Chapter 0006

ADONIS

David Vitale was a man of power, and everyone was aware of it. Even though his reign as the capo had ended nine years ago, most of the underbosses, captains, and soldiers feared him still.

But despite all the power he held, he had not an ounce of respect from my side. Just tolerance. Liking a family member didn’t need to be a necessity to have dinner or breakfast at the same table.

It was true; I was who I was because of him, but he had his own selfish reasons for making me the capo of the Vitale Empire. Why else would he give such an influential position to a nephew he barely liked? To the bastard child of the family?

“Where’s your father?” I asked Phoebe as I sat at the long table, beside the head seat that belonged to Uncle.

Phoebe looked up at me from across the table with her light-blue eyes while munching on her plate of buttered toast and bacon. “He’s upstairs.”

“What’s he doing?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you go ask him?” She scoffed. “It’s not like he answers me, anyway.”

I shook my head at her words. The only thing David was good at was murdering people and running this family business. Anything outside of that wasn’t his best forte, especially parenting, which was why both Phoebe and her elder sister, Savana, hated him so much.

To say his wife was any better was wrong, too. Sorina was always out touring, going to retreats or doing wherever the fuck she did. None of us really cared.

At least, Savana was out of the house, married and living states apart, with her husband, while Phoebe was stuck. Until she turned eighteen, which would be in a year and a half. Then she would have to get married as per our tradition.

“Dom didn’t come with you?” Phoebe’s voice pulled my attention back, and a small frown took over my face.

“No, I’m not entertaining your stupid crush on him,” I said in a low voice.

The idea of David finding out about this would endanger Dom, the only one of my men I actually preferred speaking to about more than just work. If I was correct, which I was mostly when the matter surrounded my uncle, he had already promised Phoebe to someone, someone who could give him—our empire—something in return.

“I just asked if he’s here with you,” Phoebe argued, annoyed. “And I don’t have a crush on him. He’s just pleasant to look at.”

I leaned forward in my seat with a grin. “Well, I’m pleasant to look at, too.”

“Wow, now you’re back to being the condescending jerk I know.”

“You know, half of my men don’t have the audacity to speak to me like that.”

“Well, they don’t have you as their annoying cousin.”

I sighed, giving up. She was only seventeen, too young for me to go on a full-blown argument over shitty matters against her. “What’s up with you these days? Why are acting like you have a stick up your... nose?”

She narrowed her eyes at me, but her expression quickly changed into that of worry. She took a deep breath and opened her mouth to speak, but the sound of heavy footsteps made her press her lips.

Dom entered the room, letting out a long breath and looking around. “Where’s David?”

“Upstairs,” Phoebe voiced, giving me the ‘let us talk later look’ and taking another bite of her toast.

Dom went to Phoebe’s chair and picked the other toast lying on the plate and bit into it before Phoebe could yell at him. Their banter would seem innocent if one knew Dom well enough. That bastard wasn’t made for love. He respected me and my family. But love? He loved only one person besides himself, and that was his own little sister.

Dom’s eyes connected with mine, and I jerked my head to the seat beside me. He followed around the table and took a seat next to mine, just when the door opened and Uncle David walked in. His gaze brushed all of us as he settled into his designated seat.

I noticed the difference in his face from two months ago, which had been the last time I’d graced him with my presence, and with good reason. The wrinkles in the corner of his eyes were more prominent than before, and tension had made a permanent mark on his forehead as long-drawn lines.

“Adonis,” he drawled my name. I glanced at Phoebe and then the maid that had appeared behind her with a bowl of strawberry cereals for David. “If you think avoiding me is going to stray me from my decision, it is incredibly stupid of you.”

“I’m not avoiding you,” I gritted. “There’s a lot of shit going on that I’m still wrapping my head around.”

“I told you something,” he looked me dead in the eye with a gaze I knew all too well, one that worked on me as a kid but no more, “about two months ago, I believe.”

“You should be more specific, given how little time I have.”

“You’re not staying for breakfast?” Phoebe straightened in a pitchy and needy voice. I shook my head, which disappointed her.

“Fine,” David groaned. “I’ll repeat myself. You will marry Danilo Romano’s daughter, Mariella.” And there it was—the words that I didn’t really want to hear. I let him complete it. "You're the capo, son."

Son? How ironic! He only ever called me that when he needed something from me or whenever he had to hand out orders through me. The entire familia knew David wasn’t very fond of me.

But better his sister’s son than some mere cousin’s, right?

He went on, "You're responsible for this entire syndicate and you've broken our most important rule by not marrying before claiming your title."

