, yes, but not someone he was willing to marry or leave his wife for. After all, marriage was for life in their world. It didn’t have to be about love, and his father’s marriage certainly wasn’t for that.

John Grovatti married his wife on an agreement made between his own father and his wife’s father. His wife, Kate, was a vicious thing in more ways than one. She lied about Lucian’s father to her daddy, telling him how awful her husband treated her, how he beat her, and how he wouldn’t share her bed because he was much too busy in the bed of another woman.

Well, at least that last one wasn’t a total lie.

Needless to say, there were consequences for John’s actions.

A boss didn’t need to have permission to make the call for a hit, no matter who it was for.

“Cazzo,” Lucian cussed under his breath, kicking off the sheets and moving his bare feet to the cold wood floors. “Damn it.”

Those were not the memories or things he wanted to think about tonight. It was Saturday and the Marcello brothers always spent the night at their parents’ home and attended Mass the next day as a family. Their mother always made a large breakfast feast, they’d go to Mass, and then spend the day together, ending the evening with a family dinner and drinks. It was something they did ever since the first son moved out, following through until the last one did, too. There was no business on Sundays, but there was no rest, either.

Here, Lucian didn’t have his punching bag to beat out his frustrations on until he was too exhausted to stay awake for one more second. Instead, he settled for digging through the bedside table in hopes his mother hadn’t cleared out his stash of vices.

Of course, Cecelia had.

Lucian was surprised she hadn’t lectured him yet if she found them.

More agitated than before, he clambered out of the double bed, grabbed the sweats he’d tossed off earlier in the night, and pulled the pants on. It didn’t take him long to begin his silent trek through the upstairs of the three-level home like he’d done so many times before. If there wasn’t anything to calm his overactive nerves in his old bedroom, he’d find something in his father’s office.

After all, Antony liked his whiskey and cigars, too. Besides that, being twenty-seven didn’t do a whole lot for Lucian’s restraint when he wanted something. Much like the rest of the men in his family.

Maybe it was Marcello thing.

Lucian stumbled, still reeling from the aftereffects of his dream, into his father’s office and found exactly what he hadn’t expected to. Antony sat behind his desk, sipping from a tumbler half-filled with amber liquid, while Dante was stretched across the leather couch, nodding at whatever his father had said before Lucian arrived.

Antony barely glanced up over his glass. “Don’t you have clothes to wear?”

Lucian shrugged, not caring he was half-naked. “Didn’t think anybody was awake.”

“I hope you brought something better to wear to church in the morning other than sweats and those jeans you like. Your mother will not appreciate you going to Mass in dark wash denim again, Lucian.”

Dante snorted quietly. “Mom makes sure he’s clothed. His closet now sports six more custom made Armani suits, and I think she had some sent over here so he couldn’t act like he forgot his at the condo.”

Well, this conversation was going nowhere, Lucian decided.

“Vaffanculo,” Lucian muttered, effectively telling his brother to fuck off. “Leave me alone. It’s not normal to wear a suit every day of the week, all right? I wear one Monday to Saturday, anyway. The least I could have is Sunday to wear what I want.”

“It’s good to be dressed appropriately,” his father added from the side. “And watch your mouth.”

“Whatever.”

“What are you doing up?” Antony asked, placing his glass to the table.

Lucian’s nerves grew under the scrutiny of his father and brother. “Nothing. Something woke me, a noise, maybe. Where’s Gio?”

It wasn’t like his father to have a meeting with one brother and exclude the others. Lucian didn’t like that at all.