Page 79 of Brutal Vows

37

LUCA

Matteo and I have an official appointment, because with the seemingly never-ending shit storm that has become our lives, it’s the only way to corner him for this talk I’ve been wanting to have for months.

As I stroll into his office, one look at my eldest brother slumped at his desk just cements this truth: I can’t saddle him with my problems. He can’t know about Milana’s baby. He can’t know I’m going to breach the contract and take her to Russia. And the last thing he can know is that I’ll potentially be putting my life on the line for her.

Matteo stands and walks around his desk, indicating I should take a seat on one of the sofas in his office. “Is it too early for a drink?”

“Yes. Watch that shit, Matty. You don’t want to develop a bad habit.”

“Right. Fuck it. Do I call Rosalia for coffee?”

“I’m not going to be long.” This is in and out. The longer I stay, the greater the chance that I waffle and say something I shouldn’t. I don’t even bother to sit.

“Okay,” he says, with a sigh. “This talk⁠—”

“Yep. The one I wanted to have months ago.” I take a deep breath, steeling myself. “I fucked up.”

Matteo drops into the leather sofa, and it gives under his weight with a slow huff. “You? Fucked up? How?”

The man who never comes out except as his brother’s doppelgänger has very limited opportunity to ‘fuck up.’

“I have a child. A four-month-old.”

His eyes go wide as the words register, and then he shoots up and circles the small space, hands on his hips. “What the fuck, dude?” We’re eye to eye now. “Didn’t we teach you anything? Jesus Christ. Who’s the mother? For fuck’s sake, Luca! Does she know who you are? That you’re an identical twin? In the fucking Mafia? The risks⁠—”

“Matty,” I interrupt him with a hand on his chest. “It wasn’t exactly planned, okay?”

“I’d hope not. Jesus, dude.” He drops back onto the seat and digs his fingers into his hair. “Talk. Just fucking explain yourself. You know the risks for us when people get too close. When women—” He breaks off.

“Yeah, you’re one to talk.”

Tasha, the woman who was never to be touched by any of us, is now married to him, and Gabi got shot in his apartment. We’ve basically crossed the whole spectrum of risks in two minutes when it comes to women. Still, I take a breath and launch my spiel. This is all for a very good reason.

“The mom was from Canada. New Brunswick. We met on a few road trips I did north on my bike to Maine.”

He’ll buy this. I was testing my long-trip setup for months, planning for the longest time to hit the road and rough it, never looking back. Look at me now, feeling like I’m in the principal’s office, admitting to having played the semen part in a teenage pregnancy.

“Was? Like in past tense?”

“Yeah.” Fuck, this is maybe more complicated than necessary. But having a mother who isn’t American should make things more difficult to trace. With his current mental load, Matteo isn’t going to dig too deep for the truth behind my tale. “She passed away. A medical emergency that went wrong.”

“What sort of emergency?”

“Fucked if I know. Small town Canada, shitty rural services. I don’t have details. I mean, I knew about the baby and was doing all the right things. So many times I wanted to let you know, but fuck, the time was never right and it isn’t something I’m proud of. She chose to keep it. I didn’t interfere beyond paying my dues.”

“Fuck.” He’s shaking his head, disgusted.

Now he’s riling me up. There are worse things out there, plus my feelings for Milana are like a burning heartbeat in my center, always there, aching with emotions I’m still grappling with. To talk like this, stoic about a fictional woman I randomly fucked on a few consecutive weekends in a dark room at a sex club up north seems so cold-blooded and cruel, in total contrast with this thing blooming in me.

This urgent need I have to be a father isn’t something I expect Matteo to understand—I don’t even understand it. I basically vowed to never have children because of our own fucked-up dad, but I can’t push away this nagging need to hold my baby in my arms. To be a protector, a provider. It’s so fucking primal, it scares the living fuck out of me, but God knows, I’ve tried to suppress it without success.

Here is Annushka, not of my blood, but a child all the same. She’s the one chance I get to prove to the world I’m not my father’s spawn, that I’m more than his fucked-up son. I might be the shadow man, the brother who hasn’t earned his stripes, but I want to be something to someone. Prove to the world I’m capable of things our father wasn’t. And in the process, I want to turn the fucked-up way we grew up on its head and do it right.

“Matteo—”

“Help me understand how this is now your problem? This woman’s family must be all over this to stop you from taking the baby if the mom just died.”