Four : Choices
1351 Words
Later that night, Luka made his way through the darkened halls of the De Luca mansion with the same ease he had as a teenager.
He moved like a shadow, slipping past the security detail with practiced steps, his movements fluid, silent. He knew every corner, every creaking floorboard and every blind spot in the patrol routes. No one had ever caught him before and tonight was no different. It was just past 3 a.m. when he pushed open the door to Izzy’s room. He expected to find her asleep, but instead, she was curled up on the window seat, staring out at the moonlit garden beyond the glass. She didn’t even turn when the door clicked softly behind him.
“Did anyone see you?” She asked.
Luka felt a small flicker of offense but shook it off. “No one’s ever caught me, Iz. How many times have I snuck in here?”
She sighed softly, her head still resting against the window. "You won’t be able to do that much longer… Not when I’m married to Matteo.”
His jaw clenched, anger bubbling up from deep inside him. He crossed the room in a few quick steps, his heart pounding as he stopped in front of her. “Why didn’t you say anything? You just sat there while they made the decision for you, like it was nothing!”
Izzy finally turned her head to look at him, her expression calm but hollow, eyes dull. “I didn’t have a choice, Luka.”
Luka’s hands balled into fists, his frustration boiling over. “You always have a choice! You could’ve said something, fought back! Anything, Izzy. But instead you just let them talk about you like you were some… Some prize!”
Her gaze flickered for a moment, a brief spark of emotion crossing her face before it disappeared again. She pulled her knees closer to her chest, resting her chin on top of them as she looked back out the window.
“You think I didn’t want to fight back?” She took a deep breath, her voice steady but brittle, like she was forcing herself to hold it together. “My father gave me an ultimatum in that room. Either I marry Matteo… Or I have to watch him die.”
“He wanted you to marry him?”
“Not at first. In the beginning he was furious, insisting I break up with him. But when I made it clear that wasn’t going to happen he demanded I marry him. At first, I thought he was joking, but then he pulled out a file.” She lifted her gaze. “He’s been keeping tabs on Matteo for months. He had everything, Luka. His movements, his meetings, even pictures of him when he thought no one was watching. My father had been planning a hit on him for months.”
Luka felt a cold chill crawl down his spine, his gut twisting.
Her voice dropped lower, quieter. “He threatened to send you. Matteo was golfing, laughing with his friends, thinking everything’s fine. My father told me you’d meet him there on the green and slit his throat open if I didn’t agree to marry him right then and there in that room.”
He could picture it vividly—the brutal image of Matteo’s blood spilling across the manicured green as he lay helpless, his life ended because of an order Eddie gave. Luka’s chest tightened at the thought. He couldn’t deny it. Eddie would give the order and Luka… He would have carried it out. He swallowed hard, mouth dry.
Izzy turned her head slightly, her eyes searching his face, raw and vulnerable. “Did you know?”
The question hit Luka like a hammer. His hands clenched, his pulse racing as he fought to find the right words, but he couldn’t lie. Not to Izzy. His throat tightened as he forced the truth out.
“I… I didn’t know the full extent.” He admitted, voice hoarse. “But yeah… I knew about the surveillance. I was the one who kept tabs on him. Me and my men were ordered to find out who Matteo was dating. We were supposed to gather intel, try and find out who he was seeing, find a weak spot we could use against the Novak's.” He paused, hating himself. “None of us knew it was you, Izzy. If I had—”
Her dejected sigh cut him off, the sound quiet but filled with resignation.
“Of course, it was inevitable.” She murmured, almost to herself. “Even if you hadn’t been the one watching him, someone else would’ve. My father was always going to use Matteo, no matter what. I suppose his decision to have me marry him instead of having him killed should be a relief.”
Luka’s heart clenched painfully at the sight of her like this—so small, so defeated, like it was something she had accepted long ago. He wanted to say something, to tell her that she wasn’t just some tool in her father’s game, that she still had a choice, but the words felt hollow. What could he offer her? A life on the run? Constant fear of Eddie finding them? There was no winning in this. They both knew it.
“Have you spoken to Matteo?”
Izzy scoffed, the sound bitter. “What am I supposed to say to him? ‘Hey, by the way, sorry about forcing you into marrying me but I did it to keep you alive’? He doesn’t even know how close he was to being killed today.”
“I think he’d rather know the reason why.”
“I know, but what do I tell him? We’ve only been dating for six months and I’ve practically forced his hand. He probably hates me by now.”
Luka swallowed hard. He wished there was something—anything—he could say to make it better, to offer her some kind of hope. But he knew the truth. There wasn’t a way out of this. Not now. Not with Eddie pulling all the strings, holding every card.
“I don’t know how to even look him in the eye.” She added softly, her voice cracking with emotion. “I wanted to protect him, Luka. I knew eventually my Father would find out about us and was hoping that if I was the one to confess, he'd see reason. But all I’ve done is force Matteo into being with me forever.”
He reached out, resting a hand on her arm. “You didn’t force him into anything. You saved his life. You did what you had to do.”
“And now he’s stuck with me, for better or worse. I trapped him, after everything he’s confided to me. He hates being stuck under his father’s rule, hates the cage he’s been forced into. All he ever wanted was to make his own choices, to live life on his own terms.” She paused, her breath shaky. “Choosing who he got to be with for the rest of his life was the one thing he had. The one choice he was allowed. And I took that from him.”
“You didn’t want to take that from him. You were trying to protect him. You didn’t have a choice.”
“Except I did. And I made that choice for him, just like everyone else in his life has done. Now, he’s stuck with me, just like he’s stuck with his father’s expectations and I don’t even know how to face him. How do I look him in the eye, knowing that the one person who was supposed to understand him just took everything away?”
Luka’s heart ached for her. He wanted to fix it, to take away the pain she was carrying, but he knew there was no easy way out of this.
No way to undo what had been set in motion.
- Writer
