DeLuca (Mafia Romance)

He was the perfect boyfriend; kind, patient, and always understanding. The sex was great too. Even if I felt like he was a little too careful with me sometimes, he was passionate and doting. I loved the attention he gave me. It was easy being with him, even Angelo came to like him, it was hard not to.

He was the perfect distraction, until my real life caught up to me.

…

One night during the fall of my sophomore year Angelo was back in Seattle handling business with Carlo and Enzo was taking on the role of my personal security. I had been studying late at the library, which was normal for me, and I still had a ton more to do that night before a huge test the next morning. It was going to be an all-nighter. After we got home and Enzo swept the house, I asked him to go pick me up some supplies for the night, meaning pizza from my favorite restaurant across town and chocolate gelato. About fifteen minutes after he left I heard Gina come in with her douchebag of a boyfriend, Chris, they were fighting again. I turned up my music and tried to tune them out as I studied.

A few minutes later there was a loud thump and I heard Gina scream. I jumped off my bed and barreled down the stairs to the main foyer in a matter of seconds. When I turned the corner into the kitchen Chris was standing over Gina kicking her over and over again, her crumpled body slamming into the cabinets with each brutal strike of his boot. Her face was bloody and she was whimpering as he continued to beat and scream at her.

I lost it, looking around the kitchen, I spotted the knives but they were too far away. Without thinking I grabbed a skillet from the stovetop and swung. Chris hadn’t heard me come in and when he turned around at the sound of my scream it was just in time to catch a face full of cast iron, over and over again.

Chris fell after the first swing, but I followed him down to the floor with my strikes until he resembled something you would find on the side of the road. I knew head wounds bled profusely but I had never seen anything quite as gruesome as the scene that lay before me.

The heavy pan had crushed his skull and split the skin on his face. The underlying flesh was exposed along with what I could only imagine were bone fragments and brain matter swirling in an unbelievable amount of gore. It was as if all the blood in his 22 year old body had been pumped out onto the floor in a matter of minutes, creating a large crimson halo.

Gina’s screams pulled me from my reverie, she was shrieking between hiccupped sobs. The skillet slipped from my hand and dropped to the floor, echoing off the tile with a deafening clank. My heart was racing from exertion, but my hands remained steady as I slowly made my way over to where she was huddled against the cabinets.

I gently pushed the hair that had fallen from her ponytail off her face, my voice calm and soothing when I spoke. “Gina? It’s okay, everything is going to be okay. I’ve got you.” Taking stock of her injuries, I noted along with her battered face and a large bump that was blooming at her left temple, her arms were wrapped around her middle as if she could hold the pain in.Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

“Come on, up you go. Let’s get you cleaned up,” I said as I helped her to her feet. She was still sobbing but the screeching had subsided. She huddled close to me and I supported her weight as I guided her from the room, her face buried in my shoulder to avoid the brutal sight of Chris’ body.

Once we made it up the stairs I ushered her into the bathroom. “Here, sit down,” I said gesturing to the toilet. Her body was wracked with tremors as she made her way to the proffered seat. “Honey, you have to try to take some deep breaths for me, okay?” I asked as I squatted in front of her. She attempted to draw in large gulps of air in between her erratic pants. Her face was pale and her eyes wild with terror.

Fuck! She’s going to have a full blown meltdown.

I quickly stood and grabbed a washcloth, running it under the sink. I didn’t have time for the water to warm up, I needed to get her cleaned as best I could and in bed before she had a panic attack. It’s not like I could leave a dead body seeping God knows what onto my kitchen floor for very long. I had to get a hold of Enzo and get a cleaner out here to dispose of my mess.

“Sweetie, look at me, I’m going to clean you up the best I can,” I said as I gently wiped away the blood and tears from her cheeks. Slowly but surely Gina’s breaths became more even and the vacant stare in her eyes faded. Glancing down at her clothes I noticed they were covered in blood, especially her jeans, which were stained a muddy brick red. “Let’s get you out of these,” I said and helped her out of her clothes until she was standing in front of me in only her bra and underwear.

Catching my gaze, Gina noticed the smears of blood that had seeped through her clothes and stained her skin. She let out a strangled cry, her chest heaving with the effort to keep up with her rapidly increasing breaths. Snatching the washcloth from the counter where I had placed it she began manically scrubbing at the blood. “Off, off, off,” she whimpered, “It won’t come off, why won’t it come off?” The sobs returned full force, her body quaking with her increased panic.

“Whoa, calm down, we’ll get it off. Here get in the shower.” I pulled her over to the shower stall, cranking the water onto full blast, and shoving her in. By the time I was finished scrubbing all the blood from her skin, the entire top half of me was soaking wet and Gina was huddled on the floor of the shower shaking even worse than before.

