Luca's Pov - Three Years Ago
The hospital hallway smelled like antiseptic and dread. Luca leaned against the cool, painted cinderblock wall, feeling like his heart had been ripped out and stomped on. Through the slightly open door to Room 314, he could hear Jace's voice, thin and cracked, trying to sound brave for a man who could no longer hear him.
"It's gonna be okay, Dad. We're gonna be okay."
They weren't going to be okay. Jace's father was gone. The machines had just been turned off. And the vultures were already circling. Not the medical ones the other kind. The ones with calculated smiles and compound interest.
Jace emerged from the room, his face pale and blank, his eyes red-rimmed but dry. He looked utterly hollowed out. He walked past Luca without seeing him, a ghost in his own life.
"Jace-" Luca started, reaching for him.
"Don't, Lu," Jace muttered, his voice a raw scrape. "Just... don't."
He kept walking, heading for the administrative office, shoulders set in a line of grim, hopeless determination. He was going to try and face it. The bills. The debt his father left. The impossible mountain.
Luca watched him go, a love so fierce and desperate it felt like sickness clawing up his throat. He couldn't fix this. He worked part-time at a record store. His own family was comfortably middle-class, but they didn't have the kind of money that could erase a mountain of medical and business debt.
But he knew someone who did.
The thought was a cold snake coiling in his gut. It was the worst idea in the world. It was the only idea he had.
He waited until Jace was swallowed up by the office, then he pulled out his phone. His hands were shaking so badly he misdialed twice. The third time, it rang.
It was answered on the second ring. No greeting. Just the weight of silent expectation.
"Damian?" Luca's voice was a whisper.
"Cousin." The voice on the other end was smooth, calm, and utterly detached. "This is a surprise."
"I... I need your help." The words tasted like ash.
"Financial, by the sound of it. The hospital ambiance is distinctive." Of course he knew. Damian seemed to know everything. "This is about your friend. The one with the reckless father."
"His father just died. The debt... it's going to crush him, Damian. He'll never get out from under it. They'll own him." Luca's voice broke. "He'll break."
A long pause. Luca could almost hear the calculations happening, the cold calculus of risk and asset valuation.
"And what is he to you, Luca, that you call me for this?" Damian's question was a surgical probe.
Luca closed his eyes. This was the confession. The one he'd never dared make to Jace. "He's... everything. He doesn't know. He can't ever know. But I can't watch this happen to him."
Another silence, longer this time. When Damian spoke, his tone had shifted minutely. It was still cold, but there was a hint of... something. Curiosity, perhaps. Or the faintest echo of familial loyalty.
"You want me to pay off the debts of a dead man. For a boy who is nothing to me." It wasn't a question.
"I'll pay you back," Luca rushed out, the plan forming in his panic. "Every cent. I'll get a better job. I'll send you money every month. I'll sign whatever you want. Just... make it go away for him. Let him think it was insurance, or a mistake, or a miracle. Please, Damian."
The 'please' hung in the digital space between them, pathetic and heavy.
"Your sentiment is your weakness, Luca," Damian said, but his voice wasn't as harsh as the words. "But very well. I will clear the obligations. A monthly repayment from you will be arranged. The terms will be... lenient. For family."
Relief, hot and dizzying, flooded Luca. "Thank you. Thank you, you don't know what this-"
"There is one condition," Damian interrupted, his voice slicing through Luca's gratitude. 'He can never know it came from you. Or from me. If you tell him, if you use this to try and win his affection, the entire debt reactivates against him, immediately, with my standard interest. Do you understand? This is your secret to bear. Not his burden to share."
Luca understood. It was a cage of his own making. He was buying Jace's freedom by chaining himself to Damian and locking his own love away in the dark forever. "I understand."
"Good. The matter will be handled by tomorrow. Expect the documents for your repayment schedule."
The line went dead.
Luca slid down the wall, the phone clutched to his chest, and cried silent, wrenching tears. He had done it. He had saved Jace. He had condemned himself to a lifetime of watching the man he love from a distance, forever gagged by his own good deed, indebted to the most dangerous man he knew.
He looked up as Jace stumbled out of the admin office, his face a mask of bewildered shock.
"Lu..." Jace breathed, stumbling toward him. "They... they said there's a discrepancy. A payment from a closed charity fund... it covered almost everything. The rest is... manageable." He shook his head, tears finally spilling over. "It's a miracle."
Luca forced a smile onto his face, the biggest lie he had ever told. He pulled Jace into a hug, feeling the other boy sob with relief against his shoulder.
"Yeah," Luca whispered into Jace's hair, his own tears falling unseen. "A miracle."
He held his best friend, his love, the boy he had just sold a piece of his soul to protect. And he knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, that he had just set in motion something he could never control. He had invited a wolf into their lives, believing it would be their guardian.
He just didn't know that one day, the wolf would get tired of watching from the shadows and decide to claim the treasure for itself.