The Body #4: Nico and Cosi

Chapter 8 (Nico): What She Wanted

Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA

***TW for SA/deaths (including unborn baby)***

For the very first time since we were married, I held Costanza to me without fear. For the first time since marrying her, I held her without worrying that what I was doing in secret to take down Dario would come to light and put the woman I loved more than life itself at risk. For the first time, I felt like we could finally look to the future. I couldn't let go of her, couldn't get over this feeling that the oppressive weight I'd held on my shoulders for all these years was finally gone. I could love my wife without that relentless fear of discovery dogging my every step. I'd been wading in sewage and the streets were now clean.

Of the three of us, my wife had been most at risk for the longest. Lucio's wife had disappeared the morning after they married, and Santo had been married for less than a year when the coup occurred. It was actually Santo's wife being kidnapped by Dario that had escalated the plans, but when Lucio had called and said go now and go hard, the words I'd been hoping to hear even if it was sooner than expected, I'd rallied my men and we'd taken out nearly one hundred Dario loyalists in under two hours, and Santo's teams had taken out the remaining fifty.

Today had been the culmination of years and years of covert work. I'd gone through school with Lucio Feroce and somehow, despite the different levels of the Body we were from and would occupy, we'd become friends. And then, out of the blue one day, he had me meet him at an out-of-the-way location right before we were going off to our three years of training. Lucio talked with me and told me what he was planning with his younger cousin after swearing me to secrecy.

He was planning an overthrow of the Head of the Body. He was planning to kill his own uncle in a move so bold that we both acknowledged that it would be nearly impossible to pull off with all the spies Dario had everywhere.

"It's dangerous, Nico, but I need you because you operate at a level that can get me the soldiers I need to pull this off. You need to make absolutely certain every single man you recruit is loyal to me. If even one person folds, that would mean the end of all of us, so secrecy and loyalty is paramount. Once we're through these three years of training, we'll get even more serious. But it's going to be slow and take time to build our numbers so Dario won't suspect."

"I'm in."

"You know what this would mean if we're caught. What it would mean for our families."

I knew. I'd heard stories about Dario. Nothing good. All beyond bad. Psychopath-level of bad. But I liked the ideas Lucio sketched out to me of changes he said needed to be made, sweeping reforms, a completely different way of approaching lives for both men and women in the Body.

"I'm in, Lucio. I'll support you, get you the numbers you need. Whatever you need, you can count on me."

When we finished our training, things got more serious, darker. 

Despite that, there were also moments of lightness eight times in the two years after I became engaged to Costanza. She was sweet and pure, shy and kind, smart and funny...and just being around her felt cleansing, especially given the three years I'd just endured. I had to force myself not to prolong those eight visits because she was still just a girl, but one I could see letting myself fall for once she grew up because she was that fucking perfect. She was everything I wanted, way out of my league, but she didn't seem to mind that I was a Body thug.  Her beautiful eyes would watch me shyly and I wanted to kneel at her feet in thanks for giving me those sweet looks that got me through until the next time I could see her.

The day I married Costanza, I was feeling guilty because she had no idea about the darker side of life I was involved in, even beyond what my job entailed. I wanted to protect my wife from any ugliness in life, keep her as innocent as she was, to never expose her to the darker elements of the Body world. I'd even built a safe room behind our closet in the master bedroom of our home before we got married so she'd have a little bolt hole if it ever became necessary. 

I needed to know she was safe. It became an obsession, protecting her every way I could because the secret side of my life ate at me, thinking about how unfair it was to be bringing her into something potentially deadly if our work was to be discovered. She was unequipped to handle the danger and devastation I could be bringing into our lives, but if I tried to back out of the marriage, it would bring negative attention to Costanza and to me, and I couldn't afford any close looks at my life, and I wouldn't want Costanza to be labeled a reject.

But when I thought about it, I realized life in the Body under Dario was just as dangerous. He was unstable, mercurial and his mood could change in the blink of an eye. We always heard rumors of the latest heinous move Dario had made, but then I actually heard a first-hand story and it chilled me. 

One of the men I worked with, Tommaso, told me his story. He'd taken me out for drinks a few nights before our wedding, but he was the one who got drunk. Tommaso was about five years older than I was and didn't have a wife. I'd always wondered why, but while I was driving him home from the bar, he told me the most horrifying story I'd ever heard of Dario La Forte -- and I'd heard plenty. 

Tommaso had messed up in such a way on one job that Dario brought Tommaso to his office where Dario had the man's eight-month pregnant wife already there.

 "He...killed her in front of me, but not before he let twenty of his men...violate my wife. I thought he'd kill me then, but he smiled at me and told me my punishment was to live with her screams and the visions of what I'd seen and their deaths the rest of my life, and then he moved me down to the lowest level of the Body." 

He was crying by this point, but I had no problem understanding his next words. 

"Hate isn't a strong enough word for how I feel about that motherfucker. I've stayed alive in the hopes I could find a way to kill him, to avenge my wife and unborn baby."

With those words, he became my first recruit and set me on a course of action to prevent what happened to his wife and unborn child from happening to Costanza. There was no way I was going to work on overthrowing Dario and risk Costanza becoming pregnant. It went against everything I wanted and believed in, but I was going to put her on birth control.

There was no way I could risk telling her I wanted to prevent a pregnancy. Body men wanted their wives pregnant and they wanted them pregnant right away. It was my right as her husband to prevent her from conceiving just as it was my right to get her pregnant. However, I had no idea if she could keep a secret, or if she could, if she'd someday let it slip with her step-sister or her friends or her mother. A Body man wanting his wife on birth control would be something that would be whispered about and noticed. And then the questions would start and I could come under scrutiny, which would put Costanza at risk.

So I followed one of the Body OB-GYNs home the following night and terrified her into giving me birth control for Costanza, the lowest-dosage one possible. I threatened the doctor into keeping quiet about it. This doctor knew the Body and promised me she wouldn't say a word. Most Body men threatened to kill the doctors if their wives ever asked for birth control and they prescribed it. I was doing the opposite of what she expected. The doctor and I worked out a way to monitor Costanza and do blood work every six months to make sure she was not having any  side effects. I would also be monitoring her for any symptoms.

I hated doing it, but I kept hearing Tommaso's words in my head and I could vividly picture what Dario had done to his wife and unborn child. My actions filled me with shame, especially on those few occasions Costanza worried about not being pregnant. Reassuring her helped, and I made sure that she knew her worth to me was not measured in the babies she could provide for me, but she herself was the treasure I held in my heart. I whispered that into her ear if she ever mentioned it. I told her how much I loved her, but the two secrets I was keeping from her ate at me over the years.

Now I was holding my wife in my arms, unable to let her go. No more secret plotting to overthrow Dario. No more secret birth control.

There were only the secret divorce papers in my office safe if...when...Costanza found out about the birth control and couldn't forgive me for the last five years. It would kill me to let her go, but I wouldn't have a choice if that's what she wanted. At some point, I would need to tell her what I'd done.

So I held onto my wife for more than an hour, looking forward to the future, but I realized I was lying when I said I held her without fear. Dario wasn't the threat now.

My own actions were.