“Don’t blame him for that,” it was Phoebe who spoke. My jaw twitched. I knew she worried about me, but she really shouldn’t have spoken, because if David said something to her, I couldn’t defend her. “It was all sudden for him.”

She was right. It had been too sudden for me. David had informed me of his intentions a week before he turned it into a motion. Only a week’s time for me to prepare for a role this heavy.

“Phoebe, don’t speak where you’re not concerned,” David said in a harsh tone.

Phoebe opened her mouth but closed it at the small shake of my head. I took a deep breath and stated, “I don’t want to marry Mariella.” There. It was out in the open. I should’ve shoved these words to him the day he had asked me, but, as a man bound by tradition, I had taken my time to inspect this woman and her... credentials, as many called it.

"Mariella is a well-groomed woman.” He stressed the word woman since he wanted me to believe it. “Her father is a good underboss and maybe your union with her will be life-changing and beneficial for you."

"Beneficial only for her father, Uncle," I said in a matter-of-fact tone. "I have nothing to gain or lose from this."

He leaned forward in his chair and gripped my fist resting over the table. It might have seemed like a small gesture of care to anyone who saw, but to me, it reminded me of the first time he had held my hand, not to help me trace alphabets or to teach me how to catch a ball. It had been to show me how to hold a gun.

"You’ll gain what all of us do from marriage and that is what should matter,” he said. I knew where this was going. "With the dangers increasing, you need to continue our line. You need an heir."

“With the dangers increasing, the last thing on my mind should be to produce an heir, one I might not be able to protect,” I growled, “if things went out of hand.”

I couldn’t let matters slip out of my hands, but who was to say it wouldn’t happen? The whole idea of leaving my child suffering in this cruel world without my protection horrified me. My vision cut to Phoebe, who had a flash of respect in her eyes. The only thing that mattered to me.

"Besides, I’m not a true Vitale. A bastard always remains a bastard—those were your words." I snorted. "There are plenty of Vitales out there, plenty of my distant cousins with heirs."

“They’re not true Vitales. You are.” He shook his head as if he could justify why he had treated me like a burden for all those years. "It only took me some time to see it."

"It took you your son's death to see it.” Even without looking, I felt Phoebe flinch. Carlos wasn’t only critical to the future of the empire but to all of us. “The son who should've been what I am today. If you only had another son, I wouldn't have been here and we wouldn't have been having this conversation." It was the truth. And so was this, “You started considering me a Vitale when you sought no other way to keep the title under your name.”

David’s lips tightened into a fine line. "I didn't call you here to fight, Adonis. I'm too old for it now. It's your happiness I seek. Maybe giving you that would be my redemption."

I didn't believe in petty shit like redemption, especially with all the deeds people like us commit in one lifetime. "I’m thirty-two and Mariella is eighteen." Before he could reason with the dozens of examples we had around us, I yelled, “I’m not a fucking paedophile and I’ll not marry a fucking child.”

"Eighteen is an age perfect for taking on the responsibilities of a dutiful wife."

The thought of having a young wife, a young pussy, and being the first to claim her virginity might’ve excited many Mafiosos with enormous pride and a sense of domination and authoritative claim.

I was far beyond that. At my age, marrying a woman too young seemed a far worse sin than murder. It was a preference I couldn’t—wouldn’t—change. But most women in our world married before the age of twenty, which was something to my disadvantage.

"You never wanted love. I'm not sure if you can feel it anymore," David spat, withdrawing his hand from mine. "That whore Leona took all of it away. And I can’t say that I’m not thankful. Love is a weakness for men like us."

I was furious, furious enough to reach out for the gun in my holster and shoot a few bullets into his bitter heart or into that thick skull of his. But he was right. Leona had taken the remnants of emotions I had left in me after the whole incident with Amara and ran away like a coward.

“Well, it wasn’t really a question in the first place, was it? I said you’ll marry her and you will,” he demanded, slamming his hand on the table, the thudding sound echoing in my ears.

My stare didn’t falter once and I blurted, “I will not.” I stood up, shoving the chair away, and stomped toward the door.

“You will not back out of this, Adonis,” David yelled. “That girl’s been promised to you for the past five years.”

His words made me halt. I whirled around to look at his face. I surely must’ve been mistaken about what I had just heard, what he had just blatantly blurted. For the past five years. That meant they had promised Mariella to me since she was thirteen and I, twenty-seven.

“You did what?” I strode toward him.

