Undressed By The Mafia God

"I’m sorry..." His breath came broken against her face.

The apology nearly ruined her. Marceline cracked the whip again at the same moment Vee pulled the chain.

Luca’s body jerked. Vee flinched inwardly, but her face held.

"I could have just let him fuck me...since my husband isn’t giving me any."

"I’m sorry... I’m sorry," he said again, lower this time.

He did not care about the whip. None of it reached him the way Veronica did. Every ugly sentence she threw at him became another reason for him to move towards her, not away. He shuffled forward on his knees. He ignored Marceline entirely as the flogger came down hard across his back again.

He moved towards his wife. Veronica looked up at Marceline in panic. It was not working. None of it was working. He was supposed to reject the accusations. That was the whole stupid point, wasn’t it? Marceline had said Veronica’s voice would pull the shame out of him and make him fight it.

He was not fighting. He was accepting everything. Vee’s eyes burned. Why had she agreed to this?

Why had she let Massimo’s madness convince her that breaking Luca open was better than holding him? What if this made him worse? What if these words stayed? What if, years from now, in the quiet of their bed, some poisonous echo of her voice crawled back into his mind and called him useless?

Marceline gave a small gesture with her head.

Keep going.

Veronica hated the woman from the bottom of her soul. She decided to speed things up, she reached for the deepest cruelty.

The one she knew would stop him. The one she prayed he would refuse.

"Who knows," she said, voice trembling despite every effort to harden it, "maybe I’ll lose this baby because of you too."

Luca stopped. His body went utterly still. Even Marceline’s expression changed. Luca lifted his face. "What?"

Vee almost kissed the floor he was on.

Go on, Luca. Come on. Please, end this.

"I loved my baby..." Luca began.

This was the wound he had locked away so deeply that even Veronica had only ever seen the shadow of it.

"Love my baby."

Marceline raised the whip. Vee’s hand shot up. Marceline paused. The whip lowered by an inch. They had finally reached the sore place. The real place.

Luca drew in a ragged breath. "My child... She was mine." He had given the baby a shape in his mind. A life. A possible face. A future.

God.

Vee’s heart split quietly in her chest.

Luca swallowed hard. "I did everything right."

The first real refusal of the night. The first time he had pushed back against the cruelty thrown at him instead of receiving it like a man starving for punishment.

"I protected you the way I knew how. I loved you. I wanted her. You do not get to blame me for that."

Vee’s lips trembled. "I didn’t, Luca," she whispered. "You did....You did, baby..." She had not blamed him for the baby. She had not blamed him for the loss, she didn’t blame him for anything. Some nights, she had blamed herself because she thought herself too weak. It was why she learned how to fight, why she pushed herself to be more.

But Luca had blamed Luca. It was easier for him to believe he had failed than accept that there were some things even Luciano Genovese could not control.

Vee looked up at Marceline. "Get out."

Marceline’s expression tightened. "We are not done."

Vee rose to her full height, tears on her cheeks, one hand trembling at her side, the other held awkwardly because of the cast. "Get," she said, voice low, lethal, "out."

Marceline recognised the line when she saw it. She dropped the whip. Without another word, Marceline walked out of the room and shut the door behind her.

Vee turned back to Luca. She dropped in front of him and pulled the blindfold away. His eyes were red.

Full of tears he had been fighting so hard not to shed that the effort had carved itself into his face.

"Oh, Luca... I never said this," she whispered, her own tears spilling freely now. "I probably never said anything this true... You will make an amazing, terrifyingly epic father."

A laugh tore out of him. It sounded almost like a sob.

"I know."

The arrogance in it was so perfectly Luca that Vee cried harder. She flung her arms around him and bawled into his shoulder.

Luca shifted as much as the cuffs allowed.

"If anyone needs to be blamed, Luca," she said against his skin, "it’s me."

"Would you let my hands go so I can touch you?"

"Right..." She pulled back quickly, wiping her face with the back of her hand. "Right..." She hurried to her feet, cursed under her breath, then went straight to the dresser. Vee searched frantically until she found the cuff keys. Her fingers shook as she rushed behind him.

The second his wrists were free, Luca pulled the clamps off, grabbed her and pulled her into him, and they tumbled onto the ground. Vee landed on top of him with a startled gasp, her hands braced against his chest, tears still wet on her cheeks.

His hands came to her face, holding her like she was the only real thing left in the world. "I didn’t do this to hand the blame over to you, Bambola. I did this so we can be free of it."

"I didn’t mean all those things," Vee said, shaking her head frantically. "I didn’t mean them, Luca. I swear to God, I didn’t."

"I know, baby." His hands held her face, thumbs brushing the wetness from her cheeks. "I know."

"No, you don’t understand." Her voice cracked. "I hated saying them. I hated hearing myself say them. I don’t think—"

"Bambola. I know."

She stared down at him, breathing hard, tears spilling faster now that she no longer had to pretend to be whatever insane title Marceline had dressed her in for the night. God, what a ridiculous disaster.

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