John Grovatti married his wife on an agreement made between his own father and his wife's father. His wife, Kate, was a vicious thing in more ways than one. She lied about Lucian's father to her daddy, telling him how awful her husband treated her, how he beat her, and how he wouldn't share her bed because he was much too busy in the bed of another woman.
Well, at least that last one wasn't a total lie.
Needless to say, there were consequences for John's actions.
A boss didn't need to have permission to make the call for a hit, no matter who it was for.
"Cazzo," Lucian cussed under his breath, kicking off the sheets and moving his bare feet to the cold wood floors. "Damn it."
Those were not the memories or things he wanted to think about tonight. It was Saturday and the Marcello brothers always spent the night at their parents' home and attended Mass the next day as a family. Their mother always made a large breakfast feast, they'd go to Mass, and then spend the day together, ending the evening with a family dinner and drinks. It was something they did ever since the first son moved out, following through until the last one did, too. There was no business on Sundays, but there was no rest, either.
Here, Lucian didn't have his punching bag to beat out his frustrations on until he was too exhausted to stay awake for one more second. Instead, he settled for digging through the bedside table in hopes his mother hadn't cleared out his stash of vices.
Of course, Cecelia had.
Lucian was surprised she hadn't lectured him yet if she found them.
More agitated than before, he clambered out of the double bed, grabbed the sweats he'd tossed off earlier in the night, and pulled the pants on. It didn't take him long to begin his silent trek through the upstairs of the three-level home like he'd done so many times before. If there wasn't anything to calm his overactive nerves in his old bedroom, he'd find something in his father's office.
After all, Antony liked his whiskey and cigars, too. Besides that, being twenty-seven didn't do a whole lot for Lucian's restraint when he wanted something. Much like the rest of the men in his family.
Maybe it was Marcello thing.
Lucian stumbled, still reeling from the aftereffects of his dream, into his father's office and found exactly what he hadn't expected to. Antony sat behind his desk, sipping from a tumbler half-filled with amber liquid, while Dante was stretched across the leather couch, nodding at whatever his father had said before Lucian arrived.
Antony barely glanced up over his glass. "Don't you have clothes to wear?"
Lucian shrugged, not caring he was half-naked. "Didn't think anybody was awake."
"I hope you brought something better to wear to church in the morning other than sweats and those jeans you like. Your mother will not appreciate you going to Mass in dark wash denim again, Lucian."
Dante snorted quietly. "Mom makes sure he's clothed. His closet now sports six more custom made Armani suits, and I think she had some sent over here so he couldn't act like he forgot his at the condo."
Well, this conversation was going nowhere, Lucian decided.
"Vaffanculo," Lucian muttered, effectively telling his brother to fuck off. "Leave me alone. It's not normal to wear a suit every day of the week, all right? I wear one Monday to Saturday, anyway. The least I could have is Sunday to wear what I want."
"It's good to be dressed appropriately," his father added from the side. "And watch your mouth."
"Whatever."
"What are you doing up?" Antony asked, placing his glass to the table.
Lucian's nerves grew under the scrutiny of his father and brother. "Nothing. Something woke me, a noise, maybe. Where's Gio?"
It wasn't like his father to have a meeting with one brother and exclude the others. Lucian didn't like that at all.
Dante waved one hand in the air, uncaringly. "Sleeping off the drinks he slammed back before crawling into bed."
Lucian caught his father's cringe out of the corner of his eye. It wasn't exactly a secret that the youngest Marcello son had his issues. Most of them revolved around his taste for alcohol and sometimes things a little harder than booze. Being the baby of the boys afforded him a little leg room to move more than the other two, but Lucian knew Antony was two steps away from shipping his youngest son to a rehab out of country to get his shit straight if he couldn't shape up and do it himself.
"Was it bad?" Lucian dared to ask.
"He didn't drive himself home, and he came here for church tomorrow," Antony said. "That was better than last week."
