by J. S. Cooper
“What? That doesn’t make sense.”
“And he had a very clear message about what he wanted to do to each and every one of you tattooed into his skin.”
“I don’t understand, Luca. How do you know all of this?”
He took a deep sigh. “When Fabiano first showed up, I was suspicious. Guys like him, they don’t come around and want to join families like mine. So Giorgio and me, we broke into his apartment and we went through his stuff. I read his diaries and I saw photographs, photographs I’m not going to tell you about, but they were photographs of you, photographs of your mom, photographs of your dad. I did a little research into why he was so obsessed with you. Found out that his mom was secretary to your dad right before she got pregnant, found out that his mom had actually listed your father on the birth certificate as his dad, and then the birth certificate was changed two weeks later and his name was removed.”
“Oh my god, I don’t believe this.” I felt sick to my stomach.
“It’s true, Anabel. Fabiano grew up his whole life wanting to exact revenge on the father that never wanted him. He wanted to take revenge on your dad, your mom, and you. He was a sick fuck, Anabel. He wanted to rape you, he wanted to rape your mom, and he wanted your dad to watch as he did it. Then he was going to kill all of you. I couldn’t let that happen. You understand, right?”
“I understand.” I shuddered, my heart breaking. “But I just don’t understand why you can’t show the body?”
“Because the body shows your exact likeness and it has your full name.” He grimaced. “If I was able to find out the information, everyone would find out the information and it would have ruined you, Anabel. It would have ruined your family and it would have broken you. I didn’t want that to happen.”
“Oh, Luca.” I jumped up off the chair and ran into his arms and held him tight. “Oh, Luca, you really do everything to protect me. But you have to know, I can protect myself, okay?” I looked him in the eyes and I gave him a big kiss. “I love you for wanting to protect me, but too many people are in harm’s way now. I don’t want anything else bad to happen. Promise me that we can make this right.”
“We can make this right, Anabel. I can make this right. You guys all have to stay here and I’ll be back.”
“No, Luca, you can’t go. You can’t go by yourself. No, please,” I begged him and held on to his hand.
He shook me free and walked toward the door. He looked back at me and said, “I’m the only one that can fix this, Anabel. Stay here with your friends. Matteo will protect you. I love you,” and with that, he was gone, and I didn’t know if I would ever see him again alive.
Chapter 23
Luca
“And now the end is near,” I whispered to myself as I walked down the stairs. It’s all come to this. I knew what I had to do, and it pained me. It pained me because this was it. My whole life had come down to this moment, to this decision. And it was the only thing that I could do. I was just about to open the main door when I heard a noise. Someone else was coming down the steps. I frowned and turned around to see who it was.
“Luca, wait.” Anabel came running toward me, her hair flying behind her.
“What the fuck are you doing? Go back inside.” I glared at her. “You cannot be here, Anabel. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m not letting you go by yourself, Luca.” She shook her head. “That’s not going to happen.”
I grabbed her hand and tried to pull her back up the stairs. “We’re going back up. You’re going to stay with Matteo, Charlotte, and Emily. I want you to be safe and you’re going to live your life without me. You’ll meet a nice banker or something and you’ll get married and you’ll move to Connecticut. Okay? You hear me, Anabel? That’s what’s going to happen.”
“No, Luca. That’s not what’s going to happen.” She held still. “I’m not going back to that apartment. It’s you and me. We’re in this together.” She gave me a crooked little smile. “We’re like Bonnie and Clyde, only of the mafia world.”
“We’re not fucking Bonnie and Clyde, Anabel. This isn’t the fucking movies, okay? People are going to get hurt and I can’t afford for you to be one of those people.”
“I’m not going to get hurt, Luca.” She shook her head. “And I’m not just going to sit in that room and wait for you. Because what if you don’t come back?”
“Anabel, this is not your decision. You can’t help me, okay? You will be a liability if I have to worry about what’s happening to you.”
