One Breath After Another (The After Another Series #2) - Bethany-Kris Page 0,3

because he got lucky and traffic wasn’t completely fucking horrible on the way over.

His good fortune meant he wasn’t surprised that he arrived before Naz at the Brooklyn club affectionally known around the family as Dizzy’s because of the manager. A female that barely touched five feet in height but was known for her ability to gut a grown man without a blink. Despite being told by many men in la famiglia that Nazio should hire someone more appropriate—like a guy—to run the place for him while he only used the club mainly to work out of for more illegal business, his best friend refused. Deserie—or Dizzy, to the people who mattered—knew how to do her job and that’s what mattered the most.

It spoke to the changes in Cosa Nostra’s culture over the years, even since his own father’s days. Especially when those first few men who voiced their displeasure at a woman so close to the business were also quick to accept a younger man’s perspective on how certain aspects of said business should be done.

Because Naz wasn’t wrong.

It probably helped too that the boss of the family enjoyed challenging the opinions and views of those around him simply because he could. Oh, and because the boss was Naz’s own father. If anything, it afforded Luca’s friend a stronger position in the decisions he made regarding the mafia.

Luca wished he could say the same. Having a father that held one of the highest seats in the Donati crime family only aided in the expectations that followed him around nonstop. While his friend managed to handle that same pressure with a grace that said Naz was meant to be the son of a boss, he was left feeling like he wasn’t good enough.

Which was some kind of shit, that.

No one ever said as much.

Luca was just ... fucked that way, maybe. In his head or because he read too much into the way his parents voiced their love and worries. Who knew?

Not him.

“You’re looking ... in a mood,” came a dark, familiar voice from Luca’s left as he stepped beyond the entrance of the club.

He did his best not to show his surprise at hearing Naz’s father greet him. He found Cross sitting in the first booth in a line of many, a lit cigar dancing between his lips as he muttered to the man sitting across from him to say, “Give me fifteen, Marty, yeah?”

“Sure, boss.”

The man stood from the booth and didn’t look back at the stacks of cash he left behind on the table.

Cross offered Luca a smile as he pulled the cigar from his mouth and said, “What—cat got your tongue?”

“Nah, I just—”

“Lighten up, Luca. I was kidding. Sit for a minute. Indulge my arrogant company, hmm?”

Cross waved at the seat across from his, but Luca took in the bar around them, still wondering why the Donati crime boss was there in the first place. He did business in a lot of places—not here. The place didn’t look the same in the daylight. One could actually see how large the stained, glossy wood floor was and the sixty feet it spanned from one side to the wall-to-wall bar on the other side.

It wasn’t the best club. A bit shoddy in appearance, it certainly wasn’t the usual, upscale place where one would find made men doing business.

They still liked it.

“Well, sit,” Cross told him, sharper the second time with a pointed look at the booth and then Luca, directly.

He did.

Even though he grew up calling this man his uncle—and Cross was also his godfather—the older Luca became, the better he understood that Cross was also more. And he demanded respect because of it, too. His relationship changed with the man accordingly. He was still the guy who took Luca and Naz sledding on winter break when they were kids.

But he was also the same man that Luca watched beat an enforcer to death with his fists because he slighted Cross’s wife, Catherine, and her family—another major crime family based in New York.

Luca never forgot it, either.

Cross grabbed a stack of the money, licking his thumb before he started swiping through the bills, asking Luca at the same time, “You here for Naz?”

“Yeah. How’d you know?”

A shrug answered him, along with Cross’s chuckled, “Why do you think I’m here? My son took off like a bat out of hell overseas, and then suddenly he’s showing back up much the same way he left. I would like a reason