Once I got her out of the shower and changed into some dry clothes, I tucked her into bed. I handed her an Ambien. Plagued with night terrors since the attack at the club, her doctor had prescribed her the pill to help her sleep. It was supposed to be a short term solution, but Gina had become dependent on the drug and unable to sleep without it.

She’ll have even more shit haunting her dreams now.

When I was confident she was fast asleep and not going to wake up, I walked down stairs and looked at the gruesome scene I had left in the kitchen. Reaching for my phone I dialed Enzo.

“Jesus woman, I’m almost there I had to run all the way across town, you’d think you’d die without your damn gelato fix-”

“I need a cleaner,” I cut him off mid-rant.

“Shit! Wha-” I disconnected the call before he had a chance to berate me with questions. I wasn’t going to discuss this over the phone, he would be here soon enough and I would explain then.

I sat on one of the bar stools at the kitchen island and surveyed the scene. This was the third man I had killed and again, I felt no remorse. I wasn’t scared. Even in Chicago I knew Carlo had connections and this would never come back on me, more than anything I was pissed. Not at Chris, he got what he deserved, but at myself. This was my life. This was who I was. I couldn’t deny it anymore, and I couldn’t go on pretending. I knew I had to end my relationship with Zane. Otherwise I risked him getting too close, or worse, caught in my crossfire.

In the months that followed I buried myself in every distraction I could find. Taking a full load of coursework, I doubled my training sessions with Angelo and even tried to get a job, but Carlo quickly squashed that idea saying it caused too many variables in my security.

My relationship with Gina was strained, I resented her for bursting my little bubble of normal. If it wasn’t for her reckless behavior and complete shit taste in men I wouldn’t have been put in the position to have to do what I did. I knew deep down that I was actually angry at myself but I wasn’t ready to address my self-loathing and run through all the ways that scenario could have gone if I didn’t have a penchant for doling out my own brand of justice.

Because of my self-alienation I hadn’t noticed how bad Gina was spiraling. She had turned to partying a little too hard after Chris’ death. Officially, it was a mugging gone wrong, but we knew the truth. Gina didn’t hold it against me but she couldn’t really handle it, she was traumatized to say the least and turned to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain. It took finding Gina passed out on our front stoop at one in the morning to pull me out of my indifference and realize that my friend was in trouble.

I had come home from another late night at the library to find her sprawled out, completely unconscious, keys in hand. She had vomited all over herself and was lying in a pool of her own filth. Angelo helped me get her into the house. I slept next to her on the bathroom floor, holding her hair when she got sick time and time again throughout the night and rubbing her back. Hushing her while she sobbed and apologized.

The next morning we finally talked for the first time in nearly five months.

“What the fuck is going on Gina?” I asked. She was nursing the hangover from hell but I wasn’t going to let her off the hook.

“I j-just, wanted it to stop, I wanted to forget,” she cried.

“Forget what? You have to tell me what is going on if I’m going to be able to help you.” I wanted to help her, I just didn’t know how. I felt guilty for isolating myself after Chris’ death. I resented her when I should have been angry with myself, which caused her to feel like she couldn’t come to me with her problems.

God, I am such a fucking asshole.

“I keep seeing his face, or what was left of it, that night. I can’t get it to go away, every time I close my eyes-” she broke off in a fit of sobs, her tears thick and heavy with makeup as they streaked down her face.

“Honey,” I said, the pity and regret rolling off my tongue without my permission, “I’m so sorry.”

“N-Not your f-fault,” she hiccupped.

“It is, I should have checked in on you, made sure you were okay. I’ve been a shit friend and I am so sorry,” my voice shaky with unshed tears. Gina and her family were the only thing I had left of my old life, pushing them away had been a mistake. The fear of losing Gina snapped me out of my self-induced exile, and made me realize what a fool I’d been to take my friend for granted. She was only human. It wasn’t her fault that I had let my temper take control, my actions were what had destroyed the carefully orchestrated façade I’d been living in with Zane.

I pulled her into my arms, letting her sob into my shoulder. We sat like that for a long time, repeating apologies and whispering promises for the future.

Gina started seeing a counselor and I made a point to check in with her everyday no matter how busy I was. We grew closer than ever before, using each other as confidants and working through our problems. It was a long battle, but finally she got sober the summer before her junior year.

She did really well for most of the year, actually taking her classes seriously. Toward the end of the last semester I started noticing things were off with her, always jumpy and looking like she hadn’t gotten enough sleep but was wide awake anyways. I eventually figured out she had been using again, this time it was prescription pills. Again, I dried her out. Then I found her dealer and took Angelo with me to scare the ever loving shit out of him.