Page 1 of Brutal Vows

1

LUCA

Everything is prepared and ready. Every last detail in place, just waiting for the go-ahead. I’ve planned this road trip for years, ready to run it as smoothly as any operation in Il Consiglio.

Since Matteo gradually took over from the Don ten years ago, I’ve been in the wings, watching, learning, implementing, always cleaning up, but I’ve taken the rigor with which my eldest brother rules our organization and applied it to every facet of my life.

Now my bike is ready. So am I—the only cog no longer wanting any part in this crime machine.

For months—secretly for years—I’ve been plotting to get out of the fucking Mafia. Leave Boston and Il Consiglio behind. The old Don is dead, but Stephano, my identical twin, got married and is now living in Italy with his equally Mafioso wife. The backdoor finally stands open for me. I’m no longer needed as a prop to be pushed around on the stage of his life to cover for him.

Here’s another truth: if I don’t take the gap now, I’ll be strapped back in for another wild ride because this is how it works. The shit never ends.

I run my hand over the high-gloss fuel tank of my Ducati. She’s a beauty. Upgraded with everything a man could need on a long road trip. My reflection in the black mirror-like surface arrests me even though it shouldn’t. Twins, so identical it takes people months to learn how to tell us apart. To be honest, Stephano’s marriage to Gigi is the break I’ve needed.

“When are you going to stop touching that thing as if it’s a woman’s ass? Just go get laid already.”

Benedict is standing in the doorway of the underground bunker where we slave our days away in the shadows. Incognito has always been the only way we functioned. He and I don’t know anything else.

“This is my deep cleanse, bro,” I throw out, glancing up at him. “Told you I’m done months ago.”

With women. With Il Consiglio. With the lifestyle I can now, in retrospect, see I was steered into by our old Don, Guiliano Scalera—my father and a fucking psycho. That shit runs in the family, and well, I’ve had it. I’m getting out before it rubs off permanently.

This road trip I’ve been customizing my bike for is more than an escape, more than my freedom. Personally, I hope to find I have some soul left and pick it up along the way.

“When are you going to tell him, Luca?”

Several beats of silence stretch paper-thin between us as we just stare at each other. There’s never a good time for bad news. Matteo isn’t going to like it.

But leaving means leaving Benedict too. He will manage our various business affairs alone. We might have streamlined them to the point they hardly need more than a daily check-in, but there’re always risks. Risks he will carry alone going forward.

Fuck. Part of me turns to stone when I think of putting Benedict in danger…and yet⁠—

Our baby brother will manage. He isn’t the brains for nothing.

“You might have noticed that we’re stuck in a shit storm? And Matteo has been a bit distracted.”

Benedict snorts. “The Don’s dead. Matteo is in charge. He’s getting laid all the time. Life’s good.”

“Yeah. It’s the other shit I’m talking about.”

First, there was Gigi, then Ariana, but finding our ‘stillborn’ sister Gabriella in the mix was literally the last straw. What else is going to crawl out of the woodwork in the aftermath of the Don’s death? I shudder at the thought. Humans. Just collateral in his system.

And then everybody’s hooking up as if we’re fucking normal. Aren’t they petrified they’re going to turn out like him? And treat wives like our deranged dad treated our mom? Jesus. Another reason why I have to leave. I can’t stand around and watch them procreate and have the one thing I want more than anything else but will never allow myself to have.

Some genes should not be passed on, and I’ll never allow any part of Guiliano Scalera to continue to exist now he’s gone. Not even in the kids I so desperately want. I never thought of myself as a family man, but lately, it’s almost all I can think of.

It was an unspoken vow between us brothers to never become fathers, because we’ll all be shit at it with the example we’ve had. It’s easy to commit to a childless life when we’re all living like playboys and love isn’t part of the equation.

But now… We might be able to say no to ourselves, but I bet Matteo, Stephano, and Dominic are all going to cave in if their women start getting broody.

Fuck. Broody. Don’t I just know that feeling. This gaping hole in my life only one thing could fill: a wife and kids. I don’t get it. With the way we grew up, a wife is already pushing it, but kids? Kids are literally the last thing in the world I should hanker after.

It’s a fucking midlife crisis. That’s what I’m having. Mafia style. At fucking twenty-nine too. A tad early, I’d say. Jesus.

My phone vibrates where it’s shoved in my jeans’ ass pocket.

“Speak of the devil,” I mutter, my gaze locking with Benedict’s after glancing at the screen.