“I’m not letting you go by yourself, Luca. Get that into your thick head,” she shouted at me. “I don’t care what you have to say. I don’t care what you have to do. You are not leaving without me. So either you come back up to the room and you stay with me or we both go and do what you’ve got to do. Do you get it?”
“Anabel, do you get it? You could die, okay? I could die. I do not want you to see me die, okay?”
“I’m not letting you go if you think you can die, Luca.” She glared at me. “Do you think I’ve waited all these years for us to finally figure out what really happened and I’m just going to let you walk out on me? Do you think I’d be okay never seeing you again? No, that’s not going to happen.”
“Anabel, I’ve got a problem. And there’s only one way for me to fix the problem. I need to kill Enzo. I need to kill Giuliani.” My voice broke. “And I need to kill Giorgio.”
“You can’t do that, Luca. You can’t kill all those men.”
“You want to bet?”
“Isn’t there another way, Luca? Please, just give him Fabiano’s body. I don’t care. You know what? If my dad did cheat on my mom, then let him pay the price. Let her find out. I don’t care. This is not your cross to bear, Luca. It’s my dad’s. My dad is the one that should pay for this.”
“You love your dad, Anabel. You know when I met you, you were so young and innocent and sweet. Everything you did was what your parents wanted you to do. You didn’t date because your parents didn’t want you to date. You read the books your parents wanted you to read. You were going to Columbia because your parents wanted you to go to Columbia. You were going to be a lawyer or a doctor because that’s what your parents wanted. You had the best childhood. You look up to your parents. You love your parents. I didn’t want to be the one to let you know the truth. I was not going to be the one to break your heart. And I was not going to be the one to let Fabiano, that twisted little fucker, ruin everything for you.”
“But he did ruin everything for us. But I won’t let him do it again. You are more important, Luca. You are my everything.”
“I know. You are my everything as well, Anabel. It killed me when you left. But Fabiano had to die. Just like Enzo has to die. And Giuliani has to die. And Giorgio will have to die because I can’t have any of them coming after you. Do you hear me? Because that’s what they will do. They will target you to get to me. And I don’t care if I have to die myself. I will lay down my body for them to shoot me just as long as I get in a shot as well. Do you understand? I don’t care if this is mutual destruction. I will protect you, Anabel, because that is what you do for the people you love. You protect them above all else. You mean everything to me. My heart belongs to you and has always belonged to you.”
“But you were going to kidnap me. And I don’t think it was because you love me.”
“I’m a sick fuck, Anabel. Don’t you understand that? I’ve got a twisted mind, okay? And it’s because I have a twisted mind that I can take care of these men and I can protect you. I have a twisted mind, but I also love you. I love you more than me. I love you and know you deserve better than me. I don’t want you to be with me. I don’t want, if you’re pregnant, for that baby to have to look at me as their father. You go and find you a good man, a good man that will treat our child right.”
“Luca.” She shook her head. “You don’t even know if I’m pregnant. I might not be pregnant.” Her lip trembled. “And if I was pregnant and yo
u weren’t here, I would tell that kid everything about you. That kid would love you and grieve for you just as much as me. No Luca, if I’m pregnant, you need to be here. You need to be the father. But this doesn’t have to be the life that you live forever, Luca. We can go away from here. We can move. I don’t care. I’m not just going to let you go,” she shouted.
I put my hand over her mouth. “You have to be quiet, Anabel. We do not want anyone to hear us.”
“Who’s going to hear us, Luca?”
“Please, Anabel, calm down.”
“I will only calm down if you say I can go with you.”
“Anabel, please just go back upstairs.”
“No, I’m not going, okay? I’m not going anywhere.”
