Undressed By The Mafia God

Chapter 510: Your Sister Shot Me

Vee chewed slowly, watching David as he moved around the warehouse office. With every fry she lifted to her mouth, she wished it were something sharper. Anything she could drive into his thigh and twist until he remembered he messed with the wrong woman.

If she was going to get out of this, she needed strength. She needed a clear head. She needed David to keep underestimating her long enough to make one stupid mistake.

After the meal, he took the rubbish away and returned with a small stand. Vee’s gaze sharpened as he fixed her phone to it, adjusted the angle, then stepped back to check the screen.

The camera was aimed directly at her. David walked back to the table. He pulled out a gun.

"You already know I am not going to kill you," David said, checking the weapon. "That’s a given. But if you make anything difficult for me, I am going to shoot you somewhere convenient." His eyes lifted to hers. "Enough to wound you, but not enough to need a hospital."

"The first time I was shot, your sister shot me," she said. "In the thigh. I thought that was pain. No...The pain was Marco trying to dig the bullet out of my thigh. It was Luca’s gun, and Marco didn’t know what the gun had been through, so he had to take the bullet out to protect Luca." Her eyes locked on David’s.

"That was the real pain. If you are going to kill me, please do, but don’t threaten me with pain, you bastard."

"I loved my sister," he said.

Vee said nothing. There was no safe response to that. grief in a man like David fermented. It turned poisonous.

"She was my baby," he continued. "The only thing I ever wanted to protect. Needed to protect." His fingers tightened around the gun. "I was banished when she was about five...Because I stabbed a family member in the eye for calling her fat."

Vee blinked.

Well.

That was certainly one way to handle childhood bullying.

"To be fair," David added, with a shrug that made the story worse, "that was just the one that broke the camel’s back. My father wasn’t willing to clean up any more of my messes after that."

"So naturally, you became normal and well-adjusted," Vee muttered.

"I would sneak up at her school to see her," he said. "To make sure she was okay. Then I heard she would be getting married to Luca. I looked him up. I thought he could protect her. I thought I could step back, finally breathe."

Vee might have pitied him if he were not holding her captive and trying to use her as bait to murder her husband.

Tragic backstory, unfortunately, did not cancel out kidnapping. Someone should print that on a card.

"That was the biggest mistake I ever made. He didn’t protect her. Now, if I am asked to choose between you and avenging the man who killed my sister, guess which choice I will make."

Vee smiled in derision. "Noble."

"I will kill you if your death will bring Luca to his knees."

Her heart kicked hard against her ribs. "then kill me. I will never tell him to come for me."

"Don’t worry about that, my love," David said, his smile returning. "I will do the telling for you. Now smile for the camera." He turned on the phone and waited for it to load, tapping the screen. The stand held the camera aimed directly at her. "You have twenty seconds to talk to him."

Twenty seconds.

Vee inhaled slowly, trying to force air past the panic closing around her throat. Her heart was beating hard. She could not cry. Could not give him a single reason to charge blindly into whatever slaughterhouse David had prepared. She had to sound calm.

David clicked the button and placed the call. It did not even take a breath before Luca answered. The moment his face filled the screen, Vee forgot, that she was supposed to be brave.

Luca looked wrecked. Hollowed out by terror, his eyes wild and dark. And when he saw her, when his gaze locked onto hers, Vee broke open.

She smiled. She could not help herself.

"Bambola..." Luca’s voice cracked. "Bambola, where are you? Where are you? I’ll come get you."

Her smile trembled. "I love you, Luca. Do not come for me. Please... you cannot. He is crazy." She glanced up at David, who stood behind the phone, watching with cold satisfaction.

Luca’s jaw tightened. "You know I cannot do that."

"You have to let me go..." Vee forced the gentlest smile she could manage, even as her chest tore apart. She wanted to touch the screen. "You have to."

David snatched the phone up.

"Bambola! No!" Luca screamed as David’s face appeared and he ended the call.

He switched off the phone.

"If you want him to come," Vee said, "shouldn’t you give him an address?"

"I want him scared enough," David said. "Frustrated enough to make mistakes."

Vee laughed softly. it was real laughter, edged with contempt. "You are afraid of him." She smiled up at him, pride burning bright through her exhaustion. Pride in Luca. In her husband. In the monster everyone feared and the man only she truly knew. "You know you are no match for him."

"We will see, won’t we?" David said. "But afraid of him, I am not."

Veronica rolled her eyes. "Yeah, whatever you say."

Of course he was afraid. David could dress his fear in revenge but fear still had the same ugly smell.

*****

Graziella arrived at the warehouse alone. David had called her after ending the call with Luca, telling her his plan was in place. Graziella had listened in silence, then asked to see the witch responsible for turning Luca Genovese against her baby.

David had accepted. Whatever his mother needed to get out of her system so she could heal faster was fine by him.

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