Chapter 6 - The Man Who Should Have Been DeadMarcus did not sleep.
Neither did I.
By midnight, the villa had transformed from a romantic refuge into a fortress.
Security lights illuminated the grounds. Armed men covered every entrance. Alessandro established command in the downstairs study while two additional teams arrived from Palermo.
Marcus stood on the terrace overlooking the dark Mediterranean, motionless except for the slow movement of his thumb across the edge of the photograph.
I watched from the doorway for several minutes before approaching.
“You’re going to wear a hole through that picture.”
“I’m considering burning it.”
“That would not change what it says.”
“No.”
His voice was flat.
I stepped beside him.
Sea wind lifted my hair.
Somewhere below, waves struck rock in a steady rhythm.
“You believe the letter.”
Marcus’s jaw moved.
“I believe my mother wrote it.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
He stared into the darkness.
Finally, he spoke.
“When I was a child, Giovanni used to say I didn’t look like him.”
My heart tightened.
“He said it when he was drunk. Usually before he hit me.”
“Marcus.”
“He accused my mother of humiliating him. Called her things I didn’t understand at the time.”
He gave a bitter laugh.
“I thought it was just alcohol.”
“Maybe he knew.”
Marcus turned toward me.
The pain in his face made him look younger.
“Then she knew I was growing up with a man who hated me for something I didn’t understand.”
“There may be more to the story.”
“There’s always more to the story.”
He looked down at the letters.
“That doesn’t make the first part hurt less.”
I reached for his hand.
This time, he let me take it.
We stood there quietly until Alessandro appeared.
“Boss.”
Marcus’s posture changed instantly.
“Tell me.”
“We found the vehicle abandoned five miles north. Clean. No registration. No fingerprints that matter.”
“Driver?”
“Gone.”
Marcus glanced toward the road.
“So he wanted us to see him.”
“That’s my assessment.”
“Then why?”
“Maybe he wants contact.”
Marcus’s expression hardened.
“He’s had twenty-two years.”
A phone rang inside.
Not Marcus’s.
Not mine.
A landline.
All three of us froze.
The villa’s old telephone sat on a table in the salon.
It rang again.
Marcus walked inside.
Alessandro moved with him.
I followed.
“Stay behind me,” Marcus said.
I almost protested.
Then remembered the Meridian Hotel.
I stayed behind him.
The telephone rang a third time.
Marcus picked it up.
“Speak.”
Silence.
Then a man’s voice, faint enough that I could not make out the words.
Marcus’s fingers tightened around the receiver.
His face changed.
“Where are you?”
A pause.
“No. You don’t dictate terms.”
Another pause.
Marcus’s eyes flashed.
“Don’t speak about my mother.”
The voice continued.
Marcus listened.
Then slowly looked at me.
Something in his expression made my stomach twist.
“What?”
He held up one finger.
Wait.
Finally, he said, “Tomorrow. Ten in the morning.”
Pause.
“If this is a trap, you won’t leave Sicily alive.”
Marcus hung up.
I stared.
“Well?”
He did not answer immediately.
Alessandro did.
“De Luca?”
Marcus nodded.
“He wants to meet.”
“Where?”
“The old church above San Pietro.”
Alessandro frowned.
“Exposed location.”
“He claims he’ll come alone.”
“And you believe that?”
“No.”
I folded my arms.
“You’re going anyway.”
Marcus looked at me.
“Yes.”
“So am I.”
“No.”
“Marcus.”
“No.”
His voice became absolute.
“You are not walking into a meeting with a man who disappeared for two decades and suddenly decided to reappear after we found letters claiming he may be my father.”
“You promised no more facing danger alone.”
“This is different.”
“How?”
“It’s my past.”
“I’m your wife.”
“That doesn’t require you to inherit every nightmare I’ve ever had.”
I stepped closer.
“You don’t get to decide which parts of you I’m allowed to love.”
That stopped him.
Alessandro suddenly became deeply interested in the security monitors.
Marcus stared at me.
“I’m not asking you to love this.”
“I already love you. The rest comes attached.”
His eyes darkened.
“Arya.”
“You told me we protect each other. We trust each other. We never face danger alone.”
I repeated his exact words.
His own promise thrown back at him.
Marcus closed his eyes.
“That was manipulative.”
“I learned from criminals.”
