Mafia Legacy

Chapter Fifteen-Charlotte

Luca's a planner. He's always adamant about being prepared for any situation that could come up, no matter how crazy or unlikely. His back up plans have back of plans, and most of the time, it was irritating to me that he couldn't ever just go with the flow. Not tonight though. Not as I sat on the floor of our bedroom, hours after he'd been taken away in handcuffs, looking over the list he had left me for this very circumstance. My ever prepared husband had sworn up and down he would never go to prison, but had given me step-by-step instructions just in case.

It had been over three hours since they had carted Luca out of our house in handcuffs, and I was no closer to finding out what was going on than I had been when it happened. The very first thing on my list was to call Angelo and Marco, but neither one of them had called me back. That wasn't a good sign. I could count on one hand the number of times that they hadn't answered when I called, and to not call me back within 10 minutes was unheard of. I wasn't sure exactly how long it had been at this point, but it was at least an hour since my last call and desperate voice message. Stone wasn't answering me either, and that made me even more uneasy. Was he running into issues getting Luca out?

I had checked on the kids a few times and tried to calm their nerves as much as possible. I couldn't even fathom what it would be like to watch your father be arrested and have their entire lives violated like they had this afternoon. It broke my heart for them, and I had no idea how to help. Luckily, they were pretty resilient kids and seemed to be doing okay for the most part. I knew it would help tremendously when Luca was home, or I at least had a better idea of when that might be. My conversation with Layla hadn't been great. It took everything I had to convince her to stay at school, and in the back of my mind, I couldn't help but wonder how much of this had to do with that new boyfriend of hers. I didn't want to just right to that conclusion, but it couldn't just be a coincidence.

I was more in a state of shock than anything. This had loomed over us for almost our entire relationship. I knew the threat of Luca being taken into custody and investigated by police was always there, but it wasn't really going to happen, was it? I could hardly even wrap my brain around the reality of the afternoon and the harrowing possibilities of what was to come.

His arrest had broken the flood gates, and now anything was possible. It was hard to keep my mind straight and not focus on what was the worst of those possibilities in my mind. Luca spending the rest of his life in prison and everything that came with that. Living without him for the rest of my life. Having to explain to our children why he wasn't coming home. Watching them graduate and get married and have children of their own without Luca by my side. It was suffocating.

I wiped a tear off of my cheek right as there was a knock at the bedroom door.

"Char?" Marco peeked around the corner.

"Thank God, I've been trying to call you!" I let out a heavy sigh of relief. "I was worried they arrested you, too."

"Not me, but Angelo." Marco's face was defeated. "I'm sorry. I came as soon as I could. I've been trying to get things in order with the group since I found out."

Stress radiated off of him, which was no surprise. With both Luca and Angelo arrested, everything fell onto him. Marco enjoyed being a part of the business, but he liked being a capo to Luca—not the one making the big decisions. He would voice his opinion on things, but generally left it to Luca and Angelo. I was sure Luca had left him a contingency plan just like he had done for me, so we could be sure all loose ends were tied up.

"Can I help at all?" I offered, realizing there were quite a few things on my own list I hadn't done yet.

Marco shook his head, offering his hand to help me off of the floor. "No way. Are you serious? I'm here to see if I can help you. I can't even imagine what a giant cluster fuck that must have been this afternoon. Were the kids home?"