Luca's POV
The conference room on the 47th floor was all glass and steel—the kind of place built to make people feel small. Twenty potential investors sat around the table, listening to me.
For a moment, I caught my own reflection in the glass and stared at it.
"It's common knowledge," Sofia Vegas had told me three weeks ago. "Enzo Marchetti is rumored to be behind the hit on Paolo Conti and his wife."
I blinked the memory away.
Letting Emilia stay free—choosing not to look for her—had been the hardest decision of my life. Every day I woke up wanting to find her. Every night I went to sleep telling myself she was safer without me.
I stood at the head of the table, remote in hand, as the holographic display rotated above us. "The tallest building in Lewes City isn't just about height. It's about legacy. About looking at the sky and saying—"
I stopped.
Through the glass wall, in the corridor outside, a man stood watching me.
Silver hair. Black suit. A face I'd seen in my nightmares for twelve years.
Enzo Marchetti.
My father.
The remote slipped in my sweating hand. My pulse hammered against my ribs. My fists clenched so tight my nails bit into my palms.
No. Not here. Not now.
Someone cleared their throat. "Mr. Darhk? The timeline?"
I didn't hear them. I couldn't hear anything except the blood roaring in my ears.
Because just like that, I was fourteen again. Standing in a cemetery while rain poured down.
Everyone else had left—the priest, the family friends, even my maternal uncles. Just me and the grave.
MONIQUE DARHK MARCHETTI
BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER
I must have stood there for hours. Alone. Frozen. Watching the mud pool around my shoes.
No one came back for me. Enzo Marchetti never came.
"Mr. Darhk?"
Sofia's voice pulled me back. My second-in-command touched my arm, her dark eyes filled with worry. The investors shifted in their seats, confused.
"I..." My voice didn't work. I looked at Sofia. Just looked at her.
She understood. She always understood.
"Ladies and gentlemen." Sofia stood smoothly, her smile flawless. "If you'll follow me, I'd be happy to show you our facilities while Mr. Darhk prepares the financial projections."
Chairs scraped. Briefcases clicked. They filed out, murmuring among themselves.
And then it was just me and the man outside.
Enzo nodded to his goons. They stayed in the corridor as he pushed through the glass door.
I grabbed the remote off the table. Pressed the button. The glass walls blurred, turning opaque. The soundproof barriers dropped into place.
We were alone.
"Junior." His voice. The one that used to read me bedtime stories. The one that told me my mother was gone.
I didn't answer with words.
I crossed the room in four strides and threw the hardest punch of my life.
It connected with his jaw. The impact shot up my arm. Enzo stumbled back, crashed through a chair, hit the glass table. It shattered beneath him.
Good. Let him bleed.
But Enzo Marchetti was exactly the man I remembered. He stood up immediately—no stagger, no groan. Pulled a gun from his jacket and fired.
The bullet hit the floor six inches from my feet.
I stopped.
"I'm not as young as I used to be, son." He gestured at a half-destroyed chair with the gun. "Sit."
The image flashed again. Fourteen years old, alone in the rain. My hand bleeding because I'd grabbed the dagger from Mother's memorial display and held it until the blood ran. No one noticed. No one came.
I blinked it away. But another came right behind it—staggering home afterward, finding him in my mother's bed with the cook's daughter.
I forced the memory down.
"What do you want, Enzo?"
"Sit."
I didn't move.
He fired again. Closer this time—the bullet tore through the carpet near my shoe.
I sat. But my eyes stayed on him. Waiting.
Enzo walked toward me. Slow. Deliberate. Then he leaned down and pressed his lips to my forehead.
"I have missed you, my boy."
He took the seat across from me and laid the gun on what was left of the table.
"You got my brother fucked in the ass by a giant." Enzo's voice was calm. "You ignore every invitation to come home. You change your phone numbers like shirts. You won't set foot in the house where you grew up." He tilted his head. "You left me no choice, Junior."
"Take a hint. I want nothing to do with you."
Enzo leaned forward. "A boy can't be angry at his father forever. You never told me what I did wrong. Whatever it was, what do you say we bury the hatchet? Start fresh?"
He extended his hand.
I looked away. And there it was again—the cemetery. The rain. My bleeding hand. The grave. The woman in my mother's bed.
"Enzo." My voice was flat. "Look at me."
He did.
"You are dead to me."