Melissa took a deep breath. “You’re putting too much pressure on yourself to be something you don’t have to be.”
Usually, he was silent in the matter, always letting her say her piece, but his lack of sleep didn’t want him hearing this conversation for the millionth time. “Mom, please.”
“I’m just saying, you don’t have to follow in your father’s footsteps, is all,” she reiterated.
“It’s not his footsteps I’m following …” he finally explained, his voice turning dark. “This is who I am.” It didn’t matter if his father was the mob boss of the Caruso family or not; Lucca would one day become the king of Kansas City, even if his father were a tailor.
“No, you’re much more,” his mother assured him sweetly, tucking a fallen strand of hair back behind his ear. “One day, you’ll understand when you have your own children why I only want the best for you and why I refuse to believe you’re no longer worth saving, like you think you are.”
“If you knew the things I’ve done, you wouldn’t say that,” he mumbled under his breath.
“You think I don’t know?” she revealed. “You forget who took you to all your therapist and psychiatric appointments.”
“I remember. Just didn’t think you wanted to believe them.”
“I didn’t have to be told there was something different about my children; that’s why I took you in the first place. Mothers can sense when something is wrong with their child. Stomachaches or colds might be easier to recognize, but that doesn’t mean we don’t notice your interactions with others. I wanted to get you the help I could while you were still young enough to make a difference.”
Lucca suddenly ceased what he was doing. He hadn’t known that.
“And then I stopped taking you and Maria when I got scared they would label you both dangerous to others and break their code of confidentiality.”
He wasn’t sure at which age it was that he had been diagnosed with ASPD (Antisocial Personality Disorder), but he was sure it was quite alarming for her to find out two of her four children were fucked in the head. The verdict was still out on his younger brother, Nero, as he was only twelve, and while it was obvious there was something up with him and Maria at that age, Nero appeared to be different. He had flashes of darkness every now and then, but it was nothing compared to his.
Their youngest brother, however, was perfect. Even as a baby, it was obvious how much Leo was going to take after their mom. Lucca remembered being happy for the first time in his life when he had realized it, grateful that their mother would at least have one normal child, because she definitely didn’t deserve the other children their father’s genes had given her.
“You see, I’ll always do my best to protect you in this life and the next.”
He didn’t believe in such things, but if there was … “I don’t think we will be going to the same place.”
“I’ve been taught that any man, no matter what they’ve done, can seek salvation, and you, my son, are no different.”
“Mom, I’ve told you—”
“I understand that salvation isn’t going to come to you by going to church …”
Lucca stared into her eyes and saw she wholeheartedly believed every word she was about to say.
“You’ll find your salvation in a woman, just like your father did.” She smiled proudly at him, as if she could see the future.
Doubtful. While his father clearly had the heart for love, Lucca didn’t. He never could see himself falling head over heels for a woman, like Dante had.
Practically hearing her young, naïve son’s thoughts, Melissa laughed as she tucked a strand of his hair back behind his ear again. “Oh, I have every faith you’ll find the love of your life one day, but you might want to get a haircut first so you don’t scare her away.”
Plucking some mint leaves, he handed them to his mother, not having the heart to tell her he’d never do such a thing, as it would make him weak, just like it had made his father weak. As the king of Kansas City, the less you loved, the better. That was the one thing—the only thing—Lucca had been born to do.
“For Nero’s tea.”
“Right.” She nodded, dusting her hands off before taking them. “I need to run to the store to pick up some soup for him real quick. Would you mind staying here and watching your brothers until I get back?”
He began dusting his own hands off. “I can go pick up some soup—”
“No.” She shook her head. “You finish that then go be with them. You haven’t seen Leo, Nero, and Maria in a while, and they’ve missed you.”
He didn’t know why, but his hands wavered before digging back into the dirt.
Every made man was given a penthouse at his father’s Casino Hotel, and so he had been sleeping there most nights. It had been a few weeks since he had been home, too busy assuming the responsibilities of being a soldier to return.
“Okay, then I’ll stay,” he finally agreed.
“Good.” She happily smiled and got up. “Oh, look, the sun’s setting,” she noticed, her attention diverted once again by the beauty of the sky. “Come sit with me for a few minutes.”
Lucca dusted his hands off once again before following his mother to her favorite spot in the garden. The white gazebo lights flickered on, as if on cue, as they sat underneath them together on the bench their father had order for her.
The two of them sat in the garden until the sun had set, the stars now beginning to twinkle in the sky above. His mother then left with the sun. It was a moment Lucca would soon treasure forever, not knowing it would be their last time together in this place or on this earth, as Melissa was soon set to depart.
Being gunned down in the grocery store parking lot wasn’t how anyone had pictured Melissa Caruso going down, but it was as if Lucca had always known his mother’s time here on earth was limited. She was too pure and good for this city, and having something that delicate married to the mafia could only mean one thing.
His mother was always Dante’s one and only weakness, and all his enemies knew it. Lucca knew it because he planned to one day sit on the same throne his father did.
It was exactly what he would have done if he wanted to take it.
THREE
LITTLE PSYCHOPATH IN THE MAKING
LUCCA, AGE 18
One word flashed through Lucca’s mind since his mother’s death.
Kill.
And after burying her, the voice only got stronger.
It had turned out his father was fucking weaker than he’d thought. Lucca knew exactly who had killed his mother, and even though he hadn’t pulled the trigger, that didn’t mean he wasn’t the one responsible for Melissa being six feet in the ground. Dante, however, needed “proof” to start a war between the two families, but what did proof matter? The Lucianos were the only thing that threatened the Carusos’ hold on this city. After the last war, yes, there had been a lot of casualties, but in the end, the Carusos’ victory had been hard fought, taking most of the city as theirs while they gave the Lucianos the shit part of it that none of them wanted to step their Italian leather shoes on, anyway. The next war could result in the Lucianos’ extinction … and that was exactly what Lucca planned for now.