I stared at her and I let out the biggest sigh of my life. But even though I was furious, I could feel my heart expanding with love for her. I didn’t deserve this woman that would risk her life to be with me, this woman that would go back to a hellhole that she’d escaped from because she wanted to make sure that I was okay, that I was safe. How I could ever have wanted to hurt her was beyond me. She was pureness and goodness and light and everything beautiful in the world. And I wanted to be a better man for her. I wanted to be a better man for her and I knew she wouldn’t think I was a better man if she saw me killing three more people. She’d left me because she saw me killing one person. How would she feel if she saw me cold-bloodedly murder three more?
“Anabel, I promise you I will do my best to make it out alive. I promise you I will do my best to try to get back to you. And if I do, I will leave this world. I will no longer be a mafia boss. I promise you that. But I cannot have you come with me because I cannot have you looking at me with eyes that say you’re scared of me, eyes that know I’m a killer. I cannot have you looking at me—”
She pressed her fingers against my lips. “Luca, everything you have done has been for me, everything. And I know that. I see your heart. I see your soul. You’re a good man, Luca. I know that. And I will never turn my back on you. I will never look at you as anything other than my protector because I love you. I love you so much.”
She pressed her lips against mine and she kissed me. I pushed her back into the wall, kissing her back, my tongue entering her mouth and she melted into me, her hands running up and down my back as I pushed my groin into her so she could feel my hardness. Even in this moment, I was so horny and hot for her. My erection was growing harder and she moaned as she felt it grinding against her.
“Oh, Anabel. I want you again so badly. Am I a sick fuck or what?”
“I want you too, Luca.” Her eyes widened and she smiled. “Touch me, Luca.”
“We cannot do this here.”
“Who says we can’t,” she whispered against my lips and I groaned as she rubbed my cock. “Fuck me, Luca. I need you again.”
I growled against her lips, my hands squeezing her breast as she whimpered against my lips. She grabbed my hand and pushed it under her skirt. I rubbed her panties and groaned at how soaked they were. I slipped a finger inside and rubbed her clit. She groaned and shifted against the wall and reached forward to undo my zipper. Her fingers eagerly gripped my hard cock and I sucked on her tongue. I started to lift her up when I heard a loud bang and I quickly pulled back from her.
“We can’t do this.” I zipped myself back up quickly and she let out a small whimper. “The next time we do this, it’s going to be for a long time. It’s going to be in a bed. It’s going to be someplace romantic. I’m not fucking you in the stairwell of this grotty old apartment building. It’s not going to happen.”
“But you just fucked me in a taxi. And you fucked me up against a wall with two assholes watching.” She moaned.
“I was out of my mind then, Anabel. I was out of my mind, but I’m not out of my mind now. I have a clear mind and I have to take care of business. Please go back upstairs.”
“Did you not understand what I said, Luca? I’m not going anywhere. So what’s the plan?”
I stared at her and I let out a huge sigh. “Well, the plan was to go back to Enzo’s, shoot him, shoot Giuliani, go back to my place and then shoot Giorgio.”
“You’re going to shoot your friend? Will you be able to live with that?” She looked worried and concerned. “I know he’s been in your life forever, since before me.”
“He betrayed me, Anabel. He betrayed me, and he nearly had you killed. I can’t understand or forgive that. I can’t accept that. He’s not someone I can work with. He’s not someone I can trust.”
“So then let him go. Luca. You said you were going to leave the mafia anyway, right? Let him go. Please. You will feel better about yourself if you just let him go. Move on.”
“You don’t understand, Anabel. In this world, you either kill or be killed. I can’t just let him go. He’s shown me that he cannot be trusted. He’s shown me he doesn’t care about my well-being. He’s shown me that if it comes down to it, he would rather I die. He’d rather the person that I love most in the world die than listen to me and do what I want him to do.”
