“Instant,” Luca said, heading for the cupboard where he kept the coffee. “Two sugars, right?”
“A half of a teaspoon, actually.”
That had him glancing over his shoulder. Sitting on the stool at the end of the island, Zeke raised his brows and smiled slightly at the unspoken question from his son.
“Sugars were high six months ago at my check-up,” Zeke murmured, folding his hands together on the kitchen island. “I needed to cut back.”
Something else he hadn’t known. He also hadn’t asked. The tinge of guilt dancing at the edge of his mind made Luca face the cupboards and focus on making coffee instead of delving into something that he wasn’t ready to deal with.
Not yet, anyway.
“Your mother wanted me to make you an offer,” Zeke said when Luca pushed a steaming cup of coffee across the island. “If you’re interested in hearing it.”
“An offer for what?”
“You go back to school, finish your law degree, and we pay—”
“I don’t need you to pay for anything. I have money.”
Not the trust fund promised by his parents once he turned twenty-six and had a clear direction in his life, but still ... he did have money. His current job didn’t pay in pity or thanks.
“Not to mention,” Luca added when his father frowned, “I don’t have time to go back to school. And I’m thirty years old; I don’t want to go back and finish the degree. I haven’t wanted to fuck with that mess since I quit a few years ago.”
Zeke hummed under his breath. “Right around the same time you began chasing invisible things, son. When you decided the family business wasn’t—”
“Did you come here this morning to have another fight with me about my career? Or the fact I’m not doing what you want me to do? Because we’ve gone over this, Dad, and if it hasn’t been obvious enough leading up to now, I don’t care what you think.”
“It’s not too late, Luca.”
“What?”
“You’re right, you’re thirty. It’s not too late to get back into the business. Pledge to la famiglia, work hard for the next couple of years, prove your worth and get your button. Make yourself a nice spot next to Nazio as his father begins the process of trading seats with his son. Wasn’t that what you wanted? What changed?”
Once upon a time, yes.
But life wasn’t a fairy tale.
Growing up, all he wanted more than anything was to be Nazio’s right-hand man in everything. Life, business, and anything that came up in between. Shit, the guy even married his sister. One of Luca’s first memories was running through the forested path that connected their childhood homes with Naz. They had always had one another’s backs.
That hadn’t changed.
He still picked up any call Naz made. Never hesitated to say yes when his friend needed something. He would be loyal to the Donati name and business until the very end. Nothing had changed in that regard.
Luca was also doing what he was doing now because of his love for his friend. Because who else was going to get the answers Naz needed?
“Is that happening?” Luca asked.
“Nazio taking over?”
He only shrugged.
Zeke smiled thinly. “It is. Soon. It’s something that takes time which is why—”
“You’re trying to get me to sit my ass down beside Naz before someone else can.”
His father didn’t deny it.
“No one will protect him the way you will,” Zeke murmured. “Nobody will be as loyal to him as you are. We know it—he knows it. His father knows it, Luca. It’s why we raised you two like we did. Two generations of Donatis and Puzzas have worked side by side in Cosa Nostra. You and Naz should have been the third. And what, these things you chase, this job of yours, it’s more important than the foundation we built for you two? Is that what you want me to tell Cross when the time comes?”
“This job ...” Luca dragged in a sharp breath, holding his anger in check but barely. His father, didn’t get it; maybe he never would. “I’m good at what I do. I’ve had contracts all over the country. I’ve found people that no one else could. So, it’s not what you want me to do but it’s also what I need to do right now.”
Until he found Penny.
Until he had answers.
Luca wasn’t the type to give up. And up until he had what he needed to satisfy Nazio, then he would stay right where he was doing what he needed to do. He would take every job that came up in between because it kept his head above water.
“And I’m doing what I promised Naz I would,” Luca added.
Zeke leaned back a bit in the chair, observing his son with more intensity than before. “Are you still looking for ... her?”
“His father told him to leave it alone—focus on famiglia and the business. Not me.”
“Because he can’t. You don’t work for Cross. You are not his made man.”
Exactly.
And he wouldn’t.
He answered to no one.
Grabbing his coffee for a drink, Zeke downed half of the steaming mug in one go. Maybe his father believed he wasn’t going to get what he wanted because the next words out of Zeke’s mouth were simply, “What if I asked, Luca?”
“Asked what?”
“For you to stop. Stop searching. Stop all of this. Be who you are meant to be. What happens when you find something you’re not supposed to?”
“I don’t—”
“Only two things happen, then, son. Either someone makes you answer for what you found ... or you’re left explaining why it happened when no one needed to know. Whichever way the chips fall, it only ends badly for you.”
Luca quieted.
So did his father.
Before he could ask Zeke what he meant by that, the ding of his cell phone in the bedroom had him excusing himself from the kitchen to grab the device. A quick check of the screen gave him the confirmation he needed that the meeting later in the day was still a go. Now, he had to get back to doing his job.
Leads on Penny were coming through.
He couldn’t leave it alone.
Except by the time he returned to the kitchen, his father was already gone. The only thing that proved Zeke had even been there in the first place was the empty coffee mug sitting in the sink, and the lingering scent of sandalwood and crisp spice. His father’s cologne.
Everything else was exactly the same.
For Luca, nothing had changed.
THE REPORTER MIGHT not have wanted to talk, but he gave Luca a bone to find. Really, that was all a dog needed to start digging.
Or rather, Luca.
Once he knew the area to look for—like the dead Smithenson man and any secrets his family was attempting to keep hidden—the only thing left to do was uncover them. Well, he needed the right people looking in the right places to uncover them, so to speak.
In the process of his hacker contact digging through every single morsel of information regarding the political family that he could, the guy managed to stumble upon rumors of an upcoming business deal. One between a dead man and another guy, a businessman from Florida, who was very much alive.
Two things were important in that information to Luca. Dead men didn’t make deals—business or otherwise. And there was always a little bit of truth to every rumor. It took a bit more digging, some money shoved into the right hands to figure out why the deal was still apparently on the table despite Elijah being dead, and Luca had what he needed.