One Step After Another (The After Another Series #1) - Bethany-Kris Page 0,1

and it always came before the disappointment. How his father showed or voiced that disappointment varied, but the end result was still the same.

“I didn’t forget. Work,” Luca explained, moving away from the bar and into the crowd of people milling between there and the ballroom where the tables had been set up for the pay-for-play political bullshit that he wasn’t there to entertain. Yeah, he bought a plate to get into the event, but that had little to do with his intention to vote or which party he planned to pull for in the upcoming election. “Something came up. I talked to Ma.”

“But not me which meant I showed up to find you weren’t there. I appreciate the effort to let Katya know you wouldn’t be joining us, but less that you couldn’t take thirty seconds to call me and give me a heads up.”

“Why? Then, we couldn’t have this pointless conversation, Dad. You know how much I like our back and forth when I’m on a job. It really puts me on my game.”

“Luca.”

Shit.

It didn’t matter that he was a thirty-year-old man out on his own who answered to no one but himself—most of the time—his father came from a different generation. Really, an entirely opposite world. One that demanded respect at every turn and that he wanted Luca to join by jumping in with both feet and open arms.

The world of Mafiosi, that was.

Cosa Nostra.

A long time ago, Luca planned to do exactly that. Join the family business. Follow in his father’s footsteps to hold one of the highest seats in the Donati criminal famiglia. Then life got in the way.

The past.

Those ghosts.

“Sorry,” he told his father. The respect of the matter; Zeke expected it and even if he did see Luca’s lack of involvement in the mafia as a failure on his part, he was still his father’s son. “But something came up. I couldn’t put it aside. Might be my only chance to—”

“Find whatever you’re chasing this week,” his father said, his tone rough with annoyance. “Who are you working for this time? Or is the better question, what are you looking for?”

“Wrong questions, right words. Who am I looking for,” Luca returned, “and I’m not at liberty to say.”

Well, he was.

Could.

But he didn’t because Nazio Donati—the man who he answered to for this specific job—didn’t like having someone else’s nose in his business. Regardless of his status as a made man in the mafia alongside Luca’s father. Considering Naz was also Luca’s best friend—and married to Luca’s little sister, Rosalynn—and this was a job he had been unable to complete since he started tracking things and people years ago ... well, what did it matter?

His father wouldn’t care. It wasn’t what Zeke wanted Luca to be doing, and that’s really what it all boiled down to at the end of the day.

He also no longer had time to fuck around. The beep of his other phone—an untraceable burner he replaced every two weeks just to be safe—said his night was just about to get started.

“I’ll call you back,” Luca said.

“No, you won’t.”

“Okay, I won’t. I will, however, make it up to Ma for missing dinner tonight. That can either satisfy you or not. I don’t have the time or the give a damn to keep going back and forth with you about it right now.”

“Luca—”

“Sorry for the attitude. Again.”

Except he wasn’t.

At all.

Luca didn’t bother with an appropriate goodbye. His father should have figured out how the phone call was going to end two minutes ago when they first started it, anyway. Replacing the one phone with the other in his pocket, Luca checked the most recent message.

Confirmation of sighting—cameras at the front caught an arrival of someone matching your Penny’s description. Matches the old picture I have. Except the hair. It’s black.

Black hair.

Probably a wig.

Luca replied, Keep watching the cams. Let me know direction and/or floors.

The next response came fast, before Luca could even turn the corner to get a decent view of the front entrance to the hotel.

Got it, Keys wrote. A black hat hacker named Keys, funnily enough. Like computer keys. As if that wasn’t ironic at all. He kept the guy on call for quick jobs, and the occasional deep dive search of the dark web when Luca couldn’t find what he needed on his own.

Tonight, he had the guy working his magic on the hotel’s security system because a bead he had on a source from months ago suggested his