Alessandro coughed suspiciously.
Marcus glared at him.
“Leave.”
“Gladly.”
The moment Alessandro disappeared, Marcus caught my waist and pulled me close.
“You make me insane.”
“I know.”
“I should lock you in the bedroom.”
“You tried cages already.”
“And yet you keep creating excellent arguments for them.”
I touched his face.
The teasing vanished.
“Let me come.”
His eyes searched mine.
Not as a crime boss.
Not as a protector.
As my husband.
“I can’t lose you.”
“You won’t.”
“That’s not a promise you can make.”
“Neither can you.”
He looked away.
I forced him gently back toward me.
“Marcus, whatever that man says tomorrow, you should not hear it alone.”
His resistance finally broke.
“You stay beside Alessandro.”
“Fine.”
“You wear body armor.”
“Under what?”
“I’ll find something.”
“Romantic.”
“You don’t leave my sight.”
“I thought I was staying beside Alessandro.”
“Both.”
“That seems physically complicated.”
“Arya.”
I kissed him.
“Fine.”
At ten the next morning, we climbed a narrow road into the Sicilian hills.
The church sat above an abandoned village, its pale stone walls weathered by centuries.
No tourists.
No traffic.
No convenient witnesses.
Exactly the kind of location Marcus hated.
Our vehicles stopped half a mile away.
Marcus insisted on walking the remaining distance.
He wore a dark suit without a tie.
No visible weapon.
I knew better than to assume he was unarmed.
Alessandro walked behind us.
Six security teams covered the surrounding hills.
When we reached the church courtyard, one man was waiting.
Lorenzo De Luca.
He was older than the photograph.
Obviously.
But time had not softened him.
Tall.
Broad shoulders.
Silver threaded through black hair.
A scar cut across one cheek.
And those eyes.
Those impossible storm-gray eyes.
He looked at Marcus.
Neither man spoke.
The resemblance was painful.
Not identical.
Marcus had his mother’s mouth.
Her dark coloring.
But the shape of his face, the way he stood, even the stillness before violence—
Lorenzo.
Finally, the older man spoke.
“You look like her.”
Marcus’s expression became glacial.
“You lost the privilege of speaking about my mother twenty-two years ago.”
Pain flickered across Lorenzo’s face.
“I expected that.”
“What do you want?”
“To explain.”
“Then explain.”
Lorenzo looked at me.
Marcus immediately shifted between us.
A sad smile touched the older man’s mouth.
“She was right about that too.”
Marcus’s voice turned dangerous.
“About what?”
“Your instinct to stand between danger and everyone you love.”
His gaze returned to Marcus.
“You did it even as a boy.”
“You didn’t know me.”
“I knew more than you think.”
“No.”
Marcus stepped forward.
“You do not get to appear after two decades and speak as if you were watching from some noble distance. If you were my father—”
He stopped.
The word seemed poisonous.
“If you were my father, where were you when Giovanni beat her? Where were you when he gambled? Where were you when men took her?”
Lorenzo absorbed every accusation.
Then answered.
“In prison.”
Silence.
Marcus stared.
“What?”
“Not a legitimate prison.”
Lorenzo’s expression hardened.
“Your father arranged my disappearance.”
“Giovanni?”
“Yes.”
“He didn’t have that kind of power.”
“Not alone.”
Lorenzo glanced toward the church.
“There are things you don’t know about the old families. Alliances that no longer exist. Your father discovered your mother and I had been involved before their marriage. When you were born, he had questions.”
Marcus went still.
“He had you taken.”
“After a DNA test.”
My breath caught.
Marcus looked sick.
Lorenzo continued.
“Giovanni knew you were mine.”
Every muscle in Marcus’s body seemed to lock.
“He threatened Sofia. Told her that if she left him or told you the truth, he would have me killed and take you somewhere she’d never find you.”
“So she stayed.”
“She stayed to keep you.”
Marcus laughed bitterly.
“And you?”
“I tried to reach her.”
Lorenzo’s eyes darkened.
“Giovanni intercepted the letters. Eventually, I arranged to meet her here in Sicily. I intended to take both of you away.”
He looked at the old church.
“That was the summer those letters were written.”
“What happened?”
“I was betrayed before I reached her.”
“By who?”
Lorenzo hesitated.
Marcus noticed.
