Bend Me, Daddy

LUCA

"He works for Mario."

Veda's softly spoken words swirled round and round in my head, fighting for adherence. I wasn't surprised that my brother had turned one of my men. That was the way of things sometimes in my world. What I couldn't believe was Veda-my vita-would do this to me. "Why didn't you tell me all of this immediately?"

"He said he would kill my parents. He said he would kill you." She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth in an attempt to halt the sob that tore from her chest as new tears ran down her face.

"So you thought it was better to do as he asked? To sneak around and... what?" My upper lip twitched in a semblance of a snarl. "Get information for him?"

She stared at me with wide gray eyes, the color leached from her face, and didn't answer me.

My hands shook, and I clenched them into fists. Afraid I would strike her if I didn't put some distance between us, I rose to my feet and paced away. The air conditioner kicked on, the only sound in the sudden silence, but I barely felt the drop in temperature across my heated skin. I wanted to hit something. To scream and rage and break every goddamned piece of furniture in the room.

She'd betrayed me. My vita, my life, had betrayed me. To my fucking brother. Had it all been a ruse? Was she with him this entire time? Did she really have a twin sister? Or were they one in the same? Had it all been a lie? Just another way for Mario to fuck with my head? Birth records could be forged. People created out of this air. The government did it all the time.

It took every ounce of my self-control to keep my movements casual and my voice calm. I was afraid if I let myself explode, one of us wouldn't make it out of this room alive. And despite everything she was telling me, despite the words coming out of her dirty, lying, whoring mouth, I couldn't bring myself to willingly hurt her.

Because whoever this woman was, whoever she worked for, she was mine.

I made my way over to the liquor and poured myself a generous glass of the hardest stuff I had. I drank that one down and half of another, the weight of Veda's stare heavy on my back. Waiting to see what I would do. "What did he want you to find?" I asked, my back still to her.

Her voice, when it came to me, was husky with her tears. Or maybe it was just fear. "He wanted me to find out what I could about a deal you made that's supposed to happen in a few days." "And what did you tell him?"

"Nothing," she said adamantly. "Because I haven't even tried to find anything. Not until today. And that's only because the clock is running out and I couldn't think of any other way to get out of doing it."

I finished my drink and poured another. Getting drunk wasn't going to do me any good right now, but maybe it would get me through this moment in time without shattering into a million pieces. Glass in hand, I turned to face her. She looked so small sitting there in my oversized chair, the black leather a stark backdrop to her blonde hair and bright pink top. "You never thought to just tell me? To trust me?"

She was silent as she stared at me, then, in a strangled voice, "He swore he would kill you." She stood and started walking toward me with slow, jilted steps. At my look, she stopped after just a few feet. Her hands waved around in front of her as she tried to make me understand. "Luca, please listen to me. He told me if I didn't do it, he'd kill you. But at first, I thought

I was safe. I thought we were safe, as long as we were here, where no one could get to you. But then...then I realized he was here. Right here. Not Mario, but the other guy. He doesn't work for you. He works for Mario. And I was so fucking scared." The tears that had never completely stopped filled her eyes again and ran down her blotchy cheeks as a sob tore through her.

I watched her fall apart in front of me, and took a sip of my drink as I fought the urge to go to her. To hold her. To tell her everything was going to be okay.

Because that was a lie. A big fucking lie. Nothing was ever going to be okay with us again.

"I was terrified he would get to you," she continued when she could speak again. "I was so fucking scared that I would walk in here one day and find you with a bullet in your..." She couldn't finish, great heaving sobs wracking her body as I watched from across the room.

I tried to understand her thinking, but right now, right here, I couldn't wrap my head around it. My thoughts were too fractured, wrapped in the pain of her betrayal.

"I just wanted to save you," she whispered.

The glass I was holding smashed against the wall beside her head and she ducked down to the floor with a cry and threw her arms over her head. Stalking over to her, I grabbed her by the hair with one hand and brought her to her feet, my vision gone red. She cried out in pain, her hands wrapping around my wrist to try to ease the pressure.

"Save me?" I laughed in her face. "You've done nothing but take from me from the moment I fucking met you." My eyes wandered over her face, still stunning, even red with tears and wracked with pain. "You took everything," I repeated. "EVERYTHING! You stole my revenge from me. Stole any chance of me having a relationship with my father. You even wrapped my fucked up brother around your finger to the point he had to brand you to show everyone you were his!"

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"Luca, please. You're hurting me!"

My mouth snapped shut, and I suddenly released her, feeling nothing as she fell to the floor at my feet. Pain flared within me, pain like I'd never felt before, wrapping its fingers around my throat until I had to strain to get the words out. "You act the victim so well, amore. All of that shit you told me about your time with Mario...they were lies, weren't they?"

She stared up at me in shock. "No," she told me. "I didn't lie, Luca."

"And why would I believe anything you say to me now? Why, Veda? When your bear the mark of my brother and I catch you spying in my office?"

Her jaw clenched, and her shoulders went back. "After everything we've been through, everything you've done to me, this is what you believe? Really?"

Cold, hard truth slapped me in the face, and for a moment I couldn't breathe. She was right. I'd been a fucking fool. "That's exactly why I believe it," I said out loud.

She blinked, and some of the steel slipped out of her spine.

I took a step toward her. Stopped. "I'm not a good man, Veda. I know this.

Yet you took this cold, dead heart of mine and made it beat again. For you, Veda. All for you. I let you in. Let you know me. And you betrayed me."

She reached for me across the space between us, her face crumbling as fresh tears streamed down her cheeks. "Luca." Her voice cracked. "I love you."

Her words stabbed through me, opening fresh wounds that I feared would never heal. Because they were too late. I closed the distance between us and took her face in my hands as I searched for the storms in her eyes. But they weren't there. There was only fog and shadows. With a growl, I took her mouth hard, bruising her lips as I poured every fucked up thing I was feeling into the kiss. And when I broke it off, she knew.

"You love me?" I asked her.

She tried to nod her head, but I still held it between my palms. I could crush it so easily. So fucking easily. "Yes," she whispered.

Leaning down, I licked the seam of her mouth, then kissed my way up to her ear. "Then RUN," I told her. "You have thirty minutes."

I dropped my hands and backed away as the walls crashed down around my heart and ice filled my veins. It was comforting, in a way, to go back to being the man I was before I knew her. I knew this man well, and he did what he had to do to survive.

Veda's eyes searched my face. Searching. Searching. Always searching. But whatever she found made her suck in her breath in terror. Without a word, she spun around and ran for the door. Flinging it open, she ran past Enzo and Tristan, and I heard her bare feet on the hard tiles of the great room.

"Let her go," I told them when they looked at me in question. Turning away, I walked across the broken glass to pour myself another drink, leaving bloody footprints on the way. I didn't feel the shards slicing the bottoms of my feet. I didn't feel anything. "Enzo."

I heard him come into the office. "Yeah."

"Take her out of this house. Give her enough money to go wherever she wants to go. Bus. Plane. I don't give a shit. Make sure I can't track her."

"I'm on it."

He left, closing the door behind him.

I walked back across the glass to my chair and sat down in the silence, my hands gripping the arms tight enough to hold me there. A few minutes later, I heard the front door close. And the last remnants of my heart shattered.