Filed to story: Bound by Honor (Aria & Luca) Drama Story
Matteo slanted me another look. I hardly ever mentioned sex with Aria. I hated to share even that tiny bit of Aria with anyone. We spent the rest of the drive in silence. Usually my pulse slowed quickly after the kill, but this time it didn’t. When we pulled up in the driveway of the mansion, I was still wired. Romero arrived shortly after and together we entered our home. It was quiet as we moved into the living room. The women had put up the remaining Christmas decorations. The Christmas tree glowed in red and silver. I needed a peaceful Christmas, couldn’t wait for a few days of quiet with my true family.
My mobile beeped, announcing an email. I took it out of my back pocket. It was from a journalist contact and the subject line read “Urgent” followed by about a dozen exclamation marks. I paused and clicked on the email.
I got this from a colleague in Chicago and stopped it from making the rounds or worse, headline.
I clicked on the three attached photos. chapter 17
MATTEO
I had always suspected there was a point for both Luca and me when the darkness in us would rise too high, so high it would spill over and drown out all the light, all the good that remained. I feared this was the moment for Luca.
I stopped Romero from moving closer to Luca with a hand against his chest. Romero frowned, but then he looked at Luca and tensed. I, too, was frozen with apprehension.
Luca and I had spent all our lives together, had gone through the bad and the worse, had killed and suffered, had laughed and fought. I had never been truly wary of my brother. Not when he’d crushed our cousin’s throat, not when he’d threatened me for talking shit about Aria, but until now I’d never seen that look on his face.
I wasn’t sure what had him looking that way, but I knew only one thing that had the power to bring him to his knees, only one thing that could destroy Luca, that could make him snap once and for all. It was the one person I’d thought would stop him from snapping in the first place.
“Luca?” I asked carefully.
He stared down at a photo on his screen. I moved closer and what I saw made the blood drain from my face. It was a photo of Aria holding hands with Dante. It took me a moment to comprehend what I was seeing. It didn’t even make sense. Romero, too, threw a glance at the photo then frowned.
Gianna, of course, chose that moment to saunter into the living room in nothing but a nightgown, but stopped when she saw us. Her eyes darted from me to Luca and the smile slipped off her face.
“Where’s Aria?” I asked her sharply.
“Don’t take that tone with me,” she muttered, her eyes darting to Luca once more, who still hadn’t moved a muscle and who was still staring down at his phone, but I knew he was listening.
“Gianna, where the fuck is Aria? This is serious,” I snarled.
Lily appeared behind her, but Romero shook his head and gestured at her not to come closer. “Where?” he asked her.
“I don’t know,” she said quietly, but it was a lie. Romero knew it. I knew it. Luca knew it.
“Is she in Chicago?” I asked.
Gianna and Lily exchanged a glance but remained silent.
“What’s going on here?” Gianna asked.
And Luca raised his eyes from the phone.
“Fuck,” I muttered because that look in his eyes…it scared me shitless.
“Lily,” Romero began, but he didn’t get to finish whatever warning he’d wanted to voice.
“Did you know about this?” Luca asked in a voice I’d never heard from him. Low, dark, on the verge of breaking. He turned his phone so Gianna and Lily saw the photo of Aria holding hands with Dante, then he clicked to the next photo showing Dante with his hands on Aria’s shoulder, his mouth at her ear in an intimate gesture. And the next, the worst: Aria in a car with Dante and he was leaning over her, his back to the camera, hiding most of her body from view. You couldn’t see their faces, but they were close and his arm reached between her legs.
Lily sucked in a breath, and somehow it was the last straw. Luca roared and flung the phone away. It shattered against the wall. Next he gripped the Christmas tree and threw it to the ground. I grabbed Gianna’s arm and shoved her toward the entrance door. “Leave! Go to the car and wait for me.”
Gianna refused to leave, unlike Lily, who had allowed Romero to lead her outside. “Luca, stop being an idiot. Aria would never cheat on you, you stupid asshole!” Gianna shouted.
Luca had pulled a knife and was staring down at the blade, his chest and shoulders heaving, his face a mask of acute agony. Never had I seen him like that. Not even when our father had tortured us with knives, lighters and needles.
I gripped Gianna’s arm and pulled her out of the house and toward my Porsche, not caring that she was barefoot. She tried to shake me off. “Stop it, Matteo. He’s getting it wrong!” she shrieked.
I didn’t listen. I needed to get her to safety and then return to Luca and try to keep him from falling apart in a scary serial killer kind of way. I pushed her into the car, then locked the doors. Gianna hammered against the windows.
Romero had locked Lily in his Jeep, and gave me a worried look. “Aria wouldn’t cheat,” he said.
“You sure about that?” I muttered.
“You have to calm him down before he does something that can’t be undone,” Romero said.
I nodded. “Leave.”
“I’ll take a room in a hotel close by. Call me if you need me.”
Gianna started honking, driving me insane, but I wouldn’t let her out of the car. I didn’t want her anywhere near Luca when he was in that kind of mood.
With a deep breath, I returned to the mansion. Luca still held the knife in his right hand but in his left hand he held his iPad, that agonized look lingering on his face.
“Luca?” I ventured. He didn’t react. I moved closer. He had opened the photos on the iPad as if seeing them in a bigger format would make them less real.