Mafia Fall-Out

Chapter Five

Charlotte

By the time I got out of court, I had two hours to get all four kids plus Luca and I packed and loaded so that Luca wouldn't get suspicious by me putting things into the car.

I'd waited all week for this, and I was so excited I could hardly contain myself. He thought we were going to the airport to pick up my mom and her boyfriend, but really, we were flying out to Aruba. I arranged with all of our friends and family to meet us at different points during our trip. Angelo and Julia would meet us in the security line, and Marco and Hailey would be waiting at the gate.

Our mothers, plus my mom's boyfriend unfortunately, would be meeting us at baggage claim in Aruba, and Jenni and Seth and Gabe and Lily would meet us at the resort. I tried to convince both Axel and Carlo to come with us, but they turned me down. I knew Carlo was busy, and things were still a little off with Luca and Axel since everything went down with Niko. I learned my lesson trying to fix things for him in the past, but it was still hard for me to watch. Nonetheless, I backed off and respected Luca's feelings about the whole thing.

It was literally a miracle I managed to hide all of this from Luca. Thank god he never looked at his bank accounts. He thought our little family dinner and celebration yesterday was the extent of celebrating we were going to do for his birthday, but I had something up my sleeve. He'd done this to me so many times that it was nice to be giving him a taste of his own medicine. I was giddy just thinking about the look on his face.

Jenni grabbed the kids for me and dropped them off at home so I could get a head start on packing. By this point, I just had to throw clothes in the suitcases and hope for the best. When Luca finally walked through the door, I felt like I had just finished a marathon.

"Hey babe!" I smiled, trying to act like it was business as usual. "How was your day?"

"It was fine." He gave me a quick kiss before heading into the kitchen, not at all like his usual greeting.

I followed him in there, pausing just a second as I was I watched him grab a beer out of the refrigerator.

"Is everything..." I started right as a hockey puck came flying out at us from the living room.

"Hey!" Luca snapped, grabbing it just before it hit the chandelier. "What did I tell you about playing hockey in the house?"

"Sorry daddy!" Leo chirped, snickering and not taking it very seriously.

"Go to your room." He grabbed the stick roughly out of his hands and Leo dissolved into tears, running up the stairs.

"Luca, he's just excited to see you." I frowned. Something was definitely up with him. He never barked at the kids like that.

Luca threw his arms in the air. "Charlotte, I don't know what you want from me. I'm damned if I do or damned if I don't when it comes to disciplining them. We have rules for a reason."

I stared at him for a second, a little baffled by his reaction. Clearly, something happened at work today that I've gotten him into a tizzy, but that certainly wasn't going to mesh well with his birthday surprise tonight. I had twenty people flying out of the country to celebrate him, and Luca was about as pleasant as Freddy Krueger.

"Luca, I'm sorry you had a bad day, but that doesn't mean you can come home and take it out on us." I sighed. "There is a difference between disciplining him and just being an asshole. Obviously, we have rules for a reason, but he's three, and sometimes he needs a reminder. It's your job to teach him, not snap at him when he makes a mistake."

He started to speak, but I held my hand up to quiet him. "If you need to go blow off steam in the gym for a little while, then that's fine. But don't come back until you're in a better mood." I narrowed my eyes at him.