Undressed By The Mafia God

Chapter 467: The Beginning of the End of Marco

But what was he supposed to do with a mountain of a man before him.

"Shit!" Tony cursed suddenly.

Marco stopped with his hand on the door. Slowly, he turned. "What?" Marco asked.

Tony had bent near the counter, one hand braced against the unfinished wood, his face twisted into annoyance. "Ugh..." Tony pointed beneath the counter. "The socket underneath here is damaged."

Marco’s eyes narrowed.

"I need to test all of these," Tony said quickly, gesturing to the machines scattered around the counter. "See if they’re working so we can return them if we need to."

"Do you have any tools?"

"Yeah..." Tony swallowed. "They should be somewhere around here, I guess." He moved to the small desk at the corner of the shop. Tony opened one drawer. Nothing. Another drawer. A few receipts, a roll of tape. He muttered to himself, digging around until he finally pulled out a toolbox.

"Found it," he said, forcing a laugh. Tony placed the toolbox on the counter.

The metal gave a dull clink. Marco walked back over. He opened the box and picked up one of the screwdrivers. The handle was slightly worn, red plastic faded at the edges.

He got to his knees beneath the counter and leaned forward, checking the socket. Tony stood behind him.

Tony’s eyes kept darting to the front door. Then to Marco’s back. Then to the front door again. His palms had gone damp. His throat worked as he swallowed, swallowed again, and tried to breathe. He was shaking now.

Marco knew. Marco had pieced it together. The coffee shop. Bianca. The visits. The girlfriend. The missing thread that had been sitting in front of all of them.

If Marco walked out of that shop, Tony was done. Vee would know. Luca would know and Luca tore answers out of men but he wasn’t exactly afraid of Luca as much as he was afraid of David.

Tony looked at the screwdriver in Marco’s hand then at the toolbox. His breath came faster. He had to do something. He reached into the toolbox. Tony’s fingers closed around the hammer.

For one second, he only held it there, hidden beside his thigh, testing the weight of it in his palm. It was heavy.

His heartbeat was so loud he could barely hear Marco moving beneath the counter.

Think.

He needed to think but panic was chewing through every sensible part of him. Tony looked toward the door again.

Sunlight. Freedom. A street full of people who had no idea the floor beneath him had opened. Marco shifted beneath the counter.

Tony’s grip tightened around the hammer. He was not built for this. God knew he was not. He should have kept far away from all this shit.

But he had made choices. Marco began to emerge. Tony lifted the hammer with all the strength fear gave him and swung hard across Marco’s face.

The sound was awful. Marco’s body jerked, then dropped heavily to the ground, the screwdriver clattering from his hand and skidding across the floor.

For a moment, Tony stood frozen above him. He stared down at the mountain of a man lying motionless at his feet, and his stomach turned over so violently he thought he might be sick.

"Oh God," he whispered. "Oh God. Oh God, what did I do?" he panicked as he saw the blood pooling on the floor beside his head. Tony’s heart was pounding in his chest, wild and painful. He stumbled back, nearly tripping then caught himself against the counter.

Think.

He had to think but he couldn’t. Tony fumbled for his phone with shaking hands. "Shit," he hissed. He pulled it open and dialled David.

*****

Luca sat in the doctor’s office, waiting for a response while his doctor spoke on the phone. He had spent the past hour in the goddamn place.

Sixty miserable minutes in which his dignity had been stripped, folded, and thrown into a medical trash bin.

They had taken his blood. They had taken his urine. They had asked questions that no man should ever have to answer. They had done a stupid ultrasound on his penis, which Luca was certain had to violate at least three laws. He had even filled out a damned questionnaire.

And now the doctor was on the phone with his doctor in Italy. Luca had requested speed. He had wanted answers quickly.

He did not realise speedy meant he would be poked and prodded. He hated disappointing Veronica. Luca could still see that tiny flicker she tried to hide every time she reached for him and he could not respond the way he always had. The smile that wavered. The confusion she swallowed. The way she looked down at herself as though the problem might be her.

That nearly killed him. Because it was not her. Christ, it was not her. Veronica could walk into a room wearing an old T-shirt and Luca would still want her so badly it felt like a sickness under his skin. Hell, he’d fallen in love with her while she was wearing nothing but the old scalese pizza tshirt and fat jeans. He loved her beyond physical attraction, beyond lust, beyond all the hot, reckless madness they had built between them. He loved the woman when she laughed, when she scolded him, when she argued with him.

But sex had always been part of them. It was fire. It was intensity. It was how they fought without drawing blood, how they made peace without apologising properly, how he remembered he was not only a man made of violence. With Vee, his body had always spoken.

And now it had decided to become a bastard. No matter how much he tried, no matter how badly he wanted her, no matter how many times he told himself to stop thinking and just be with the woman he loved, nothing worked.

He was afraid.

There. Fine.

He could admit it in the privacy of his own head. He was afraid she would get bored. Afraid that before they even made it to the altar, his body was already dooming their life together.

(Brought to you by Janelle Fox 1/2)