1 Chapter 1

"Luca?"

Luca stood in the rain. He let each water droplet kiss his cheeks and spill down his preadolescent chubby jaw.

"Luca?"

He didn't dare to turn around. He couldn't. Even if he wanted to, his body couldn't.

His family maid, Madam Rita, walked over to stand beside him. She touched his shoulder and hovered an umbrella over his already drenched inky black hair. His grey eyes couldn't tear away from what he was looking at to the woman beside him (who practically raised him his entire life), for even a second. For someone far more important was in front of him. Stagnant. Hidden behind wood and earth.

"Luca," Rita brushed some wet strands off his forehead gently and patted down his plaid navy coat. "You can't keep torturing yourself like this, Luca. We have to go."

Yet, the little boy stood imobile. Luca was as still as a statue. He might as well have been. After all, he was raised to be one; cold, unfeeling and stoic. However, for once in the twelve years of his life, his defenses had crumbled; for once, he felt more human than ever as the silent tears streamed down his face. His gentle breaths for air blanketed by growls of the storm that raged on above him.

"Luca!" a brash voice barked from behind him.

Luca was finally forced to turn around. He was forced to look at the sinister and designer suit-clad man he had grown to despise. Yet, Luca knew he himself would turn into that man one day.

'It is a necessary progression,' he'd been told by everyone he knew, practically ever since he could walk.

"Father," Luca bowed his head instantly. "Ciao," his eyes now parted from the previous sight to the wet runny earth below him.

He kissed his father's bejewelled-ringed fingers with forced reverence, fighting down a desperate urge to bite the flesh off the man's toughened skin.

Luca also turned to do the same with his father's mistress who was standing right beside him, her mink fur coat safely dry under the umbrella that her red nails held above her. Luca could feel the sickening contempt she exuded. Somehow, he wasn't even surprised that his father had even brought her there, of all places.

He looked at one of his father's goons standing beside him, holding another umbrella above the man's head. Luca felt pity for him; if even one drop got on his father's designer striped suit, it might take the cops years to find the goon's corpse.

"Boy, what is this nonsense? Why are you still wasting time here?"

Madam Rita shifted uncomfortably to stand by Luca, and though her lips parted to speak she remembered her place and waited to be addressed, leaving Luca a boy of only twelve to defend his need to be by his mothers grave for only a moment longer.

Luca was silent. He fought hard to think of an excuse; anything to replace the real reason he still hadn't let his chauffeur take him back home. He couldn't afford to show any weakness in his father's foreboding presence. He couldn't afford being weak in front of the mistress, a price he couldn't dare pay, not today.

"The funeral service ended hours ago, did it not? I ordered you to go back home with the chauffeur while I stay back to discuss business with partners. So why are you still hanging around?"

"Father, I...I…"

Rita stepped in out of sheer pity. "Don Torello, sir, if I may?"

Jonas Torello paused for a moment, in shock that she'd spoken without being addressed, but nodded. So Rita began, "Sir, he simply hung around because he wanted to watch you do business up close. After all, one day, he will take over your legacy,"

Luca sent her a quick glance, looking away from his designer patent shoes. Rita reciprocated.

Jonas paused again, still clinging to his mistress' arm. She caressed it and smiled a pink lipped smile at him.

"Very well," Jonas nodded. Then he frowned coldly, "But stop standing near that grave like an idiot and go to the car immediately. We will go home at once,"

Luca let out a breath of relief and obeyed his father. Just as he always did. Even though he knew he was the one who was responsible for his mother's early demise.

Years passed by and Luca was now a grown twenty seven year-old man. The years had been cruel but he was crueler. In an age where supplying data was the new gold mine, the Torello mafia Empire flourished under Luca's unyielding fist. After furthering his education and going to the best business schools money could afford, Luca returned as a champion in every field. His father's archaic ways were seen as a hindrance to the family's growth; his father had always been a stubborn man, pig-headed and prideful in all of his actions.

With Luca's return it now fell on his shoulders to silence the old fool. Ridding himself of his father and proving his dedication to the family business which was bigger than any one man were now his responsibilities. This was something his father had drilled into him as a child. Therefore, Luca was even more ruthless than his father. Luca had him strategically executed and when the dust settled and he was the new Don, he slayed the men that disloyally left his fathers side. He had no need for those that switched sides at the drop of a hat. With his empire at a standstill from all the deaths, he organised a coup in the Sandriga's Mafia group. The Torello's and the Sandriga's had been at each other's necks for generations. And Luca realized it was time to end the unspoken truce both families had formed from years of avoidance. When they came for his head, he had the first son of the Sandriga family kidnapped and his severed head sent back to them. The Don Sandriga, blinded by revenge, sent all his men on a worldwide manhunt for Luca, who was disguised as a waiter in the Don's very home. Infiltrating their home from within, the Torellos defeated the Sandrigas and declared their victory by executing their Don. Therefore, Luca became the head of both families by wedding the younger daughter of the Sandriga family. All this power went to Luca's head and he let his men do anything they wished, they could terrorize any people, sleep with any woman with or without her consent.

Luca laid in bed awaiting his prize for the night. He had paid a hefty price for her and was getting impatient. She strode in wearing a red tight outfit; her crimson heels clicked on the floor and her curly hair bounced against her caramel skin.

He moaned at the lovely sight and smirked, "I thought you'd run away. I wouldn't...it never ends well for the girls who do,"

She seemed unbothered by his remarks as she crawled over his muscular body; a small smile spread on her soft face. Her full lips hovered over his and she skillfully planted a soft kiss on his lips, reminding him of the wetness from his mother's funeral. Her body dipped into his as if trapping him in her sultry aurora and as she lifted her full breasts off his, he found in her slightly parted lips a glint of a long needle.

Luca's eyes shone in shock, and he struggled as her thighs pinned him down. As his mouth parted to shout, her slender hands took out the needle in her mouth and stabbed his neck. Luca felt his throat shut and his cries muffled into a wheezing he'd never heard before. Her legs finally loosened and he pushed her off him, then crawled off the bed and fell to the ground. He rose to his feet and searched for a weapon...any weapon. However, when he saw the cruel smirk on the woman's face, he knew he was done for. She rose off the bed and stepped on his chest with her heels, the point digging into his skin and spilling blood.

"The end of another misogynistic god-complex monster," Luca wrestled her foot off his chest and staggered to his feet. If he was going to die, at least he'd die as a man, on his feet, maintaining his pride. But with a forceful unexpected kick, Luca was sent hurling out an open window. He couldn't let out a sound, falling silently to his death from the penthouse of his skyscraper. The moonlight bathed his unforeseen doom.

As Luca hurled towards the ground, his brain began to shut down from the lack of oxygen; his eyes rolled backwards and its brilliant grey turned into a mute ash. His nimble fingers became stiff from death inching closer and closer.

But as his life slipped away a bright white light woke up his dying senses.