Chapter Seven
1303 Words
LUCA
Fear. Tension. Avoidance. Evasion. That’s what I’d grown used to seeing in the eyes of everyone around me, and today was no different. The only pair of eyes that dared to meet my eyes, head-on, with pure hatred and challenge was Mila's. She stood next to her fiancé at their party, burning my skin with her heated gaze.
Did her challenge bother me? The hell no. I smirked at the thought. On the contrary, I found it oddly satisfying.
A certain thrill floods my veins whenever I play with people’s emotions, to discover their weaknesses and use them against them. It wasn’t hard for me to find their fears and their weak spots, and once I did, only God could save them.
Their fear feeds me. I know that I am the nightmare of most of them. But still, this reminds me of everything I’ve endured to become who I am now. Il Cattivo.
But that side of me was only ever for those who might be a threat—by any means—to the stability of La Cosa Nostra. That ruthless side of me was never toward my own family. Not the ones closest to me.
Until Mila.
I hated her from the bottom of my heart.
I never hated anyone before, but her.
I would never forget or forgive what she had done.
For the first time, I found myself exploiting one of my family’s weaknesses, which was hers.
The first thing I saw when I saw her after six years was her weakness, her son. He was her soft spot. And the ever-present reminder of her betrayal.
A smirk tugged at the corner of my lips as I kept my eyes fixed on her and Lorenzo, remembering the way she called me a psychopath.
The fcker, Lorenzo, was trying to hold her hand. I couldn’t blame him, though. She looks stunning in her dress that hugs her curves too tightly.
“Don’t you think you went a little too far, bro?” Marco said, following my gaze at the couple. “You didn’t have to force her into this engagement.”
“Did you secure the western border of our territory? I expect another assassination attempt tonight,” I asked, my eyes still locked on Mila as I took a slow sip of wine. She was staring right back at me, not flinching, full of raw hatred glittering in her eyes. Not once did she break eye contact.
“Fourteen soldiers on each side, plus snipers in position.” Marco was the wisest and intelligent Capo La Cosa Nostra ever had. I trust his strategy.
The fcker was pushing too far. He was now trying to slide his hand around her waist down to her butt. I knew exactly what was running inside his dirty skull.
I glanced over at Ricardo, who was deep in conversation with the head of the Armada family. With a slight nod from my head in Mila and the fcker’s direction, Ricardo picked up the hint.
I pulled my silver lighter from the pocket of my trousers, flipping it open and shut in a steady, repetitive rhythm, but didn’t light a cigarette.
“Luca,” came my aunt Merinda’s voice as she tapped my arm to grab my attention and said, “You should at least pretend to show some attention to your fiancée.”
I’d been so immersed in watching Mila that I hadn’t even noticed aunt Merinda coming. And that was unlike me.
‘Mils is a distraction.’ I recorded that in the back of my mind. Something to avoid in the future.
“They look so perfect together,” aunt Merinda commented, following my gaze direction to Mila.
“Everyone noticed your gaze on her,” she added, when I didn’t respond.
It was at that moment I tore my gaze away from Mila and looked down at my aunt. “And did you see me trying to hide it?”
She smiled. “No, you don’t. But you should spend some time with your fiancée. She’s our guest. And we don’t want the Castellano to feel offended, do we?”
Marco nodded in agreement, confirming her words.
I saw Recardo talking to Lorenzo privately—I was sure the fcker wouldn't be satisfied, but who’s care?
I still remember the shock on her face when I told her what people in La Cosa Nostra were saying about her. The truth was, no one dared to speak a single word about her. At first, when the rumors started spreading, I had two men's tongues cut out, and that was the end of the scandal for good.
Even though I hated her to the core back then, and still do now. But no one should speak ill of the Haydens.
I emptied my glass in one gulp and put it down on the table before I made my way toward where Lousiana was standing with her family.
Once she saw me, her face lit up. I extended my arm to her after nodding a greeting to her mother and sisters.
“I thought you forgot about me,” she mumbled, clunging to my arm proudly as we walked away from her family.
I looked down, smiling. “My apologies for that.” There wasn’t a hint of sincerity in my voice, even in my own ears. Yet, she kept smiling and acting as if she hadn’t noticed.
She pointed toward the dance floor, and asked, “Dance?”
I glanced at my cracked watch and said, “Well, but I don’t have more than ten minutes.”
Something in the atmosphere triggered my instinct for caution. I could feel that something was, that something was about to happen. I scanned the backyard around the pool where the party was. A few moments ago, everything seemed normal, but something had shifted now. I can sense it in the guards’ hard faces.
Marco was shouting into his phone, and that made me tense, even though I wasn’t hearing what he was saying. It wasn’t easy to make Marco angry that much. Our gazes met from across the yard as he was still talking into his phone, his face red with anger.
I knew it.
A new assassination attempt was about to happen.
Our eyes were raised to the roof of the eastern guardian gate at the same time. I saw it there. The muzzle of the sniper’s rifle. A small shine of the sunlight reflecting the barrel.
I followed the weapon's direction, it was aimed straight at Mila’s head. A faint green light from the sniper’s scope hovered on the side of her forehead. She was standing at the edge of the pool next to Lorenzo, chatting with mom and Lorenzo’s mother. Completely unaware of the situation she was in.
I yanked my arm free from between Louisiana’s grip so forcefully that she lost her balance and fell back to the ground. I sprinted toward Mila, screaming her name at the top of my lungs, “Mila!” But my voice faded by the loud music and the waves of laughters echoing through the air.
Everything happened in seconds.
All I was thinking of at that moment was that I wanted to take the bullet for her. My body could bear it, hers couldn’t.
Because of the speed I was running, the moment I reached her and wrapped my body around hers, we crashed into the pool. But it was already too late. The bullet had torn through her body. The water around us was already turning into red.
I lifted her into my arms and walked toward the mansion’s main door, water dripping from both of us.
As I walked steadily forward, I started barking orders, “Call Alfredo, now!”
- Writer
