Page 23 of Deathless & Divided

“So be it.”

Damian reached for the doorknob and pulled the door open.

“One more thing,” Terrance added.

“What is that?”

“Congratulations on the DeLuca girl, Damian. Getting married puts you one step closer to where you need to be. It’ll work out well for you, I’m sure. You’re twenty-seven, so it’s time to settle down anyway and have a couple of kids to keep you busy. She’ll make a good and proper wife for a made man—her brothers have seen to that.”

Terrance’s words hammered home what Dino had said to Damian two weeks earlier about the man looking at him for the head of the family. It only reinforced his resolve to do what needed to be done so he could keep his life the way he liked it.

As his.

Damian didn’t give his boss a reply as he walked out of the office.

The guests were finally starting to disperse from the Trentini estate when Damian made his way back downstairs. He noted Joel and a few other men in the family that had been in the office to witness the boss and his grandson’s disagreement had left also.

That was the thing about the Outfit—everybody had a side to pick.

Damian said his goodbyes to his cousins and ignored his uncle and aunt when he passed them by in the dining room. Instead of parking his car in the Trentini’s large driveway and take the risk of getting blocked in if he wanted to leave early, Damian had parked his cobalt blue Porsche 911 GT3 in the back of the home. The car was his baby. He didn’t live in an excess of luxury, considering his small two-bedroom loft was as modest as they came in Chicago’s Wicker Park. The Porsche was his one show of wealth.

Damian wasn’t in the Outfit for money. If that were the case, he probably would have dropped out of the business long ago. It took a man years before he was really able to start pulling in any kind of decent cash of his own where the Outfit was concerned. Most revenue went to the boss—seventy percent of everything.

Damian supposed that was another reason why he liked his choice in career. Working with the Rossi crew for Tommas from time to time earned him decent cash. But being Terrance’s personal hitman when needed was Damian’s real payday. While he never stopped working for the Outfit, and other people seemed to think he was their personal soldier to do with as they wanted, Damian knew he could step back from that.

So, why hadn’t he?

Damian frowned as he made his way toward the back of the house, realizing then how Terrance had been grooming him in some ways. Christ, Damian hadn’t even noticed it was happening and that sickened him. Terrance often shoved demands from his men onto Damian when it was something he didn’t want to handle. Thinking back, Damian could remember more than once when Terrance openly asked Damian’s opinion on certain things.

Damian thought it was innocent.

Fuck.

It wasn’t just about what the boss had been trying to slowly and quietly teach Damian, either. It was about the men around them and the Outfit as a whole. The Outfit’s men were getting glimpses of another person of importance, someone with a voice being heard and a hand in the game.

Except Damian didn’t want his hand in that fucking game. Lots of men would make a good boss—Damian could be a good boss. But he didn’t want to be.

In the back of the house, where the guests didn’t go during parties and dinners, Damian found the hallways quiet and dark without windows. Large homes like the Trentini’s had very few windows on the bottom floor but the ones that it had were higher than normal. No boss wanted to give someone an easy way in, after all.

The figure leaning against the shadowed wall by the backdoor stopped Damian in his tracks instantly. The bit of light coming in from the frosted glass window on the backdoor haloed around her shape and washed her in a stream of color.

For a brief second, she actually looked calm and happy.

Alone, but happy.

Lily DeLuca.

A memory flashed into his mind so quickly he almost missed it.

“Damn, Uncle Ben’s gonna be pissed, Lily,” Theo said, the twelve-year-old’s voice cracking on his uncle’s name.

Lily sniffed, moving away the tattered piece of her summer dress to look over the damage on her knee. It was scuffed up and bloody something awful. It probably hurt but other than her sniffling, Lily didn’t cry.

“Ow,” Lily muttered.

“Shouldn’t have let her tag along, maybe,” Damian said. “Dino’s not going to like that, either.”

Or maybe the boys shouldn’t have decided to climb the fence.