Page 33 of One Step After Another

10.

Luca

SEVEN-THIRTY in themorning was way too early for a knock on Luca’s apartment door but especially considering he just rolled his ass out of bed. Not even bothering to do more than yank on a pair of sweats he’d been wearing the evening before while he downed a six-pack and watched the game, he made his way to the front hallway of his apartment.

He also didn’t bother to check the peephole, but he should have. Yanking the door open, he came face to face with his father. Standing damn near eye-level to one another, neither man said anything.

Luca wasn’t accustomed to his father showing up at his place unannounced. If he was being honest ... Zeke hadn’t visited in a couple of years. They typically had dinner at his parents’ home, or with the Donatis at their place. Maybe one of the family’s many restaurants in the city. Even his best friend and sister’s home.

Not here.

“You busy?” Zeke asked.

Luca shifted from foot to foot, scrubbing a hand down his unshaven jaw and feeling the prickly hairs tickle his palm while he tried to wake up. His brain was always slower first thing in the morning when he hadn’t even been able to guzzle a cup of black coffee. “Not really busy just—”

“Waking up, huh?”

He shrugged. “It’s seven-thirty, Dad. What else do people do first thing in the morning?”

That probably wasn’t the right question to ask considering his father stood on the other side of the threshold appearing as though he had been awake for hours already. Dressed smartly in one of his usual three-piece suits, hair coifed perfectly, and eyes alert. Nothing suggested Zeke was anything less than ready for the day.

Luca couldn’t say the same.

“Usually, they go to work,” his father replied.

He tried to let that go over his head; normally, it would fly right past, and he could brush it off like nothing. That time it hit him square in the chest, and he felt all of it.

Putting a hand up in the doorway to act as a barricade so that his father didn’t get the impression he was about to allow him entrance to his place, Luca said, “And I’ll be heading to work soon, too. I’ve got a ... thing today.” Yeah, that was as good as anything in regards to the meeting he planned to spy on later if he got the signal it was still happening from his contact who had been digging into Smithenson, the murder, and anything else that came up which Luca might find interesting. Something had finally come up. It was happening today. “What do you want?”

Zeke sighed, eyeing his son with a sympathy he hadn’t expected. “To talk. Or are you not in the mood?”

“Does it matter what I say?”

“Not particularly.”

Yeah.

Luca figured.

He could continue to be an ass, but he was quite aware that would only drag this nonsense on, and nobody had time for that. Especially not him. Not today.

“Come on in,” Luca muttered, stepping back from the apartment doorway to let his father enter with a wave to the darkened hallway. He hadn’t even turned the lights on yet. “I was just about to make coffee. You want one?”

Zeke stepped past the threshold and then Luca, not once taking in the changes to the place since the last time he visited. That was one of the first clues that told him it was very unlikely his father was there for a friendly visit to catch up. While he followed behind Zeke, he let his mind filter through the thoughts and emotions that he usually pushed down whenever he was in the presence of his dad.

They weren’t as close.

Not anymore.

Not like they used to be.

Luca tried not to be bitter about that fact, but it wasn’t always easy. He understood that his father came from an entirely different generation than him; that Zeke had been raised by men with different values than his own when it came to carrying on the family business and legacy. What was supposed to be important, he had shunned entirely.

At least, to his father.

“Perc or instant?” his father asked when they entered the kitchen.

Luca passed a look at the coffee maker that was only clean because of the three-day-a-week maid he kept well paid to look after his place but stay the fuck out of his shit while she was here. The percolator had been a gift from his sister when he moved into the place—his love of all things coffee meant he should have one, right?