Marco headed for his own car. Luca moved to his vehicle and pulled the front passenger door open.
"Get in."
Val threw him a frown.
"Look!" Luca snapped, then visibly dragged himself back from the edge. His jaw flexed. His voice lowered, but the frustration stayed. "I’m tired of seeing your sister tear herself apart over this madness between us. You get in, we go where we can sort this out, or I put you in there myself. Your choice. Get the fuck in!"
Silently, Val stepped forward. She got into the car, one hand braced beneath her belly, her face carved from stone. Luca shut the door carefully.
He rounded the car and got in. Soon they were driving away from Marco’s estate. Both of them said nothing as they sped off.
Val had no idea where he was taking her and honestly, she had no intention of asking. She sat stiffly in the passenger seat, one hand resting protectively over her belly, the other gripping the edge of the seat. The city thinned into warehouses, broken fences, and long stretches of road.
Luca drove in silence. Val stared straight ahead. She refused to look at him. She refused to ask questions.
About fifteen minutes later, the car rolled into a deserted landfill. Val’s eyes narrowed. Mountains of discarded tal, rotting wood, and black trash bags rose around them. The air slled of rust, old rain.
Luca stopped the car. "Get out."
Val turned to him slowly. "What?"
"Val, out!" he snapped. He reached into the glove box, pulled out his gun, and got out.
For the first ti since, fear flashed across Val’s face. She knew what he could do, what he had done, what people whispered about him.
The empty landfill. The gun. Her hand tightened over her belly.
"What are you going to do to ?" she asked.
Luca stopped. Hurt shifted in his face. "The fact that you would think for one minute that I could hurt you ans we are broken."
Val said nothing.
He walked around the car toward her side, his voice lower now, rougher. "And we need to patch it up because it is killing your sister."
The ntion of Vee hit exactly where he intended it to. Val’s jaw tightened. Luca looked at her, then held the gun out to her.
Val stared at it then at him. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"A long list," he said. "We do not have ti for all of it. We either sort this out," Luca said, placing the gun into her hand, "or you pull the fucking trigger and leave my body here. No one would know you did it."
Val’s brow raised. Even afraid, even furious, she managed to look unimpressed. "Marco would."
"So you are considering it."
Val looked down at the gun in her hand. Luca stood in front of her, hands at his sides, completely still.
"What exactly could I have done differently, Val, for you not to bla ?" Luca said.
"I don’t..." she started to say.
Luca’s eyes sharpened. "Don’t fucking lie to . You bla ."
Val’s mouth snapped shut. Her fingers tightened around the gun he had handed her. It felt heavy but her anger had felt heavier for weeks.
Luca stood in front of her without flinching.
"Well, yes!" she burst out. "Everything bad that has happened to us is you. You!"
The words tore out of her. Once they were out, she could not pull them back.
He smiled bitterly. "Don’t give all the credit, Val. I refuse to take it all. Your father started this, or did you forget?"
She flinched. That was unfair but true. Luca pressed on.
"Let’s think for a minute," he said. "Let’s assu a different scenario of things." Luca moved slowly. "Your father walks into my office. He asks a favour from , ’the devil’. He asks for soone to be taken care of. I did it. Then it is ti to collect, and the first words out of your father’s mouth are, ’Take my daughter. She is beautiful. She is eighteen. She is a virgin.’"
Val’s face twisted.
Luca’s voice hardened. "I am a shady businessman, Val. A bastard. A criminal. Pick whatever word makes you feel better. But I do not traffic won."
She looked away.
"So, in this story, I arrange for you to be given to Bastardi for sothing I need."
Luca moved closer, his shoes crunching against sand. "Your sister instead takes your place," he continued. "She is sold to whoever, only for him to realise he has been duped. She isn’t actually eighteen. Virgin, yes. Beautiful, yes. Young, no."
Val’s breathing had gone shallow. Luca’s gaze stayed locked on hers.
"Let’s even be very generous and assu the buyer doesn’t mind. What life will your sister be subjected to?" Luca asked.
The landfill stretched around them in ugly silence.
"Will you keep living your life knowing that your sister is being abused, raped, traded?" he asked, each word a blade he clearly hated having to use. "Would you sleep beside Marco? Knowing Vee was out there, being passed from one monster to another because no one was there to save her?"
Val’s face crumpled. "Stop," she whispered.
"You want to bla , and maybe I deserve so of it. Fine. I have done enough terrible things to fill a church confession box. But not this. Not all of it."
Val’s hand trembled harder around the gun.
"So tell , Val," Luca said. "Where did I go wrong?"
She shook her head, tears spilling freely now. "So many bad things have happened because of you. People have died."
"Yes," Luca said. "People have died. People will die again. That is the world we are in."
Val let out a broken sob.
"But with the good in our lives cos so bad," he continued. "No one in this world is perfectly happy, Val. No one gets love without fear attached to it. No one gets family without the possibility of losing them."
(Brought to you by Janelle Fox 2/2)
User Comments
0 comments from readers