Chapter Text
“Luca! Hey Luca! Over here!”
Luca opened his eyes slowly but quickly shut them again after being blinded by the bright sunlight. He heard footsteps in the grass gradually getting closer.
“C’mon Luca, wake up already! I gotta show you something!”
Luca finally opened his eyes all the way and squinted at his sister. Lucy was his twin, and only a few minutes younger than him. Her long blonde hair was tied in two curly pigtails. She was wearing a flowy white dress.
Luca groaned. “Lucy, I’m trying to take a nap.”
“This is why you’re supposed to go to bed at a good time, instead of staying up all night watching the television!” Lucy scolded her brother. “Ten-year-olds need like ten hours of sleep Luca. I read it in a book.”
Lucy pulled her brother up off the ground and started to run with his hand in hers. “Wait! Slow down, Lucy!” Luca exclaimed, still half-asleep.
Lucy didn’t slow down. At least not until they reached the base of their treehouse. There, she let go of his hand and began to climb the ladder. Luca followed shortly after, but before he reached the top, Lucy peaked over the edge.
“Wait there! I’m almost done okay!” Lucy told him. Luca waited until his arms began to shake from the effort of holding on to the ladder.
“Hurry up Lucy!” he yelled.
“Alright, alright! I’m done!”
Luca climbed up the last few rungs of the ladder. When he finally got into the treehouse, he was taken aback by the decorations that Lucy had put in there. The interior used to be pretty plain. A rug on the floor, a few chairs, and a desk full of unfinished coloring sheets. Now though, there were Christmas lights on the walls, bean bags, tables, and the television that used to be in Lucy’s room.
“Lucy, how’d you do all this? It looks so good!”
“Well, I had some of the maids help, and Papa helped out with getting the television set up, but I arranged everything!” the girl said proudly. “Now we can hang out in here all the time! It can be like our lair! We can even run our own Mafia, like Mama and Papa!” she said, gesturing to the pile of stuffed animals. “They’ll be our employees!”
Luca giggled. “Okay, but I’m in charge! You can be second in command.”
“ Second in command?! I don’t think so! I think I’ll be the leader.”
Luca crossed his arms and pouted. “No way! It should be me!”
Lucy, the self-proclaimed ‘family compromiser’, got an idea. “Why don’t we both co-lead? We can even do that when we’re grown-ups and actually run a Mafia!”
Luca hesitated but thought better of arguing. “Fine, I guess that’ll work.”
Lucy giggled and hugged her brother.
Luca hugged her back.
______________________________________________________________________________
Luca woke up in pain.
He heard voices, although they were distant and he couldn’t make out what exactly they were saying. The man slowly opened his eyes, wincing as he did so. Brief memories of a taser flashed in his mind as the events proceeding the present began to catch up with him.
Footsteps came closer and stopped outside the door of the small, empty room he was in. Luca struggled against his restraints. He was still tied to the chair. The door slowly creaked open, and Luca squinted at the bright lights that emerged from beyond.
“Well, well, look who’s awake,” the man, whom Luca failed to recognize, said. “As much as I’d love to kill you right now, you still have failed to give us enough information.”
“Don’t get your hopes up mate; I don’t plan to,” Luca responded, his voice hoarse.
“That’s what I thought. Although, I hope you didn’t forget about the threat we made earlier.”
“How do you even know about him?” Luca asked, remembering how they had threatened to hurt Shu earlier.
“We do our research. As the new boss of the Shivs, I plan to be very thorough.”
‘Huh, so this guy is the new boss?’ Luca thought to himself. “Even so, you won’t get anything out of me!” Luca yelled at him, hoping he was bluffing.
He knew he wasn’t.
“So that’s it. You’re taking the risk?”
Luca glared silently at the man. The door opened as a young woman walked in, her heels echoing inside the room. She stopped in front of the boss and tapped his shoulder.
“Sir, everything’s ready to be moved,” she told him, glancing nervously at Luca.
“What do you mean moved?” Luca spoke up, desperate for a solid answer.
The new boss turned to him and smirked. “Your husband and a certain orange-clad detective seem to know where our lair is, so I figured we should take the opportunity to move. Don’t worry though, I’ll make sure to leave some employees behind to greet them.”
Luca’s heart dropped. Shu? And a detective? Could the detective be… No, his relationship with that man ended years ago. But the thought of them hurting Shu because he wouldn’t give them the stupid information made his blood boil.
“Alright! Alright, I’ll tell you what you need to know. Just leave them out of this,” Luca said through clenched teeth.
The man threw his head back and laughed. “Oh dear, it’s much too late for that.”
The woman with heels approached him with a telephone. “Call your friends and tell them to give up searching. Say you ran away.”
“They won’t believe it,” Luca growled.
“It doesn’t matter. I want to at least try to stop them from ruining our plans any further. The fact that we have to move our whole business right now is frustrating enough. You don’t want them to come here and meet our employees, do you?” The man asked sadistically.
Luca glared at him as he grabbed the phone from the woman’s hand and dialled his home number. “I doubt he’s even home right now,” he muttered.
______________________________________________________________________________
Despite Shu’s protests, Mysta finally convinced him to go get some rest. “Tomorrow’s gonna be a rough day,” he had told Shu.
Shu looked at the detective who was now sleeping on the couch with loud snores escaping him seemingly every second. There was no way Shu could sleep right now. Especially not with all of the noise.
However, just as Shu had finally begun to drift into blissful sleep, he heard the phone ringing. The sorcerer jumped up almost immediately and rushed over to go pick it up. Mysta didn’t wake up at all.
“Hello? Who is this?” Shu asked hurriedly.
The line was silent for a while, but then he heard a familiar voice and had to choke down tears. “Hey, Shu,” Luca said, the loud cheerful tone his voice usually took nowhere to be found.
“Luca! Oh God, where are you? Are you okay? Did you escape?!” Shu’s voice was shaking.
“Uh… I- I wasn’t-” Shu waited impatiently for Luca to continue. He heard inaudible voices on the other end.
“Who’s there with you? Luca?” Shu asked, worried he’d been caught by the kidnappers.
“Nobody at all,” Luca finally responded. “Listen, Shu, don’t- don’t come after me or anything alright? I’m fine I swear I just-” Luca paused again, and this time Shu heard a sniffle and his blood turned to ice.
“What? Why not?”
“I ran away. I’m not coming back, Shu.”
Shu stood in shock, and he nearly dropped the phone. “Wha- what are you talking about Luca?” Shu asked. His voice wasn’t shaking any longer.
“I’m saying I’m leaving. So there’s no reason… to try to find me.”
“Why?” Shu asked, and even he could hear how hurt he sounded.
He heard Luca let out a miserable laugh. “I’m sorry Shu. I really am.”
Then he hung up.