Novels by Kudoz Penn

The car ride was a slow descent into a reality I wasn’t ready for. The glass of Silas Vane’s SUV was so thick it felt like it was soundproofing the world, leaving me alone with the man who had just pointed a gun at my family. I slumped against the door, my head resting against the cool window, wishing the Xanax would kick in faster.I kept my Ray-Bans on. They were my only shield. Behind the dark lenses, I could watch him without him seeing the terror in my eyes. He sat there like a king on a throne of black leather, perfectly still, while I felt like I was vibrating out of my skin."You can take the glasses off, Luca," he said. His voice wasn't loud, but it had the weight of a command.I didn't move. I couldn't. "I like the view better this way," I slurred, my tongue feeling heavy. "It filters out the parts of this wedding I didn’t sign up for."He didn't argue. He just reached out. For a second, I thought he was going to hit me. I flinched, pulling back into the seat, but he didn't

Usually, the thick and heavy glass insulation drowned out the world, leaving me in the peaceful vacuum of my own thoughts. But today, the silence was jagged. It was occupied by the frantic, shallow breathing of the boy sitting three feet away from me. I didn’t need to look at Luca De Santis to know he was falling apart. I could smell it on him; the sharp, bitter scent of fear mixed with the floral notes of too much expensive wine and the chemical sweetness of whatever he’d popped before walking down the aisle. I sat perfectly still, my legs crossed at the knee, watching the blurred grey of Chicago suburbs turn into the sharp, steel lines of the North Side. I felt the weight of my wedding ring, a brand-new band of heavy platinum. I felt like a shackle, though I was the one holding the key. Fifteen years ago, when I sat in a car like this with Clara, the air had been filled with the scent of lilies and her soft laughter. She had been a prize of tradition. Luca? Luca was a prize of wa

Don De Santis couldn’t handle the fury of the North. Nobody can. He spent a year trying to steal my shipments and take over my streets, and all he got for it was a pile of body bags.He finally realized that you don’t play games with the Vane family. We have owned this city for decades. We are old money built on silence and iron. He is new money, built on noise and chaos. So, he did what all cowards do when they are losing. He crawled to me and begged for peace. He offered me a treaty in the most unlikely way: a marriage. He wanted to tie our bloodlines together so I wouldn’t finish what I started. I’m not entirely sure why I agreed to this charade, but I am a man of my word. If a wedding stops the bloodbath for a while, I will take the deal. But I don’t believe in peace. Peace is just a quiet moment between two wars. It is the time a man takes to reload his gun. I stood at the altar of St. Anne Cathedral, my back a straight line of iron. I didn’t feel like a groom. I felt like a ge

01:18 PM. The numbers on the clock burned my retinas like a countdown to an execution. Today was the day I stopped being a person and started being a peace treaty. I rolled out of my bed, a massive, silk-sheeted island that suddenly felt like a coffin. My head throbbed, a brutal reminder of the cheap liquor I’d used to try and drown out the sunrise. It hadn’t worked. It never worked. “Luca! Are you up?” Tatiana’s voice sliced through my skull. “Stop screaming, Tati,” I groaned, shielding my eyes. My sister pushed into the room, her eyes full of that suffocating pity I hated. “Father wants you sorted,” she whispered. “Like he cares,” I snapped, the bitterness sharp in my throat. “He’s just happy to finally sell off the unwanted son.”I walked into the bathroom, catching my reflection. I looked like a ghost. This war with the North had turned us all into monsters or corpses. My father, Don De Santis, had ‘solved’ it with this marriage. A genius move for him; a life sentence for me.