“Say it.”
“Your grandfather.”
Marcus frowned.
“My grandfather died when I was nine.”
“The man you knew as your grandfather.”
Lorenzo’s gaze sharpened.
“Giovanni’s father was not a weak old immigrant who worked construction, Marcus. Carlo Valentino spent twenty years building relationships between criminal groups in Chicago and Sicily. Your father inherited those relationships and nearly destroyed them through gambling, addiction, and stupidity.”
Marcus’s face was unreadable.
“He had you imprisoned.”
“For fourteen years.”
My stomach turned.
“Where?”
“An isolated compound in Calabria controlled by men who owed Carlo Valentino favors. They told the world I was dead.”
“You escaped?”
“Eventually.”
“And then?”
Lorenzo looked at Marcus.
“I came to Chicago.”
Marcus stopped breathing.
“When?”
“Eight years ago.”
Marcus’s voice dropped.
“My mother was already dead.”
“Yes.”
Something inside that single word carried unbearable grief.
“I learned what happened to her. I learned what Giovanni’s debts had caused.”
Lorenzo’s hands curled.
“I nearly killed him.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because you already had.”
The air changed.
I looked at Marcus.
He had never told me exactly what happened to his father.
Lorenzo continued.
“You were eighteen. Giovanni disappeared after threatening Teresa. His body was never found.”
Marcus gave no reaction.
Lorenzo smiled without warmth.
“I knew then what kind of man you had become.”
“You watched me.”
“Yes.”
“For eight years?”
“Yes.”
Marcus crossed the courtyard in a blur.
His fist struck Lorenzo hard enough to snap the older man’s head sideways.
Alessandro moved.
I grabbed his arm.
“Wait.”
Lorenzo straightened slowly.
Blood touched his lip.
He did not retaliate.
Marcus hit him again.
“You watched me bury my mother.”
Another punch.
“You watched me build an empire out of the ruins he left.”
Another.
“You watched me become something she would have hated.”
Lorenzo finally caught Marcus’s wrist.
“No.”
His voice thundered.
“Never say that.”
Marcus froze.
Lorenzo’s eyes burned.
“Your mother would have been terrified by what this life forced you to become. But she would never have hated you.”
Marcus jerked free.
“You don’t know what she would have felt.”
“I loved her before you existed.”
“And abandoned her after.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
Marcus laughed.
The sound was ugly.
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
His eyes went to me.
Then away.
“Funny how protection looks so much like abandonment from the person being protected.”
The words struck deeper than he intended.
I knew it.
He knew it.
Lorenzo did too.
For several moments, nobody spoke.
Then Lorenzo reached inside his coat.
Marcus’s weapon appeared instantly.
Alessandro’s followed.
Lorenzo stopped.
“Slowly,” Marcus said.
Lorenzo removed an envelope.
He placed it on a stone wall.
“This belongs to you.”
Marcus did not move.
“What is it?”
“A letter your mother wrote three days before she died.”
The entire world seemed to stop.
Marcus stared at the envelope.
“How?”
“She sent it through someone Giovanni didn’t know.”
“To you?”
“Yes.”
“Why give it to me now?”
“Because I spent eight years believing distance would keep you safe from the people still hunting me.”
Lorenzo’s eyes shifted toward the road.
“And I was wrong.”
Marcus followed his gaze.
“What people?”
A sharp crack split the morning.
Lorenzo lunged.
He hit Marcus at the exact moment the church wall behind him exploded in a shower of stone.
Gunfire erupted from the ridge.
“DOWN!” Alessandro shouted.
I hit the ground.
Marcus covered me with his body instantly.
Security teams opened fire toward the hills.
Another shot struck the courtyard.
Lorenzo dragged himself behind a stone column.
Blood spread across his shoulder.
He had been hit.
Marcus looked up.
“Where?”
“North ridge!” Alessandro yelled.
Marcus’s eyes snapped to Lorenzo.
“You knew this would happen.”
“No.”
Lorenzo pressed a hand to his wound.
“But I know who they are.”
“Who?”
Lorenzo’s face hardened.
“The men who helped Giovanni make me disappear.”
Another bullet shattered a church window.
Lorenzo met Marcus’s eyes.
May you like
“They know you’re my son.”
And suddenly our honeymoon was over.
Related Stories