“But I didn’t die, Luca. I’m here. And maybe he thought he was protecting you in some sick way. I don’t know. Obviously, I don’t like him, but I don’t want him to die. Not because I care about him, but because I care about you and I know you care about him. I know you’ve had your doubts about him for a long time and you’ve kept him close. It will kill you, Luca. It will kill you if you murder him. That would be something you have to live with for the rest of your life. I know you’re not emotional and sentimental. I know. But you killed Fabiano because you had a reason, because he was a sick fuck. He was a rapist. He tortured my mom. He was going to torture and rape me. But Giorgio didn’t do that. You don’t hate him as much as you hated Fabiano. And you have ties to Giorgio, Luca. I don’t think this is the best idea. I don’t think you would ever get over it if you killed him.” Her voice broke. “Please don’t.”
“I can’t believe you care so much that he lives.”
“I don’t care about him. I care about you. Don’t you understand that, Luca? The decisions I want you to make are for your own mental health as well as for mine.”
I let out a deep sigh. “So then if I don’t kill them, I have to release Fabiano’s body. And you know what that means, right?”
“I know.” She nodded.
“It means that it will be all over the news because Enzo’s not going to have a small funeral. He’s going to blast it. He’s going to blast it because that’s what his daughter is going to want. And they’re going to make Fabiano out to be a martyr. You hear me? They’re going to make him out to be a martyr and they might even implicate your father and say…. They’re going to implicate your dad in his murder. You understand that, right? This is a way for Enzo to totally redeem himself in front of his daughter.”
“What do you mean? My dad didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Your dad didn’t have anything to do with it, no. And that will come out eventually. But his name will be drug through the mud. Once Enzo gets the body, he will take it to one of his friends at the police station who will take photographs of it. And when they take photographs of his chest, they will see the tattoos. They will see the tattoos of you, your mom and your dad. They will see the little memorandum that he has also tattooed on his chest saying why he wants to kill each and every one of you. This guy was a sick fuck, Anabel. He knew, he knew that I would catch on to him. And he knew there was a possibility that he would die. He wanted to make sure that if he died, his secret didn’t stay dead with him. He wanted to make sure that his secret came out, no matter what. And it’s your dad that’s going to pay. It’s your mom that’s going to pay. If this information comes out, if Enzo gets the body, your parents’ lives are ruined.”
“Oh.” It dawned on her what I was saying. “Can we not burn the body?” she asked softly. “I know that’s mean, and that’s horrible and not something I would ever want to do, but maybe that would be for the best.
Can you not burn it, Luca?”
“I’ve thought about that.” I stared her in the eyes. “Obviously, that’s a possibility. Everything doesn’t burn though. His teeth will be there as identifiers, and I’d have to burn him somewhere close to me, somewhere I could go that was private. And we’re in Brooklyn. There are not that many private places. And now Enzo knows I have the body, he’s not going to accept the fact that it’s been burned beyond recognition. He’s still going to want to see it. So I’ve got two things I can do, Anabel. I can kill him and end it all, or I can give him the body and ruin your parents’ lives. What do you want me to do? The decision is yours.”
I looked at her and I could see that her heart was breaking. How did you make such a decision? It was kind of like Sophie’s choice. How did you choose? I’d understand if she wanted to protect her parents and I was cool with that. That’s what I wanted to do. I’d go and I’d give it my best shot. And if I died, I died, but at least I’d do it knowing I was protecting the woman I love. I would die for her.
“Are you stupid, Luca? That’s not even a question.” She grabbed a hold of my face and glared into my eyes. “I’m not putting you in harm’s way, okay? I’m not risking your life again. I love you and I want you here with me. I’m not letting you go. You call Enzo and you tell him where the body is and whatever happens, happens. If my parents have to go down, so be it. But no one’s more important than you, and nothing’s more important than our love. And the fact that you would risk yourself for me tells me everything I’ve ever needed to know. I love you, Luca, and I will never stop loving you. And I will never stop believing in you.”
I just stared at her, unable to say anything. This woman that I love, she was too good for me. She was too good for me. I knew that, but I was going to spend the rest of my life proving to her that I would do absolutely anything for her, that I would give her everything that she wanted and that I would be a good man. I would be a better man. I would be the best man. I needed to. I needed to do that for her and myself.
