Zeke, on the other hand ...
He didn’t mind being loud.
“Grazie,” Zeke thanked his wife when she took the cup from his hand as she passed.
“You’re welcome.”
“Am I?” his father asked under his breath after his wife had left the dining room entirely. “That’ll be a fun chat later, I’m sure.”
Zeke went back to looking over the newspaper beside his breakfast plate like the entire thing hadn’t happened in the first place. Luca wasn’t quite as willing to pretend.
“You don’t have to do that,” he told his father. “I can handle Ma’s questions. She’s just ... worried.”
“Because you’re doing what you should be doing?”
“Because she’s not sure it’s what I want to do.”
The mafia wasn’t for the faint of heart, but especially not a man who was just beginning to dabble in the business. He was at the beck and call of any man in the Donati crime family who needed or wanted him for whatever they thought would serve their purposes. He barely had time to sleep and feed himself lately, let alone get any of the many papers done for college that had been due ... a long time ago.
He should just quit.
He rarely made it to class anymore. His grades were inconsequential because he wasn’t even doing the work to get a fucking grade. Katya had been right in stating he was wasting time and resources, but wrong that she assumed they were his to do so.
Someone else could take his spot at college. The money his parents paid for him to attend was someone else’s dream. He was very aware of his privilege and the fact he abused it. Luca wasn’t that much of an asshole that he didn’t care.
It wasn’t that at all.
He just ...
“Roz is a fucking pianist prodigy,” he muttered, referring to his little sister—by only a year—that would soon be returning from her stay in Australia where she had played for a massive company for several years. “My best friend is a literal genius.”
Naz, that was.
Who also dated his sister.
Luca shrugged, pushing the food around on his plate because now it looked a little less appealing than before if only because he wasn’t in the mood to eat anymore. A sense of unworthiness could do that to a person. He hated feeling like he wasn’t up to par with the people around him. Not that anyone ever voiced as much.
His parents didn’t compare him to his genius friend or musically inclined sister. Luca did that all on his own because he heard the things that were said and made of them what he wanted or needed to at any given time.
Zeke eyed him over the edge of the newspaper, considering that before he replied, “And you’re ... what?”
“Exactly. What am I, Papa?”
“What you should be, Luca.”
Was he?
“I wanted to be a defense lawyer,” he said.
Zeke sucked air through his teeth, saying, “I think you’re doing right by focusing on the family business. You balanced both for a while, but it’s hard to deny that one is now starting to suffer. Surprise, you need to make a hard choice. Comes with adulthood, son. We all reach those points eventually. You’ve hit yours.”
“And if I didn’t want college to suffer—”
“Luca.”
Right.
There it is ...
That tone of his father’s—one he knew all too well. His mother didn’t want him to quit college, and his father didn’t care what Luca did as long as he worked to be a made man. Just like Zeke—or any other man in his life that really mattered.
It was expected.
Luca used to think he could do both. He even dared people to prove him differently, and they hadn’t been able to for a time.
The pressure came from all sides.
Constantly.
He was really getting tired of trying to please everyone instead of just doing what he wanted. The problem was, he hadn’t found what he wanted to do yet. Which was exactly why he was trying to do everything.
And failing.
“I’ll tell your mother to lay off a bit on the college thing,” Zeke told him.
Luca only thought, but what about you? What about the fact that his father made it clear he believed his only son should have his life all figured out by now and nothing else would do?
Not that he said it out loud.
It wouldn’t matter.
The beep of his phone distracted Luca momentarily. Just long enough for him to pull the device from the pocket of his jeans and check the message that lit up the screen.
Be at the club in Brooklyn in two hours. I’ve got a problem, it read.
What was more surprising was the fact that it came from Naz who was supposed to be overseas visiting with Roz before accompanying her home. She was finally coming back from Australia. For good.
But if Naz was already back and hadn’t even told Luca as much, then—
“Where are you going?” Katya asked, returning from the kitchen with a steaming mug of coffee in hand for her husband only to find Luca standing from the table. “You didn’t even finish breakfast. This is the only time all week I’ve even been able to see you, Luca.”
“Sorry, Ma,” he muttered, giving his father a pleading look to excuse him while he pulled his leather jacket from the back of the chair. “An emergency came up with Naz. I gotta go.”
“But—”
“Let him go, Katya,” Zeke said. “Family business first.”
His mother sighed.
Loudly.
She at least gave him a smile when he dropped a kiss to her cheek on the way by. Not that it reached her eyes or felt particularly true.
He also didn’t mind running out early despite the tinge of guilt that pulled at his gut. He didn’t want to keep disappointing his mother—or even his father.
But shit ...
Whatever got him out of that house.
NAZ SAID TWO HOURS.
Luca made it forty-five minutes early because he got lucky and traffic wasn’t completely fucking horrible on the way over.
His good fortune meant he wasn’t surprised that he arrived before Naz at the Brooklyn club affectionally known around the family as Dizzy’s because of the manager. A female that barely touched five feet in height but was known for her ability to gut a grown man without a blink. Despite being told by many men in la famiglia that Nazio should hire someone more appropriate—like a guy—to run the place for him while he only used the club mainly to work out of for more illegal business, his best friend refused. Deserie—or Dizzy, to the people who mattered—knew how to do her job and that’s what mattered the most.
It spoke to the changes in Cosa Nostra’s culture over the years, even since his own father’s days. Especially when those first few men who voiced their displeasure at a woman so close to the business were also quick to accept a younger man’s perspective on how certain aspects of said business should be done.
Because Naz wasn’t wrong.
It probably helped too that the boss of the family enjoyed challenging the opinions and views of those around him simply because he could. Oh, and because the boss was Naz’s own father. If anything, it afforded Luca’s friend a stronger position in the decisions he made regarding the mafia.
Luca wished he could say the same. Having a father that held one of the highest seats in the Donati crime family only aided in the expectations that followed him around nonstop. While his friend managed to handle that same pressure with a grace that said Naz was meant to be the son of a boss, he was left feeling like he wasn’t good enough.