????MAFIA POSSESSION ????????
( HIS ADDICTION ????)
BY, ROYAL DIADEM ❣️
CHAPTER 30
Copy and have your life shortened ????
LUCA FOUND the way his father’s blood spread throu-ghthe carpet
fascinating. When Caroline walked out, he stayed still for a moment,
watching the cream-colored carpet slowly absorb a dark red. Darker at the
source, almost black around his father’s leg where his mother knelt,
her
baby blue dress eaten up by uneven darkness trying to scramble up her lap.
Ugly, bruised purple where the blood feathered out in the expensive crepe
de chine. The carpet squelched softly as she shifted her weight on her
knees. The carpet at the edges of the red circle weren’t so w-et, but still
enough that stepping there with a sock clad foot would ruin your day.
A
damp sock was the worst feeling imaginable.
But the way the blood spread outward was captivating. Each fiberpa-ssed it to the next in a slow saturation. Like the creeping dread that
seeped throu-ghLuca’s bones.
They would have to re-carpet the room. They wouldn’t get the stain out.
Unless somehow it spread to every corner and stained all the little carpetfibers equally. Then the office would just have pink carpet. And wouldn’t
his father hate that? The sharp smell of blood hung in the air and Lucawondered if they would ever get rid of that either. The taste of iron settledon his tongue and wished he had a drink to chase away the feelings that
taste caused to bubble around in his stomach.
“Bruno, Bruno, answer me,” his mother begged, fisting a blood-stainedhand in her husband’s shirt. Luca picked her up gently, pulling her to herfeet with hands wrapped loosely around her wrists. She swayed a little, andhe steadied her. Her eyes shone with tears that clung to her eyelashes andcaught little sparkles of light. Luca wiped at the blood his mother had accidently smeared on her face. It didn’t belong there. Blood didn’t belong
on his mother’s sweet face.
Luca’s father was dying. There was too much blood in the carpet.
Luca’s chest felt tight, as if some weight were sitting on top of him, keeping
his lungs from expanding all the way. Inky darkness stole throu-ghthe
window, warm with the promise of summer. It was a beautiful clear night.
Perfect for stargazing away from the city. Not at all right for death.
Luca looked up at the door that Caroline walked throu-gh. He wouldn’t
see her again. She would be gone by the time he got back to his apartment.
Perhaps without a trace, but maybe she would forget something. A
toothbrush, or a single sock, or a few strands of honey blonde hair on his
pillowcase. It would be for the best. He shouldn’t see her again.
His heart ached in his chest.
He loved her. Like he loved nothing and no
one else. And that was why he had to let her go. She never wanted anything
to do with the mafia. She was right all along. Luca knew his father was a
monster, but he didn’t want to believe it. Who would want to believe that?
Who would willingly accept that the man who raised them was capable of
cold-blooded murder and then allowing the woman he ‘loved’ to blame
herself for the next fifteen years?
Caroline didn’t need that kind of negativity in her life.
And while Luca
would like to believe he was above such behavior, he had to wonder how
much his father rubbed off on him. Caroline would need space and time.
And Luca wanted nothing more than to protect her from everything bad inthe world.
“Mom,” Luca said, and the sound of his own voice startled him.
“Gocall Gio.” She looked at him and tears fell down her cheeks. He hated to see
her like this. “Go call Gio and have him get the on-staff doctor.” Shehesitated, and a hiccup shook her shoulders. “Mom, he needs a doctor.”
Luca spoke gently. Giovanni would know what to do. He would be able tohandle their mother like this much better than Luca could. “Go getGiovanni. I’ve got him.”
His mother nodded slowly and stepped away from Luca, toward thedoor. The front of her skirt was sli-ck and black and heavy, shiny in the lowlight. She held the skirt away from her legs to walk, tracking blood in
delicate little footprints out the door.
Luca knelt beside his father and the soaked carpet squelched towelcome his knees. Uncomfortable arm w-etness soaked throu-ghhis pa-nts and made his stomach turn. It turned again when his father gave him a smile
that was half grimace.
“I’m proud of you, son,” he rasped.
Luca regarded him for a moment, taking in the de-ep frown lines on his
forehead, his dark eyes, ha-rd as marbles, the lack of color in his face. “Why
is that?”
