1.
Luca
LUCA saw ghosts everywhere. He figured that was to be expected considering he’d spent the better part of his days for a half of a decade chasing one. Now, whenever he found something that he could connect to his past, even when doing the most mundane things, he couldn’t help but see the ghosts of what used to be.
But seeing what used to be often led Luca down the road of wondering what could have been as well. Very few good things came from what ifs; the past couldn’t be changed, after all. Only the present and future. Chasing ghosts had also taught him that fact. A blessing and a curse.
“Sue the assholes for malpractice,” the guy to Luca’s left at the bar said to his friend in a suit. Well, they were both in suits. As was every other man in the bar and the connected ballroom of the hotel. Suit number one continued his chat with his friend, sipping on top-shelf bourbon, clearly knowing nothing about the law when he muttered around the rim of his glass, “Kid catches a virus while in the hospital unrelated to the illness they were admitted for. Sounds like something the hospital should have to answer for.”
“That’s what I said—”
“But not something you can sue for,” Luca spoke up, drawing the attention of the two men to where he sat on a barstool. “Not rationally, anyway. The virus would have needed to cause significant harm to the kid. Medically or otherwise. It didn’t—you said it yourself. Catching a virus because somebody coughed too close to him and didn’t wash their hands doesn’t fall under gross negligence. He had a few extra days in the hospital. Missed a test and a game. Another round of antibiotics and he was out of there. Big deal. You’ll pay more for the lawyer and court costs than you would if you paid the original hospital bill. Waste of time.”
Placing his lowball glass to the bar top, he pushed it closer to the other side for the bartender to pick up on his way by. One drink. That’s all he afforded himself when he was working. Which was something he had to get back to, the entire reason he was there at the hotel during a political fundraiser, and he didn’t really have time to entertain further distractions.
“Who the hell are you?” suit number two with the receding hairline and the wrong legal opinion asked.
At the same time, the guy’s friend asked, “How would you know?”
Luca pointed at the first man, replying, “Me? I’m nobody.” Then, to the other man, he added, “Five years of law school. But an ounce of common sense and all those forms the hospitals make you sign upon admittance that waives liability for almost everything except actual medical malpractice would have told you that. You know, had you taken the time to read them. Nobody does, do they?”
And saved Luca the trouble. Sometimes, he liked being an asshole, though. No real reason. At least it helped pass the time. The time was now up.
Standing from the stool, Luca reached for the blazer he had set on the empty stool on his other side. Usually, he preferred leather and a hoodie over a suit and tie, but there was no way in hell he was getting into the fundraiser looking like any other fuck who walked in off the street.
“Should still sue the bastards,” muttered the one man. “What do you got to lose, Greg?”
Luca shrugged on his blazer. “Hell, his money to waste. I suppose if he’s got enough money to be here—five-thousand dollars a plate for this event, right?—then he’s got the cash to blow on frivolous lawsuits that clog up the justice system. But hey, whatever gets you off. I’m not one to judge.”
“Excuse—”
Luca didn’t bother to linger long enough to hear whatever bullshit the guy planned to say, and the buzzing in his pocket gave him a reason to turn his back when he pulled the phone out and answered the call. He hadn’t checked the caller ID, but the second he heard the voice on the speaker, he wished he had.
“Puzza here,” Luca said.
“Son,” Zeke greeted.
Not unkindly.
It also didn’t have to be. Just hearing his father’s voice was enough to put Luca on edge. Usually, because Zeke’s kindness was almost always followed by the man’s—
“Dinner at your mother’s favorite spot tonight. Did you forget?” A second of silence followed before his father added lower, “Again.”
Disappointment.
The kindness was simply respect, and it always came before the disappointment. How his father showed or voiced that disappointment varied, but the end result was still the same.
“I didn’t forget. Work,” Luca explained, moving away from the bar and into the crowd of people milling between there and the ballroom where the tables had been set up for the pay-for-play political bullshit that he wasn’t there to entertain. Yeah, he bought a plate to get into the event, but that had little to do with his intention to vote or which party he planned to pull for in the upcoming election. “Something came up. I talked to Ma.”
“But not me which meant I showed up to find you weren’t there. I appreciate the effort to let Katya know you wouldn’t be joining us, but less that you couldn’t take thirty seconds to call me and give me a heads up.”
“Why? Then, we couldn’t have this pointless conversation, Dad. You know how much I like our back and forth when I’m on a job. It really puts me on my game.”
“Luca.”
Shit.
It didn’t matter that he was a thirty-year-old man out on his own who answered to no one but himself—most of the time—his father came from a different generation. Really, an entirely opposite world. One that demanded respect at every turn and that he wanted Luca to join by jumping in with both feet and open arms.
The world of Mafiosi, that was.
Cosa Nostra.
A long time ago, Luca planned to do exactly that. Join the family business. Follow in his father’s footsteps to hold one of the highest seats in the Donati criminal famiglia. Then life got in the way.
The past.
Those ghosts.
“Sorry,” he told his father. The respect of the matter; Zeke expected it and even if he did see Luca’s lack of involvement in the mafia as a failure on his part, he was still his father’s son. “But something came up. I couldn’t put it aside. Might be my only chance to—”
“Find whatever you’re chasing this week,” his father said, his tone rough with annoyance. “Who are you working for this time? Or is the better question, what are you looking for?”
“Wrong questions, right words. Who am I looking for,” Luca returned, “and I’m not at liberty to say.”
Well, he was.
Could.
But he didn’t because Nazio Donati—the man who he answered to for this specific job—didn’t like having someone else’s nose in his business. Regardless of his status as a made man in the mafia alongside Luca’s father. Considering Naz was also Luca’s best friend—and married to Luca’s little sister, Rosalynn—and this was a job he had been unable to complete since he started tracking things and people years ago ... well, what did it matter?
His father wouldn’t care. It wasn’t what Zeke wanted Luca to be doing, and that’s really what it all boiled down to at the end of the day.
He also no longer had time to fuck around. The beep of his other phone—an untraceable burner he replaced every two weeks just to be safe—said his night was just about to get started.