"Maybe I should keep an eye-"
"No, do nothing," Dante interrupted firmly. "Not yet. Give him a chance to handle it."
Lucian shot his father a look that silently asked if that's what he wanted, too. Antony said nothing, only shrugged before picking up his glass and taking another gulp of what Lucian suspected to be whiskey.
"I'm just saying, I could keep him a little closer is all."
"Sure," Antony said, nodding. "But what good will that do, Lucian? So far, he's kept the issues away from business. I'm hoping it can stay that way. If it doesn't … "
Lucian frowned. "But-"
"But nothing. He's twenty-five going on twenty-six, not a little boy anymore."
Yeah, but Gio was still his kid brother, too.
Lucian looked towards the large, ornate grandfather clock in the corner of the office. The time was well after two in the morning, letting him know it was early Sunday. Now, he was really curious as to the reason for the late night meeting in Antony's office that didn't include him, or Gio, and was obviously about business in some way.
No business on Sundays. It was a rule.
Just like dressing well, no matter what public opinion was. Even if they were on the Department of Defense's list of major organized crime families in North America for their influence in the drug and weapons trade. Not to mention racketeering, extortion, smuggling, gambling, money laundering … The list went on and on.
There were quite a few rules, actually.
Being an Italian, Cosa Nostra born family was everything when it came to living life as a Marcello.
Family. Honor. God.
La famiglia. Onore. Dio.
Greed. Money. The business.
It all needed to be handled just so. Appearance was important. Family was everything. Pride and fearlessness was expected. As was the ruthlessness their syndicates and enemies had come to expect when a Marcello was crossed. They were to keep their heads on straight, no matter what situation they came in contact with. Never were they to leave their home without a gun on hand. Cops were not to be talked to, associated with, or trusted.
Lucian understood how to work and use his own handgun by the time he was twelve. At thirteen, he was disassembling and reassembling assault weapons. As a child, he knew the basement and attic weren't places he was permitted to use or explore like any other room in the house because his father had a large collection of illegal guns in one, and kept multiple incoming and outgoing shipments of drug substance in the other.
They weren't good people. Lucian didn't want to be, either.
But he was proud of his family. It was just who they were.
"Business on Sunday, Papà?" he asked, nodding at the clock.
Antony scowled at his desk. "Wasn't given much of a choice. Sit, we can talk now, I suppose. Just don't tell Cecelia."
He did as he was told, resting his frame down into one of his father's high-back business chairs that always sat across from his desk. "You want me to go and get Gio up?"
"No, he's likely too damn drunk still to understand the seriousness of this. I'll talk to him after Mass."
Lucian sat up a little straighter in the chair. Those words didn't bode well at all. "What's going on?"
"You know, I wish you'd quit marking up your skin with that awful ink, Lucian."
Smirking, Lucian shrugged. He had many tattoos. They were all important in their own way. His newest tattoo rested across his chest, from one collarbone to the other in elegant script. It read: This Thing of Ours. It was, essentially, La Cosa Nostra in English. Usually, his father peered over his tattoos with the disregard of a man who disliked ink, but he rarely said anything. This vocal disappointment was new.
Giving his brother a cocked brow over his shoulder, Lucian wondered what in the hell was up with his father tonight. Dante had come to sit up on the couch as well, a seriousness darkening his otherwise friendly features. Not that Dante was particularly friendly with anyone outside of their family and business.
"Is it pick on Lucian night, or what?" Lucian asked sarcastically.
"At least you can cover them up, I suppose," Antony said, ignoring his son's remark. "If Gio gets another tattoo on his neck where I can see it when he's wearing a dress shirt, I'm going to burn it off with a hot knife and blow torch. See how he likes the pain, then."
Lucian shivered, but hid it well enough. Antony did not make idle threats. Even if it was towards his sons.
"I'll keep the ink to a minimum," Lucian said to appease his father.
"You do that."
Or I'll just keep my shirt on so you can't see, he thought silently.