Luca Vitiello by Cora Reilly

CHAPTER 15

My ringtone tore me from sleep. I opened dreary eyes, fumbling for my phone on the nightstand. When I finally had a hold of it, I pressed it to my ear without looking at the screen. “Can’t you deal with whatever shit came up alone? I have a fucking boner to take care of, Matteo.”

“Good Morning, Luca,” Nina said.

I groaned. Aria lifted her head, looking thoroughly disheveled, and fucking kissable.

“Nina, what do you want?”

“Salvatore asked me to invite you to dinner.”

Fuck. He was way too eager to have Aria and me over. I hated the old bastard. “In case you didn’t notice, Matteo and I are busy dealing with the Russians.”

“I’ll have the cooks prepare a feast for tonight. Be here at seven.”

“I don’t have time, Nina,” I gritted out. Hearing my stepmother’s high-pitched voice this early in the morning gave me a fucking migraine.

“Luca, your father was very adamant about having you over,” she said. There was a moment of silence. “You will come?”

Her voice shook, but she quickly masked it with a cough then cleared her throat. “He won’t be happy with you if you refuse his invitation.”

He wouldn’t be happy with her. He’d blame her, telling her she was incapable of getting even the easiest tasks right. “We’ll be there,” I muttered and hung up. “Fuck it.”

Aria’s eyes widened. “What’s wrong?” She touched my chest. Why did she always have to be so concerned? There was no reason to be worried about me. She was the one I needed to protect.

“Nina invited us to dinner for tonight.”

“Oh,” Aria said, frowning. “So we’ll eat with your father and his wife?”

I nodded. “Matteo will be there as well.” He wouldn’t like it one bit, but he’d better move his fucking ass over there if he knew what was good for him.

“You don’t sound happy,” she said carefully.

Sighing, I untangled myself from her embrace and perched on the edge of the bed. That put it mildly. “My father…he’s…” A sadistic rapist. A fucking psychopath. A murderous asshole who deserved to die. “…a difficult man.”

Aria nodded as if she understood.

She couldn’t, and she wouldn’t, if I had a say in the matter. She pushed herself to a sitting position and touched my shoulder. “It’s just dinner. Everything will be all right.”

She was right. It would be all right because I wouldn’t let my father ruin the one good thing in my life.

Aria’s phone beeped. I chuckled darkly. “It seems we both won’t get our peace of mind this morning.”

Aria reached over, grabbing her phone and quickly scanning the message. Her entire face transformed into a smile.

“Your sister?” I guessed, brushing a strand away from her glowing face.

She nodded. “She got a flight in two days!”

Aria’s grin lit up everything, and my own lips wanted to pull into a smile, even if I felt like smashing something to pieces, but I held back. I stood, needing to bring some distance between my wife and me, not just physically but especially mentally if I wanted to get through tonight without my father getting suspicious.

Aria glanced up from her phone, but I walked into the bathroom without another word and closed the door.

I left shortly after breakfast to meet the manager of several of our whorehouses. The only thing Father did anymore was play golf with politicians or test the whores.

We were a bit early in the Foxy and took a seat in two plush armchairs. One of the whores came over with our drinks. She put them down on the low table, giving us a prime view of her ass, then she straightened and touched my shoulder with a flirtatious hand.

“Did I give you permission to touch me?” My eyes flashed up to hers and she quickly dropped her hand before she rushed back to the bar. I wouldn’t break the promise I’d given to Aria, not even in that small way.

“What’s crawled up your ass?” Matteo asked after he’d taken a sip from his Negroni.

“Do you think I’m growing soft?”

I leaned back and watched through narrowed eyes as my fucking brother almost pissed himself from laughing.

“Gi---give me a moment,” Matteo bit out.

“Know what?” I muttered. “Maybe I should beat some sense into you to test my theory.”

Matteo grinned, eyes teary. “Oh, Luca. This was good.” He shook his head with another fucking chuckle. “You’re many things, but soft? Come on, what’s wrong with you?”

I considered not saying anything. Making myself vulnerable in front of others, even my brother, wasn’t something I ever did.

Matteo’s smile slipped off. “It’s because of Aria?”

Fuck, I trusted the asshole, so fuck it all. “I still haven’t fucked her, and I promised her never to touch another woman either. What does that make me?”

Matteo shrugged. “A good husband by normal standards, I suppose.”

“As if we give a fuck about normal standards. Those aren’t the rules we play by.”

“You will be Capo as soon as our father dies. You’ll make the rules soon enough.”

“Some traditions can’t be shaken, and our father is still Capo. If he knew that I haven’t fucked my wife yet…” I trailed off.

“He’d probably do it himself,” Matteo said. And I lost it.

“He touches a fucking hair on her body, and I’ll end him, that’s a fucking promise,” I growled.

Matteo nodded. “One word from you, and I’m in on it. You know that, right?”

“I know,” I said quietly. Matteo and I had been entertaining thoughts of how to kill our father for years. “But the Famiglia won’t accept a Capo who killed his father.”

Matteo sighed. “Why can’t the old sadist just die?”

“Maybe Nina finds the courage to slip poison in his food at some point. How much longer can she or anyone bear the humiliation and beatings he gives her?”

“Maybe she’ll kill herself instead of him,” Matteo muttered. Not voicing the “like our mother” that we were both thinking. “And you’d have to kill her if she killed our father.”

“She’d run off to Europe, and I won’t have time to hunt down a woman,” I said. If Nina ended our father, I definitely wouldn’t punish her for it. I hated her but, compared to my father, she was a victim.

