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My eyes landed on the first man in the diamond shape form they’d created.
Mario Vitelli.
The man I least wanted to see after finding out he’d worked against me during this time of war. The man who’d caused Katia harm continued to wound deeper.
My face was void of emotion, and when his teeth gleamed with a treacherous smile, he spoke.
“Moretti.” He leered. “Or should I call youson?”
A cold stream of malice settled into my bones.
Son.
One word, but he delivered it with blunt guilt for the lives he’d taken.
This night would be nothing but a ruthless game, and I would kill him.
Just as he’d killed my father and mother.
A bullet to the chest, another to the heart, and the last to his head.
XLII
KATIA
Lucca turnedto stone after my father called him son. It couldn’t be a coincidence. The feud between our families lasted for years, and I had no idea how deep my father’s involvement ran. What could he possibly have done to earn Lucca’s despise for the Vitelli name? To hold such hatred and hostility toward him?
The more I watched them both look at one another, I feared for the bad blood and venom they both shared.
This was bad, and Mario hadn’t even stepped foot inside.
“You can call me by my last name,” Lucca’s dark voice advised, and I heard its danger.
My father’s smile stretched wide, and his brown eyes were filled with bitter laughter. He looked as he had months ago, strong, and healthy to continue to torture for years to come.
“Father,” I greeted to cut the tension. The moment he heard me speak, his eyes sliced me, and his features flashed with disgust.
I didn’t drop my gaze. I wanted him to see the same spite my mother’s eyes held for him. “You don’t speak unless spoken to,” he spat.
Somehow his blow never reached my heart. Somehow, I knew standing next to Lucca, in a city that wasn’t my father’s, and the expectation of his poison aiming to strike was the reason it never did. It slithered.
I smiled.
“This isn’t New York, and you’re on my front steps.” Through Lucca’s steel fingertips behind me, I kept my breathing steady. “I speak openly in my home, which you’ve been invited to, so I expect your respect while speaking to me.”
In the corner of my eye, on my father’s right, Enzo’s lip twitched.
All too quickly, a charge swayed as Mario Vitelli’s hand rose with a red stricken face. Out of habit, I waited with my face held high for his punishment.
But the punishment never came.
Lucca caught my father’s swinging hand by his wrist and took a dominant step forward. The ire and power that radiated with threatening force towered over my father.
Enzo, too, had placed his gripping hand over father’s forearm. The same hand that etched the letters NYS in black ink. He remained behind our father, but his defiance was clear even after he let go, but Lucca wouldn’t move away. I watched Enzo, too dumbfounded to believe he’d stepped between father.
Lucca’s jaw clenched tightly. He was losing to the wrath that drowned his body.
Arlo, Viktor, and Ilias stayed feet away behind Lucca while Davina was pushed farther from the commotion. And each brother stood ready foranyorder.
