Page 13 of The Underboss's Secret Twins

His jaw tics, and I know I’ve irritated him. "I trust you to know better."

His gaze shifts, and now, he eyes me like I’m a soldier who’s stepped out of formation. "Sofia De Luca isn’t just some woman you can toy with, Marco."

I keep my face impassive, but my fists tighten inside my pockets.

"She’s Valentina’s best friend," he continues, his tone cutting. "And that makes her important in the most inconvenient way. But more than that, she’s a journalist, someone who could become a very real threat if she decides to dig too deeply into our world."

I push off the desk and straighten, keeping my stance loose even as irritation gnaws at me. "I know what I’m doing, Luca."

With a light sigh, Luca gives me a long, assessing look before stepping back toward his desk. "Do you?"

He picks up a crystal tumbler, turning it in his hand, before pouring himself a drink. "Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re letting your dick make decisions your head should be handling."

A muscle tenses in my jaw, but I say nothing.

He sets the glass down with a quietclink, then levels me with a gaze that’s all steel and command. "We’re in the middle of negotiations with the Rossi family. Things are delicate. The last thing we need is a complication."

His voice dips, growing glacial. "If Sofia becomes a problem, I’ll expect you to deal with it. No questions asked."

The fire crackles behind him, casting long, dark fingers along the bookshelves, gilding the edges of his face in amber. He’s dead serious.

I meet his stare, unblinking, my pulse measured, my expression giving nothing away. Whatever knots itself in my chest stays buried deep, because Luca doesn’t tolerate weakness, least of all from the men who were raised alongside him. He was like that even as a kid.

I still remember the day it all clicked, the moment I understood exactly who my brother was destined to be. We couldn’t have been more than twelve and fourteen, still young enough.

There was a boy, one of the runner’s sons, older than me by a year. He had decided he didn’t like that I was a Salvatore, didn’t like the way our last name carried weight even before we’d grown into it. So, he waited until the school guards weren’t looking, and knocked me to the pavement and split my lip wide open.

I’d barely pushed myself up when Luca arrived. He didn’t rush. He didn’t shout. He just stepped in front of me, adjusting the cuffs of his pressed shirt like the whole thing bored him. Then he looked at the boy, at the blood on my mouth, and said, "Try that again."

The kid hesitated long enough for Luca to take his wrist and press down. Not a punch, not a wild show of force. Just a simple twist, until the boy dropped to his knees with a choked noise. I can still hear the way Luca spoke to him that day, his voice smooth, patient.

"If you start something, you better be sure you can finish it. Otherwise, you will be forced to kneel."

He let go, wiped his hands like he’d touched something beneath him, and gestueed at me to follow him home.

I never forgot that lesson. And now, standing before him as a grown man, I know the rules haven’t changed. I keep my face still, my spine straight, and nod once, sharp and sure. "Understood."

Luca watches me a beat longer, searching, weighing. Then he reaches for his drink, dismissing me with the action. "Good."

I turn to leave, but his voice stops me.

"One more thing."

I glance over my shoulder.

Luca swirls the whiskey in his glass, not looking at me. "Make sure you actually do."

Luca takes a slow sip of his whiskey, unfazed. This is what we do—what we’ve always done.

I’ve never hesitated before. Orders are orders. But as I turn and walk out of his study, there’s a war waging inside me. Because I want Sofia.

And not in a passing, fleeting way.

She’s in my blood now, under my skin in a way that feels almost reckless.

I stride through the darkened halls of the estate, my thoughts tangled, my pulse thrumming with the remnants of my frustration.

The marble floors are silent beneath my steps, the cold, towering walls lined with ancestral portraits of men who built this empire with blood and steel.