Page 35 of One Step After Another

“You’re trying to get me to sit my ass down beside Naz before someone else can.”

His father didn’t deny it.

“No one will protect him the way you will,” Zeke murmured. “Nobody will be as loyal to him as you are. We know it—he knows it. His father knows it, Luca. It’s why we raised you two like we did. Two generations of Donatis and Puzzas have worked side by side in Cosa Nostra. You and Naz should have been the third. And what, these things you chase, this job of yours, it’s more important than the foundation we built for you two? Is that what you want me to tell Cross when the time comes?”

“This job ...” Luca dragged in a sharp breath, holding his anger in check but barely. His father, didn’t get it; maybe he never would. “I’m good at what I do. I’ve had contracts all over the country. I’ve found people that no one else could. So, it’s not what you want me to do but it’s also what I need to do right now.”

Until he found Penny.

Until he had answers.

Luca wasn’t the type to give up. And up until he had what he needed to satisfy Nazio, then he would stay right where he was doing what he needed to do. He would take every job that came up in between because it kept his head above water.

“And I’m doing what I promised Naz I would,” Luca added.

Zeke leaned back a bit in the chair, observing his son with more intensity than before. “Are you still looking for ... her?”

“His father told him to leave it alone—focus on famiglia and the business. Not me.”

“Because he can’t. You don’t work for Cross. You are not his made man.”

Exactly.

And he wouldn’t.

He answered to no one.

Grabbing his coffee for a drink, Zeke downed half of the steaming mug in one go. Maybe his father believed he wasn’t going to get what he wanted because the next words out of Zeke’s mouth were simply, “What if I asked, Luca?”

“Asked what?”

“For you to stop. Stop searching. Stop all of this. Be who you are meant to be. What happens when you find something you’re not supposed to?”

“I don’t—”

“Only two things happen, then, son. Either someone makes you answer for what you found ... or you’re left explaining why it happened when no one needed to know. Whichever way the chips fall, it only ends badly for you.”

Luca quieted.

So did his father.

Before he could ask Zeke what he meant by that, the ding of his cell phone in the bedroom had him excusing himself from the kitchen to grab the device. A quick check of the screen gave him the confirmation he needed that the meeting later in the day was still a go. Now, he had to get back to doing his job.

Leads on Penny were coming through.

He couldn’t leave it alone.

Except by the time he returned to the kitchen, his father was already gone. The only thing that proved Zeke had even been there in the first place was the empty coffee mug sitting in the sink, and the lingering scent of sandalwood and crisp spice. His father’s cologne.

Everything else was exactly the same.

For Luca, nothing had changed.

• • •

THE REPORTER MIGHTnot have wanted to talk, but he gave Luca a bone to find. Really, that was all a dog needed to start digging.

Or rather, Luca.