“You know,” Matteo said in a low voice, “I knew you wouldn’t force Aria.”

I regarded him, not liking the heavy note underplaying his words.

“You still hear our mother’s begging in your nightmares?” he continued in a whisper.

My stomach twisted. “Too often.”

Matteo took out his knife, his eyes focusing on the gleaming blade as he turned it slowly. It was his favorite. The knife our mother had used to cut her wrists with. “A woman shouldn’t have to beg her husband not to rape, beat and humiliate her. I’m a cruel fucker, but even I know that.”

I nodded. I remembered only too well how our mother had looked in the mornings after those nights. Bruised, with a look in her eyes like a beaten dog. The idea that Aria could ever look like that made me want to kill everyone around me. Aria would never look like that. She’d never suffer violence through mine or anyone else’s hands. I’d cut my fucking fingers off before I’d hit her, and I’d chop my dick into pieces before I’d ever rape my wife. She would be safe with me, in bed and anywhere else.

“You’ve got your Aria expression on again.”

I frowned. “What the hell is that supposed to be?”

Matteo smirked. “It’s a mix of protectively murderous and dreamily reverent.”

I pushed into a standing position. “Fuck you, Matteo.”

His smile widened. “I have enough women to fuck, but thank you.”

I gave him the finger and turned on my heel, heading for the bathroom to take a piss.

A few minutes before seven, we pulled up in front of the Vitiello townhouse. The drive had passed in silence; neither Matteo nor I felt like chatting before a dinner with our father and Nina, and Aria hadn’t tried to make conversation either.

Nina opened the door before we could even ring the bell. Seeing her so eager to have us over wasn’t a good sign. My hand on Aria’s hip tightened, and she gave me a curious look, but then she greeted my stepmother with an awkward hug. Aria’s eyes lingered on Nina’s face, which was covered in a thick layer of makeup, but it didn’t hide her swollen lip despite the dark lipstick she wore. Aria’s expression remained perfectly polite. She’d probably seen more than enough bruises in her life.

Nina smiled her fake smile. “Good to have you over. Dinner’s about to be served.”

She led us into the dining room where Father waited in his usual chair at the head of the table. He didn’t stand, only nodded, but his eyes latched onto Aria.

I took the seat beside him before he could offer it to her and gave him a tight smile.

Nina sat on Father’s other side and Matteo across from Aria. My stepmother snapped her fingers and, at once, the maid rushed in with the starters. Father’s favorite: liver paté.

I ate a bite while Aria peered down at her food then at me. It took me a moment to realize why. She didn’t like liver. She’d mentioned it to me on our first date.

“Don’t you like your food?” Nina asked with pursed lips, her gaze darting from Father to Aria.

He regarded Aria in a way I didn’t like one bit.

Aria gave an embarrassed smile. “I’m not very fond of liver. It looks delicious, though.”

“Luca eats liver,” Father said disapprovingly.

Aria glanced at me, obviously not sure where my father was going with his comment. She couldn’t know that Nina had to like what my father liked or face the consequences. I opened my mouth to tell him that I didn’t give a fuck if Aria ate liver or not, but Matteo was quicker.

“Luca also likes torturing and killing, that doesn’t mean his wife has to like it.” He sent our father his fake smile.

A muscle in Father’s cheek twitched. “I don’t appreciate good food going to waste, Aria,” he said to my wife.

“I’ll eat it,” I gritted out, reaching for the plate.

“Your wife will eat it,” Father ordered.

Aria froze.

“She won’t,” I growled. “Aria’s my wife. She won’t answer to your demands, Father.”

Nina had become perfectly still in her seat, clutching her knife.

Matteo’s hand had slipped off the table. I didn’t reach for my own gun and gave him a warning glance.

Not like this. Not today.

“So possessive!” Father laughed, throwing his head back as if I’d told a fucking joke, as if the whole situation was funny. Nina fell in at once.

I forced a smile and so did Matteo. Aria laughed uncertainly. She didn’t know my father well enough. Maybe she really thought it had been his twisted way of making a joke. I hoped it for her sake.

The second we were back in the car, away from my father, Matteo leaned forward with a grin, but it was off. “I hear your sister comes to visit us.”

At once, the tension slipped out of Aria and she nodded with a smile. “Yes.” She narrowed her eyes after a moment. “Why do you care?”

The protective note in her voice was unmistakable and might have made me laugh if I wasn’t still so fucking tense from the dinner with Father. It was a good thing that Matteo managed to distract her from it. Aria didn’t need to know that today could very well mark the date when I gave up my life, and any chance at a united Famiglia. Even without saying a word to him, Matteo knew, and he’d be at my side, no questions asked.

The moment Aria joined me in bed, I pushed her on her back and moved down her body, dragging her panties down her legs before I settled between her parted thighs. Aria was still mine, would always be mine. I made her come twice with my tongue before I laid down beside her. She kissed me softly, her fingers caressing my chest. It felt good on so many levels. She always got through my walls. I wasn’t even sure how she did it. I pulled out of the kiss. “I want your mouth.”

Aria paused. Even without seeing her expression, I knew she was confused by my harsh tone. She moved down and then I felt her lips around my tip. I relaxed, letting my father’s words drift away, enjoying the moment, my wife, the only way that was safe.

I came on my stomach like last time, then cleaned myself roughly before I settled on my back with Aria pressed up against my side. “Is everything okay?” she whispered.

“Yes.” She stiffened at my clipped reply but nodded after a moment. It took a long time before she fell asleep. I knew I wouldn’t get any sleep tonight, not when I kept thinking of ways to dispose of my father without anyone finding out.