Chapter 01

I find myself walking back and forth and I can't accept this. The wedding is crowded with people, including many friends of Dita, my dear mother, but she doesn't care about the fact that there are about thirty gangsters at the ready, guns in hand, in case some enemy of Duad Lestari ends up wanting to invade the party and decides to kill everyone there. 

"Could you at least pretend to be happy with your mother?" my friend Aris asks, but I just frown at her. There is nothing happy about this ceremony, at least for me.

"How can I pretend when Daud Lestari's "security guards" are carrying automatic machine guns less than ten meters away from me?"

"It's your mother's wedding, Luk," she tries to say, trying to keep me calm, "and you've barely spoken to her."

"She knows exactly what she's getting into, and she knows exactly how I feel about it.

"She's happy, Lukman!

"She's wrong, Aris. There's no way you can be happy marrying a mobster, the guy is accused of trafficking, for God's sake!"

I take another glass of champagne and turn away from her. I brought Aris with me to make me feel less anxious, but it's impossible; there are many of my mother's friends here, and they are all very happy about her wedding. They all know the streets, and some have even revealed themselves to be unofficial informants for Duad Lestari. It was because of one of them that she met the head of the Mafia; my mother had got into trouble with a drug dealer and ended up face to face with the dreaded head of the family.

She was lucky not to die right there, but apparently, she was even luckier, because he fell in love with her, for some reason. And here we are, two months after they met, at their wedding.

"Luk!" She saw me, great. She comes walking toward me hand in hand with Duad, who is grinning from ear to ear. "Luk, honey, I'm glad you're still here! We need to take a picture."

"What?" I inquire, surprised. "Picture?! What do you mean picture?!"

"Luk, my God, a family photograph! Like every wedding, right? Stop being silly and come with us."

"I don't want to take a picture, Mom!" I try to say, but she doesn't hear me, or pretends not to hear me, and now she's dragging me to the altar, where a photographer is waiting.

There is no one there except me, my lost mother, Duad and his two children: Devi, the youngest, thirteen years old, and of course him, the worst of all, Lanton, the little eighteen-year-old playboy. I can hardly stand to look at his face. I roll my eyes as he smiles seductively at me - that smile is his trademark - and go on my way, right next to my mother, wanting to avoid further contact with him as much as possible.

The picture is taken and I don't make a point of smiling, because this is a complete joke. This whole wedding is a complete joke.

I take a deep breath and try to walk away, but my mother pulls me in once again.

"You can come back here," she says, now I realize she is annoyed. "You were away from me during the whole ceremony, I want you to stay with me and your new brothers for a while."

"They're not my brothers, for God's sake!"

"Of course they are and...," she stops her frown and goes back to grinning from ear to ear, because Lanton and Devi are approaching. "Lanny, honey! Devi! I'm so happy to be part of the family, and to have you as children from now on."

"I'm glad, Dita. Welcome to the Lestari family," Lanton says with his most fake smile in the world, and I can't help but snort.

Someone calls my mother and to no surprise, she walks away and leaves me alone, now with Lanton and his crazy sister. She looks me up and down with narrowed eyes.

"What are you wearing there?"

"What?"

"It's your mother's wedding and you're wearing something worn like that? Do you know what Dior is?", my God, what an insufferable girl!

"At least this one I didn't buy with Dad's stolen money!" I say, very glad to be outdone by that one, but she just smiles and turns around, now leaving me alone with Lanton.

And who is now laughing like an idiot. God, why did my mother have to marry his father right away?

"What are you laughing at, you asshole?" I inquire, frowning.

"Don't you find all this funny, Luk?"

"It's Lukman to you, asshole. And there's nothing funny here."

"Sure there is, sweetheart," he says, coming closer to me. "Two months ago you were falling in love with me in that room, and now you're standing in front of me, not even wanting to see me painted gold."

Damn. Damn, damn, damn! How I wanted to punch my head against the wall until I forgot all about it!

"T-t-that's in the past! That w-w-was nothing!" I try to speak, but obviously it all comes out pooped out. God, and to think that I had sworn love to that idiot two months before! "You better forget all about it!"

"How can I when your moaning still makes me shudder?" He says right in my ear, making me shiver, but I obviously wouldn't say anything to him.

To tell you the truth, Lanton has been in my life for years, since we were little. First, we went to kindergarten and then to middle school together, but when he reached high school, my mother lost her job and the good life we had became a thing of the past. She got involved with some heavy hitters and I ended up in public school. I met Lanton again some time later and we both... well, I liked him, a lot. And we got involved, until I found out that he was actually the son of the boss of the most famous - and feared - mafia family in the country. How could I continue to get involved with him in that way with a guy as lowly as him?

"Leave me alone, you asshole!" I say, pulling away from him immediately and walking away, but he is insistent and comes right behind me, pulling me by the arm.

"Will you stop running away from me? Haven't you realized yet that this is going nowhere?" But I will keep trying to run away, even if it comes to nothing.

"What do you want from me anyway?"

"Stop pushing me, Luk."

"I already said it's Lukman for you."

"It doesn't matter. You are mine. You can't run away from me. We're connected."

"You're right, Lanton. We are connected now that our parents have married. We're stepbrothers now. That's great, isn't it?"

"Listen, I'm as surprised by this marriage as much as you are. When are you going to give me a break? I told you, I didn't know anything!"

"That's not the problem, Lanton! The problem was that you lied to me all these years without telling me that you were Daud Lestari's son!"

"Exactly, I am his son, not him! It's not my fault I'm his son, it's not my fault if my father is wanted! I don't control his choices, Lukman!" Says Lanton, now a little louder and panting.

"That doesn't change the fact that you didn't tell me anything. I trusted you."

That's the last thing I say before I finally turn around and make a way to get out of there as quickly as possible. Lanton is a liar, just like his father, and that is why I am willing to send them all to jail, to pay for all the harm they have done to people. But for that, I would have to be content and accept his remarriage. For this, all my things are piled up in boxes and more boxes, since from tomorrow we will move to the Lestari mansion in the East of the city, the richest part.

"Where are you going?" my friend Aris asks when she sees me leaving the party completely annoyed.

"I'm going to destroy them." I say, finally.

"What? What are you talking about, Luk? You wouldn't happen to want to, I don't know, find some way to break up the Lestari family, would you?"

"That's exactly what I'm going to do, Aris. I'm going to find proof and send every single one of them to prison. Including Lanton, if he is involved.