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My uncle sighs and moves away to sit in the chair across from me. “We need to talk.”
I look up from the desk. “What.”
“It’s time you returned home. Permanently,” he says with complete seriousness.
“Again with this shit.”
“You must return, Luca! Being a petty thief is beneath you. This is what you were born for. Take your place as the head of thefamigliabefore it all disintegrates.” He slices his hand through the air in his typical dramatic fashion. “Everything your father worked hard for, gone.”
I’m not in the mood for dramatics today. “You do it. The men know and respect you. If you’re so worried about the Sinacores, you take control.”
“But you are Nico’s son!” He slams a beefy fist against the desk. “It’s what Tony would want. It’s what your father would want.”
I laugh. “His son? I might as well have been one of his dogs. All he wanted was to have me running around doing his dirty work.”
“He was teaching you,” he says.
“To be a soldier! I was never a part of any decisions. The moment I opened my mouth to give an opinion on how things should be done, he chewed me up and spit me out. We couldn’t have been more different, and I highly doubt he would have wanted me in charge of anything.”
Now it’s his turn to laugh. “The two of you couldn’t have been more similar if you’d been twins. That was the real problem. You weren’t meant to follow. You were meant to lead, just like Nico. If you’d both seen it, Tony would never have taken over.”
I rear back in disbelief over what I’m hearing. “What the fuck are you saying?”
“It should have been you, Luca! You should have been king of New York. Instead, you decided to run off to be a low-life gangster on the streets.” He shuts his lids and places his palm over his chest as if it pains him to speak. “The Lord knows I loved Tony like my own. But he wasn’t ruthless. He didn’t command the respect we needed to enforce our laws. We lost half of our business because he was weak.”
Anger floods through me, and I stand so suddenly, the chair flips and hits the wall behind me.
“Shut your fucking mouth.” I don’t yell it, yet my tone is laced with venom. Then I stalk toward the door but turn to him before I leave. “You disrespect the memory of my brother again, I’ll kill you.”
But the threat doesn’t scare him. Instead, it seems only to confirm what he’s just said.
Leaning back, he sighs as pride fills his gaze. “Spoken like a true king.”
2
LUCA
Islick my shoulder-length hair back and tie it neatly at the base of my neck, all the while grimacing at the memory this simple action stirs up.
“You should cut it,” Tony said a few days before his wedding, ruffling it as he passed behind me. “Looks messy.”
“Leave the hair alone,” I snarled.
“Come on. You’re the best man. Short and neat will look better with the tux.”
“Is that you talking or Veronica?” I rolled my eyes at him.
“Both of us. We’re going to be one now, you know?”
Damn, he was so in love, I actually agreed. It was his day, and I wanted to make him happy.
“Sure thing, boss,” I said, but when I sat in front of the mirror at the barbershop, the little devil in me reared his ugly head.
Veronica’s face contorted as she came down the aisle toward the altar, where we stood. Her eyes locked on my head, and I’m sure that had it not been her wedding day, she would have killed me.
My father barely glimpsed my way, but when he did, his expression was filled with disappointment as always.
Tony, however, took in the shaved sides of my head and trimmed hair that hung several inches below my shoulders and smiled. “It suits you.”
