The Body #2: Lucio and Janie

Chapter 4 (Lucio): A Transformer

Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA

Once I'd calmed down enough to explain to Ginevra why, as Head of the Body, I needed to show I had control of her, those dark eyes of hers looked at me.

"You need to show you have control of me?"

Her tone was neutral, but something underlying it didn't sit right with me.

When I was growing up, as the heir to the Head of the Body, I never had much time for going to the movies or watching them on TV. I was either training with my fists, guns or knives, learning about the various business aspects of the Body, working out or in school. Then, when I turned eighteen, I went away for three years to the place where all of us newly-eighteen boys endured what was basically torture until we were less human than when we'd begun. The second year drummed out even more of our humanity until there wasn't much left to dispense with by the third year.

At the end of those three years, we were marked as members of the LaForte Body with a deep cut at the spot where our neck met our back, an L F crudely carved into our skin, and it hurt like a bitch. If you made any noise, even sucked in a breath while it was happening, you got another cut, this one a mark of shame in the form of an X over your left pec -- a reminder over your heart that you needed to be stronger for the Body. I only had the one mark even though my uncle and former Head of the Body, Dario LaForte, marked me personally and dug that knife tip in deeper and harder than for anyone else.

I didn't make a sound or move a muscle because I already hat3d that bastard and wouldn't give him the satisfaction. Rumor had it that Dario had two marks on him so I knew he was going to try to make it beyond my endurance, but he was doomed to be disappointed. My hatred. That was just one of many instances I owed Dario for and for which I eventually paid him back. With interest.

But the movies I never had time for still could penetrate my consciousness from time to time, and I remembered seeing toys and posters popping up everywhere for Transformers. They looked like cars, but then twisted their parts around to become robots.

For some reason, standing in front of Ginevra now for the first time in five years, listening to her taunt me about no longer being a virgin, I thought about those Transformers. She looked like my wife...but I knew there was more to her. Something hidden I was missing. My instinct was warning me something was off with her, and I always listened to it. There was an urgency telling me that I needed to piece together the puzzle that was my wife, although I didn't have much to go on.

My first clue that Ginevra was different came the morning after our wedding.

Actually, that wasn't accurate. I'd known she was different when she'd come to me to plead her case for a City Hall wedding. When I'd explained why that bullshit wasn't happening, she'd actually gone behind my back and appealed straight to Dario.

That had taken balls, or maybe it was just cluelessness. Ginevra, in her naivety, didn't understand what she was risking. Maybe she was only thinking that Dario had to listen to her since her father had died taking a bullet meant for Dario. His gratitude plus her giant, dark eyes could have swayed Dario. However, given Dario's whims, it could just as easily have gone the other way and he could have shot Ginevra between the eyes for not abiding by my decision to move ahead with our wedding as planned. When I thought of how easily Dario could have ended Ginevra, my gut sickened. She needed to learn a lesson as soon as possible that she didn't go around me, that she needed to obey me so she didn't end up in Dario's crosshairs. He'd ended girls for much less than the daring she'd shown. And it all depended on his mood, which could change suddenly and without warning.

So her approaching Dario was technically my first clue that maybe Ginevra was a little different. Had it been the only clue, I could have written it off as her being yet another emotional female who wasn't thinking clearly.