Novel Luca Novels & Stories

Lila. An hour later we both walked out of the hospital for the surgery date for Kyle. Jake ’s cellphone rang. " Luca.” He paused for a moment. “Yes. Go ahead and put me down for one hundred thousand.” He paused again, and I could hear a man’s excited chatter on the other end. “Not at all. It’s a worthy cause. Thank you. You too.” He ended the call and put his phone back in his suit pocket. “Was that for a charity?” I asked, feeling something soften inside of me., how many charities did he support.

We always sat at separate tables. But our conversations drifted easily across the narrow aisle between us like sunlight stretching across stone. “The junior architect with the navy obsession…” I said one afternoon, leaning back in my chair with an espresso balanced between my fingers. “Is he still attempting to negotiate your caloric intake?” Irene snorted into her cappuccino. “Luca? No. Luca got promoted and moved to Florence.” “A statistically intelligent relocation.” “He realized trying to date a woman stalked by an emotionally constipated billionaire doctor was harmful to his career.”

Luca had finally fallen asleep after hours of restless tossing, his arm draped possessively across my waist. I'd lain awake beside him, counting his breaths, waiting for them to deepen into the rhythm of true sleep. Now, as pale gray light began filtering through the heavy curtains, I carefully lifted his arm and slid out from under its weight; he stirred slightly, murmuring something incoherent, and my heart stopped but then he settled back into sleep, his face softer than I'd ever seen it. For a moment, just a brief, traitorous moment, I hesitated. Then I remembered the men in the boutique, the guns, the cold revelation of what Luca truly was—a king of violence, of blood, of a world that w

Completely. A pause. And after? After, we build something new. Something that belongs to us. The jet left the ground, New York shrinking beneath the clouds—small, distant, powerless for the first time in his life. Luca opened the duffel bag. Pages rustled like old bones. Crimes. Names. Dates. Money trails. His father’s kingdom lay out in ink and paper. And there, tucked among them, the letter. Luca pulled it out. You’re not better than me, Luca.

Where’s the fun in that? “Look at him,” I muttered, grinning at the smoke still curling from his burned flesh. “Crawling through fire, bleeding for her like some tragic hero… and still breathing. Still fighting. It almost makes me want to clap. Almost. “Maitre, we found a few humans lurking around,” one of my hybrids reported, bowing low. Luca. His name was Luca , the gamma of some pitiful little pack clinging to their borders like children afraid of the dark.

Using the most extreme Mafia method reserved for traitors, Luca ended the woman who had played his feelings and gotten his own brother killed. She had slowly sunk to the bottom of the freezing river in unimaginable agony and suffocation. On the exact same day the police found Sophia's body, Luca's life also came to an end. In a rundown Brooklyn apartment reeking of mold and rot, the landlord forcefully pried the door open after failing to collect rent. Luca was slumped in a dusty corner. He had pressed a rusted revolver under his jaw and pulled the trigger. He didn't leave any suicide note. At the scene, the only thing found was an old, blood-soaked photo resting by his stiff hand.

Even though Luca said it softly, everyone still heard it. Dante looked as if he had been slapped. His pupils contracted sharply. "What did you say?" Luca didn't look at him or Sofia. Instead, his gaze fell on me. He parted his lips but ultimately said nothing. In the end, he turned and walked toward the exit. Dante knelt on the floor, watching Luca disappear through the doorway. His lips trembled twice. Finally, he turned back and said to Leonardo, "In that case, I'll offer two of my hands and my tongue. Is that enough?"

Thirty years after Vienna, Luca sat in the garden writing the final pages of what would become his last book—not about trafficking this time, but about recovery itself, about what it meant to build an entire life on the other side of catastrophe. Dante, seventy-one now, sat across from him doing crossword puzzles with the same focused intensity he'd once brought to running a criminal empire. "Seven letters," Dante said. "Lasting beyond expectation." "Survival," Luca offered. "Doesn't fit. S-U-R-V-I-V-A-L is eight letters."

Chapter 105 For a few reckless seconds Luca allowed himself to believe it. Always. The word stayed with him long after the safehouse disappeared behind them. Long after the vineyard roads gave way to forests. Long after Nova stopped teasing him. Which happened approximately never. "You smiled." Luca stared out the window. "No." "You absolutely did." "No." "You looked happy." Luca immediately looked offended. "That's slander." Nova laughed. "You're impossible." "So I've been told."

And next to it, unmistakable even at a glance, is a gun. Not hidden. Not dramatic. Just there, like it belongs. Luca sits behind the desk, sleeves rolled, tie gone, one elbow resting on the surface as he studies a document. He looks up the moment she steps inside. He doesn’t look surprised. “You’re not lost,” he says calmly. Layla swallows. “I might be.” “If you were,” he replies, setting the paper aside, “you’d have gone the other way.” Her pulse trips. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”