Mafia Darling

31 | Ella

We've been taken hostage in the suite across the hallway from ours. I wonder what Luca saw in the window that tipped him off -- a sniper on a roof? A particular boat floating at the dock? A person in the opposite hotel's window? It didn't matter; we were too late to act.

Luca and I are next to each other, forced to our knees. Blood drips down his arm, and he breathes very slowly, trying to offset the onset of shock. Our two captors are busy talking to each other, so I venture some concern.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

Luca grimaces. "Not the first time I've been shot. Won't be the last."

"You got that right," snaps one of the captors, the same one who fired the gun. His grip on it is tight, but it's pointed at the floor at the moment.

The other captor slips out the door and closes it behind him. It's just us three. The captor leans down to look at both of us.

"I've got Marco Corleone's right hand man," he says, glaring at Luca, "and his new wife."

He observes me with an expression that surprises me. It's not creepy or lecherous as I expected. It's more...disgusted.

"Must be my lucky day," he says tonelessly.

"What do you want, Le Roux?" Luca snaps.

Le Roux turns to him calmly. "I'd like to have never interacted with the Corleone family," he says. "But unless someone invents time travel, I can't have what I want."

He casually leans against the desk in front of us, but his grip on his gun is so tight, his fingers go deathly pale. He's put on a persona of calm, but he's not trying to hide the fury underneath it.

"I agreed to be a drug runner for ten months only," Le Roux says. "In that sense, the Corleone mafia kept its promise. You let me walk away when my time was up. But you never told me my activities would help ignite war between other families. A war you yourself took no part in. That was your plan, after all -- to ignite and sit back and watch the bonfire."

A chill run downs my spine. I glance at Luca. He glances back. I can see in his expression that there's no anger or annoyance. Le Roux is telling the truth, and Luca knows it.

"You never told me," Le Roux continued, voice rising, "that by being even the lowest rung of your ladder, I was getting myself into years of poverty and misery and a target on my back from people who were your enemies, not mine. And what did the Corleones do? You disappeared. I couldn't even ask you for help because I couldn't fucking find you, but I know you know what mess you left behind, and you knew exactly who was caught up in it. You simply didn't care. I'm surprised you even remember my name."

"For you, it was the most important thing in your life," Luca says quietly. "For us, it was Tuesday."

Le Roux raises an eyebrow. "Really? You're going to quote Street Fighter?"

Luca doesn't say anything more, but I know what he's thinking. I know what he and Marco think of these situations. They acknowledge they may be in the wrong. They acknowledge their enemies have their reasons. They simply don't care, because that's what the business is.

But sometimes, the business bites them back.

Le Roux suddenly kicks Luca in the jaw. Luca's head snaps up, and the force makes him fall back. Le Roux tries to point the gun at him, but I scream and latch onto his arm to mess up his aim. Flustered, he fires first into the wall, and then into the floor next to Luca's head.

Le Roux grows sick of me and throws me aside, dropping his gun in the process. It scatters across the floor as I get slammed into the wall. He doesn't bother running for the gun -- I'm not sure he's even noticed it's gone. He only glares at me.

"Stay out of this," he barks. "I have nothing to do with you."

He leaves me and goes straight for Luca, kicking and punching him. Luca squirms and fights back, but with one arm out of commission, he's failing miserably. I sit by the wall, frozen in place, my scalp aching from being dragged, my joints aching from being thrown. As Luca bleeds all over the floor and his return punches and kicks slow down, I'm simply frozen, a million conflicting thoughts running through my head.

Le Roux is in the right. He deserves his revenge.

Luca killed Jack. He deserves to die.

Luca is my friend. I don't want him to die.

Before I know it, I've risen to my feet. A scary calm washes over me as I pick up Le Roux's gun and point it at his head. An even scarier calm numbs me when I pull the trigger and watch his skull contort, watch his body spasm and fall aside.

Luca, breathing hard, sits up as much as he can, staring at me through one eye that's okay and another that's starting to swell. My arms fall limp to my sides, the gun clattering to the floor once again. I suddenly hear frantic footsteps outside in the hall, so I lock the door and push the desk in front of it. The other captor shouts and pummels and even shoots at the door, but I pile more things in front of it to keep him out.

Luca has pushed himself against a wall, far from Le Roux's corpse. He continues staring at me when I crouch down in front of him. I slip my hand into his pocket, pull out his phone, and text Marco where we are and that we need help, but I leave it at that.

"Are you okay?" I ask tonelessly, carefully pressing my hand against his shoulder.

Luca doesn't answer the question. "Are you?"

"I'm not the one who got beat up."

"No," he says quietly, "but you did just kill someone."

Ella Corleone, a new wife and a new murderess.

"You can never take this back, Ella," he says. "This isn't something you can come back from."

"I know."

Something inside me, something innocent I thought I could maintain even as a mafia wife, has broken.

And I don't regret it.

"Shut up and say thank you," I grumble, trying to be humorous, but it falls flat.

He's right.

There's no coming back from this.