Broken Promise by M. James
Luca
When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is take two aspirin for the throbbing headache that threatens to split my skull, courtesy of too much whiskey the night before.
The second is to call the number that I know will put me in touch with Viktor’s right-hand man, Levin. There’s no number to speak to Viktor Andreyev directly, but this is almost as good. And I need Viktor to know I’m serious.
“Yes?” The thick, deeply accented voice comes over the line after one ring. “Who is this?”
“Luca Romano. Don’t hang up,” I say sharply. “You’ll want to listen to this.”
“I doubt it. But please, continue.”
“I need to meet with Viktor.”
There’s a snort on the other end of the line. “And why should the Ussuri meet with you? Tell me, please, why you are so worth his time, underboss.”
“Well, for one,” I say coolly, “I’m no longer the underboss. As of yesterday, I have taken over Rossi’s place as don. I would have thought Viktor’s eyes and ears would have heard that already.”
There’s a momentary silence on the other line. I’m sure someone will bleed tonight for not finding that information out sooner. But that’s not my problem.
“And Rossi?” Levin’s voice is guarded now.
“In the hospital. He’ll live, but he’s angry. He wants war for his wife’s death. As I’m sure Viktor expects that he might.”
“And you don’t?”
“No,” I say evenly. “I don’t. So I wish to speak to Viktor and see what we can do. I don’t want there to be more bloodshed if it can be avoided.”
“Bold words from a man who recently painted a hotel room red with our men.”
“You stole something that belonged to me.”
“Viktor would say she ought to have belonged to him.”
That startles me, but I’m careful not to let Levin hear it in my voice, or falter in the slightest. If I’m going to achieve what I want, I have to be certain that the Russians sense no weakness.
Not even Sofia. Especially not Sofia.
“I’m sure if Viktor and I speak, we can work this out. I don’t wish for anyone else to die. We can stop this now, if we can come to terms. I also want him to agree not to take further measures against us today. Giulia Rossi’s funeral is this afternoon, and I think it’s not too much to ask to allow us to lay her to rest without the fear of further attacks on our women and children. We men can fight another day if need be.”
There’s a long pause, and I almost wonder if Levin’s hung up. Finally, his voice comes over the line again, crackling slightly with static.
“I’ll relay the message. But no promises.”
And then the phone goes dead.
Well, better than nothing, I suppose. If Viktor insists on war, it’ll be difficult to stop. I need to nip this in the bud before he can take any additional steps, or Rossi can recover enough to do anything to make matters worse.
An hour later, I’m freshly showered and dressed in the suit that Carmen sent over; I pick at the tray of breakfast that room service sent up as I check my emails on my phone. It occurs to me that I could have one of the guards connect me with Sofia to see how she’s doing. I could even just check in with them and make sure that she’s alright. But I push the urge away.
If there had been even a hint of danger last night, I would have been alerted. And I don’t know how she’ll react to my absence last night or what she’ll say to me today. All of my focus needs to be on negotiating with Viktor and ending this threat.
I steel myself for the day ahead of me as I settle into the car to be driven to the funeral home. Since I received the news of Giulia Rossi’s death, I’ve had a slow-simmering anger building in my gut that’s been difficult to hold back.
I knew Giulia since I was a child, of course. My father didn’t try to keep his family apart from the mafia dealings the way Giovanni did. Then again, my father married a good Italian woman, the daughter of the former Los Angeles underboss just before he passed away. My mother didn’t love the life, but she’d been born into it and raised knowing what her place was. We had many dinners over at the Rossi’s grand mansion; occasionally, they even deigned to come to our smaller brownstone.
Giovanni Ferretti was at those dinners often, of course, but always without his Russian wife and half-Russian daughter. It was an unspoken rule—he’d gotten away with marrying her, but she would always be kept as out of sight as possible.
Sofia’s father failed to prepare her for an inevitable future as a mafia wife in so many ways because he was an unusual man. Even before his marriage, he’d been almost monk-like, refusing to take part in the sex, drinking, and gambling that most of us enjoy. He’d had as much wealth as any of us and plenty of power as Rossi’s third, but he’d kept to himself, preferring books and music at home over late nights out and picking up women.
I hadn’t seen any of that personally, of course, but I’d heard my father talking about it. Rossi had mentioned it more than a few times in my adulthood after both Sofia’s father and mine were gone. Rossi had lamented sending him on the trip that took him to Moscow and introduced him to Irina Solovyova.
There are plenty of rumors about Irina, all of which I’ve heard at one point or another. Some say Giovanni saved her from a marriage she didn’t want. Others whisper that Sofia wasn’t Giovanni’s at all, that Irina was already pregnant, and the man whose baby it was planned to kill them both.
Others have circulated, too, of course. It’s my opinion that none of it is true. Giovanni was just a stupid man besotted by a beautiful woman who broke every unspoken rule that we have to bring her back to the States after a hasty wedding.
The story of Giovanni and Irina, while a romance to some, was taught to me as a lesson. This life is our bride for men of our rank, and any other woman, wife or no, will never be more than a mistress. Money, power, and the continuation of all that has been built before us and all that will come after should be our great loves—the love of another person—a wife, a child—doesn’t factor into the kind of life we should expect to live. That is for other, lesser men.
Giovanni loved his wife and his daughter. But in the end, it earned them nothing. He’s long dead, followed by my father, and his wife is dead too, lost to cancer that appeared as if from nowhere shortly after. Sofia is trapped in a marriage with me, a marriage she doesn’t want—and to be honest, I’m feeling more than a little trapped, too.