“Adonis,” Dom muttered, trying to pull me away by the sleeves of my dark t-shirt, but I shoved him away.

“You did the same with Savana,” I stated. “You promised your own daughter to a man fifteen years older than her without her knowledge, without my knowledge. And who knows? Maybe you’ll do the same to Phoebe if you haven’t promised her to someone already.”

I hated I had no say in their lives. They were my cousins, yes, but they were like sisters to me. We had the same blood. I should’ve had the chance to protect them and allow them the freedom to choose the life they both wanted. It wasn’t marriage.

Savana had been lucky enough to find love in that tactical marriage, but not everyone had the same luck, which made me worry for Phoebe.

“I said nothing because they are your daughters and you had asked me to stay out of it.” His throat bobbed, but he held his head high. This motherfucker. “But who gave you the right to meddle in my life?”

“You’re my nephew.”

“Yes, precisely, I’m your nephew, not your son.” I matched the same tone of his voice. “So stop acting like my father. You’re not my father.”

“I raised you stronger than your father would have.”

“Do not,” I warned, pausing beside his chair. “Do not compare yourself with my father. He’s a better father than you can ever be for your own children.” Pointing around, I went on, “And this, you see, this isn’t yours anymore. It’s mine. So you better watch out, Uncle.” I looked at Phoebe and my eyes softened at the look of helplessness on her face, her brows pressed together and eyes flickering at me. “Forgive me for ruining your breakfast.”

Phoebe looked like she wanted to say something, but I couldn’t stay.

“You’ll be alone forever if you continue on like this,” were David’s last words to me as I sauntered out of the room.

There were plenty of reasons behind my aversion toward him, but more so because he had ruined my life. He wasn’t the only one to blame, though.

My mother had kept me trapped in this world, under her brother’s guidance, when she had every chance and opportunity to let me grow up with my father, who belonged to the normal world—a world where he didn’t need guns or dozens of men with him at all times, fearing he might get shot.

I was a sin my mother had committed and what I had paid for.

***

I parked outside the coffee shop, a few blocks away from home. The neighbourhood was quiet as usual and the shop was empty at this hour. A familiar face greeted me with a warm smile as I walked in.

“Ah, Adonis, it’s been so long,” Claudia said, walking toward me. She looked thinner and with more wrinkles on her face than the last time I saw her, which was also two months ago.

“I was busy with work.”

“I figured.” She smiled. “You're here for the usual. Some peace of mind and your favourites.”

“Peace of mind.” I, too, needed it now and then, like every normal human being. With everything going around, I didn’t need my uncle to shove me into a state of chaos. His words rang in my head. You’ll be alone forever if you continue on like this. I pushed his voice at the back of my head. “Black coffee—”

“With no sugar,” she stated. “No ciabatta today? It’s your favourite.”

“I’ll have two packed.”

"I know you love it with your acquacotta." She darted behind the glass counter and made my coffee.

My head twisted to the glass windows as something shifted in the periphery of my eyes. I never paid much attention to the people who lived around the neighbourhood. I didn’t have the time to fill my mind with the less important things. But I couldn’t look away.

There was a taxi parked outside the three-storey apartment right across the street and a woman standing by the entrance of the apartment. Her lustrous brown hair was tied into a bun. She was nothing out of the ordinary. A baggy tee around her body, tucked into her sky blue shorts and a pair of specs over her glittering eyes. Her height, as it seemed, was probably till my shoulders.

She had my attention for one wrong reason. She reminded me of someone I used to know. Someone I hated more than anything. It was fucking disturbing. There was a man, bickering with the taxi driver, a sight she kept laughing at.

Claudia cleared her throat behind me and muttered, “They just moved here. Brother and sister. No one else in their family, I heard.”

"Where do you get so much gossip from?" I asked.

"People love to talk to me."

I took my order and walked out, not wanting to show her my uneasiness toward this new resident. Mostly because I couldn’t move my eyes from her.

In the flick of an eye, she looked at me, and I froze. She inclined her head slightly and furrowed her brows as she inspected me from top to bottom.

A part of me had expected her to walk to me and begin some conversation. Most women did.

Even though I carried a powerful and dangerous aura, many women found it appealing. They probably thought they could calm the fire in my heart, make me a better man and such. But I was no better man, and I didn’t believe in redemption.

I prepared for her to come over. She wanted to, no doubt. There was a glint of curiosity in her eyes that I had often experienced. But she turned away and moved inside the apartment while her brother handled their suitcases up the stairs. As if she hadn’t seen me in the first place.

Somehow, that bothered me even more.