Was his mother right?
Before he could process it, she kept going.
“You think you’re honoring people that died, Luca? Wrong. By skulking around like some sort of failure, by thinking you don’t deserve credit for the good that you do, you only give power to the baddies.”
Luc almost smiled at that. Baddies was how the Moretti clan had talked about police business around the dinner table back when the kids were little, and it still was applied to this day to refer to the scum of New York.
“Hold up,” Luc said, not quite ready to roll over and play dead just yet. “If I’m supposed to be so proud of myself, why did Dad get pissed about me dating a reporter?”
“Well not because you have anything to hide,” his dad grumbled. “I just know how reporters can be. They’re more interested in a good story than the truth. If she found out that ‘New York’s hero’s’ former partner had died and that he was first on the scene of a kidnapping-turned-murder, you think she wouldn’t jump all over that to boost ratings?”
“Tony!” Maria admonished. “Ava’s not like that.”
“How do you know? We saw her for, like, twenty minutes,” Tony grumbled.
“She’s not,” Luc’s mother said firmly. “Luca, tell your father.”
Luc ran a hand over his face. “She’s not like that.”
“Oh, that was convincing,” Tony grumbled.
Even Maria’s resolve seemed to have wavered. “Luc, she wouldn’t. Would she? Your father’s being overprotective, she’s a good girl. Nonna and I both like her—”
“Which, we get it, you two agreeing is a bit like spotting the Loch Ness Monster,” Vincent said from the doorway, “but I’m with Dad on this one.”
“What are you doing here?” Maria said, scowling at her middle son. “We’re speaking with Luca.”
“Which was totally fine back when he was twelve and broke the window of the science building with his baseball—”
“Never happened,” Luc interrupted.
“…but this is adult family dinner. In case you haven’t noticed, there are three other people waiting in the other room.”
“Not anymore,” Elena said in a singsong voice.
Elena appeared next to Vin, Anthony loomed over both of them, and Nonna…
“What the ridiculous blazes is happening in here?” she asked, shoving her way forward.
New lipstick today. Purple.
Nonna shoved her bony butt into a tiny opening next to Luc’s mother, who rolled her eyes and refused to budge.
“Is this a family meeting?” she asked, looking around. “I can Skype Marco in.”
“Oh, by all means,” Luc said. “Let’s get the entire family involved in my personal life.”
“Ooh, personal life,” Elena said, pushing forward into the tiny room, making it feel even smaller. “What are we dealing with here? Women? No, wait…Woman. Singular. Ava?”
Luc growled. “You all know I brought her over for dinner once, right? And only at Nonna’s insistence? I don’t understand how you all have us on the verge of our honeymoon.”
“Rumor has it she’s been at your place most nights this week.”
“Wonder where that started,” Luc said with a pointed glare at Anthony. His oldest brother had the decency to look slightly apologetic.
“That, and you held her hand like a whipped schoolboy,” Vin said, leaning against the doorway with his usual glare.
Luc ground his teeth but didn’t really have a response. The truth was, Ava sometimes did make him feel like a schoolboy.
Except when she made him feel very much like a man, like when she made those breathy gasps…
He shifted awkwardly and his brothers gave him a look that said, our mother is right there, man. Keep your thoughts clean.
“So, are we done here?” Luc said, standing. “Everyone’s said what they need to say about my sex life, and my professional career, and my apparent lack of judgment?”