My thoughts circle back to Giulia, Vitto Rossi’s lovely wife. Even in her older age, she was still elegant, the kind of woman often called handsome by others in her later years. She was kind to my mother after my father was killed. She tried to do what she could for me after my mother committed suicide.
But by then, there wasn’t much she could do. I was in my late teens, and Rossi had firmly taken me under his wing, preparing me for the position I would soon fill, protecting me from the rumblings all around us. There were plenty of older men who thought they should have been chosen to step into my father’s place instead of his barely-legal son being elevated. But Rossi was the don, and no one would argue with him to his face.
Behind his back, though, there has always been dissent about whether or not I deserve what I’ve been given. There are plenty who think I don’t—that I haven’t earned it, which at first was true.
I’ll be damned, though, if I haven’t done all I could in the years since to earn my place at the head of the table. I’ve tortured, maimed, and killed for Rossi, ran his businesses, and handled his deals. I like to think that the teenage boy who became the youngest underboss to ever grace the Manhattan seat is long gone.
I became a man in this life under Rossi’s tutelage. And I feel as much rage as he does that the only woman who gave a damn about me after my mother’s death, who tried to mother me in her place when she could, is dead because of the Bratva.
Because of Sofia.That small voice still won’t go away, the one that reminds me constantly that Sofia is the reason for all of this. The reason for Bratva’s persistence. The reason why I’m married now. The reason why the hotel was attacked.
And I can’t figure out why she’s so goddamned important to anyone. A little half-Russian, half-Italian orphan violinist. The daughter of a former underboss, sure. But there are plenty of underbosses with daughters. I haven’t seen the Bratva bombing hotels to get to them.
Deep down, I’d love to cut a bloody swath through the Bratva and get vengeance for Giulia just as much as Rossi would. And yet, I’m trying to broker peace. For my wife’s sake. For all the other wives, mothers, and children who don’t want to lose their husbands, fathers, and sons. Who doesn’t want to die as collateral damage to a life they didn’t choose.
The car pulls up in front of the funeral home, and I can see people already filing in. Franco is at the door when I walk up, and I frown, glancing over at him.
“I thought you’d be with Caterina.”
“She can manage on her own. I was waiting for you. We should talk about what comes next.”
“There will be time for that later. You should be with your fiancée. Be a good future husband to her.”
Franco snorts. “You’re one to talk,” he says, his voice too light for the occasion. But he turns and retreats inside anyway.
He’s right, of course. I’m hardly one to talk. I’m far from a good husband to Sofia, and I have no real intentions of ever becoming one. Still, Caterina is a good woman and a good potential wife—almost my wife, if not for the promise that had bound me to Sofia.
She’s lucky she didn’t wind up married to me. I’d thought Franco would be a better husband for her, for all his philandering ways. But it seems like he isn’t quite living up to the job.
I’ll talk to him, I think absently, as I hover at the door. I’ll impress upon him the necessity of making your wife feel cared for, even if you aren’t faithful. Even if you don’t love her.
Even just thinking it makes me feel like a hypocrite. I might be faithful to Sofia at the moment, but words like love or caring certainly wouldn’t describe our relationship. In fact, what I feel for her is toeing the line of obsession. A dangerous distraction. A lust like nothing I’ve ever felt.
Definitelynot love.
This is the last place that I want to allow thoughts of Sofia to creep in, though, and I force myself to focus on the here and now, striding into the funeral home to find Franco and Caterina. They’re both standing near the front of the viewing room, Caterina in a black knee-length dress with a sweater over it against the chill of the building and a short, netted veil pinned over her eyes to her upswept hair. Her eyes are red-rimmed, and her face is pale, but she’s remarkably composed, standing tall with her shoulders back and not leaning on Franco.
Maybe she’s sensing that he’s not going to be a husband that she can lean on, but I personally think it’s just that Caterina takes after her mother. Guilia was a strong woman, and I feel another flash of resentment that she’s lying cold in a coffin instead of still alive and vibrant.
I thought I’d grown used to death, but maybe we never get used to the senseless ones. The deaths that are too soon. The ones close to us.
“You should talk to Sofia,” I say quietly to Caterina, in between talking to the other mourners and family members stopping by to comfort her. “She knows something about losing a parent.”
Caterina smiles thinly. “So do you.”
“I’m not the best at comforting.” I give her a small half-smile, reaching down to squeeze her hand briefly. “But tell me if Franco isn’t doing his part, and I’ll get him in line.”
“He’s doing his best.” Caterina’s voice sounds small and far away.
I know that probably isn’t the case. I glance over to see Franco talking to the capo from Newark, his attention already diverted away from his future wife. “He hasn’t had much responsibility until now other than being my friend and backing me up. But he’ll come around. He’ll grow into the role.”
“He’s a boy,” she says quietly. “But I’d rather that than some of the men I could have been given to as a wife. At least Franco won’t beat me or treat me like a broodmare. And I never expected a particularly loving or faithful husband. One that’s kind is enough.”
“Franco is that, I suppose.” At least, I’ve never known him to be maliciously cruel. Teasingly cruel, maybe, but never with the intent to hurt anyone. And he’s never been called on to do the things I’ve had to do for Rossi. He’s been my sidekick all our lives, the Robin to my Batman. The one who’s never had to be serious, who I’ve always tried to shield from those who would spread gossip about him or try to bully him.
Things are going to change now. And as I watch Franco move through the room with his easy, charming grace, his red hair standing out like a beacon among the sea of dark-haired men and women, I feel a slight unease forming in my stomach.
I hope that he’s up to the task.