A shaky breath that belied the pain he was in. “Of all my sons, you’re
the most like me.”
Luca didn’t want to hear that. He didn’t want to be like his father. He
strived to be as little like him as possible. He reached out to grab his leg,
but instead of applying pressure to staunch the blood, he squee-zed to make
it more painful and push more blood out. His father gasped and hissed
throu-ghhis teeth. “Why do you say that?” Luca demanded.
His father coughed and smiled again, mostly grimace this time.
“Because you’re going to kill me. The same way I killed him.” Luca gave
his leg another squee-zeand a spurt of blood bubbled onto the floor, pooling
on the already saturated carpet. He wasn’t wrong. Luca was going to let him
die. His father spoke throu-ghclenched teeth. “He ruined my marriage and
almost to-re apart our family, just like I’ve tainted your love for that girl and
to-re apart our family.”
Luca nodded slowly. The front of his socks were soaked where he sat on
his knees and blood traveled down the tops of his feet in his shoes. The
worst part was the warmth. A cool w-et feeling would be unpleasant, but the
warmth of it reminded him that it wasn’t just water. That just moments ago
it had been the life running throu-ghhis father’s veins.
Bruno’s eyes fluttered and his breaths came too quickly. He would lose
consciousness soon. “I know,” he gasped. “I know it’s ha-rd to see,” he
swallowed and took another labored breath, “ha-rd to see sometimes…”
Luca didn’t like the sound of his voice. It was rou-gh, full of pain, but hadthe edge of a laugh to it like he found some sick humor in this situation. Hesquee-zed his leg again and another little spurt of blood trailed its ticklishlyslow way over his hand. His father made a little whimper of pain andclenched his eyes closed but took a few shaky breaths and continued.
“All
I’ve done—with all I’ve done.” He clenched his teeth but looked Luca inthe eyes. “But I do love you. I love all of you.”
The sound of his father’s breathing synched up for a moment with thetick of the grandfather clock in the corner.
Luca remembered being young and laying on his stomach in front of the clock, watching the pendulum
swing back and forth while his father talked about things he didn’t
understand. He remembered windy days on the grounds with a shiny blue
kite that his father tossed into the air and helped Luca chase down when he
let go of the string. He remembered his high school graduation and the loud
whistle from the audience when they called his name to walk across the
stage. He remembered the joke his father told at every party about the blind
man who picked up his hammer and saw. There were moments of love in
his childhood. Many moments.
Most moments were loving.
But there were also moments that stung like the snap of a belt on bare
skin. Harsh words that cut de-ep and scarred over in ugly, jagged lines on his
subconscious.
Sharp disappointed looks that left lingering feelings of
inadequacy. Crippling control over everything that made Luca feel like he
didn’t pull the strings in his own life.
He w-et his li-ps and met his father’s gaze. “I know.” Because he did
know that in some twisted way, it was all a show of love. “But you’re no
good at love.” He let that sink in with another squee-zethat pushed out
another weak gush of blood. “You ruin everything you love and it’s time for
those people to heal.”
The weight on Luca’s chest increased. He felt dirty, smeared with blood
and guilt, but he knew he was right. His mother, his sister, his brothers,
Caroline. They all needed to heal. And putting a band-aid over a bee sting
without removing the stinger doesn’t fix the problem.
Luca thought about his mother. She always put a brave face on and
stood strong for her children, even after losing one.
But Luca could tell how
much Bruno wore her down. Little things, little “don’t worry your pretty
little heads and little lies, little manipulations of the truth that she always
saw throu-gh. His mother always knew what was going on. She was clever
and perceptive and Bruno ignoring that had to sting. Then, finding out that
the one lie she didn’t see throu-ghmade her accept the guilt for a life shedidn’t take… Luca knew she would never admit how much that hurt, but hecould see it.
And looking back, he could see how Bruno used that guilt toget what he wanted. That kind of marriage was toxic and unhealthy, andLuca respected his mother so much for enduring it the way she had for thesake of her children. Because Bruno thought he owned all of them.
He forced Tessa into the power marriage of the century. She seemed allright now, but Luca knew that she hadn’t been all right at the beginning.
And then again with Giovanni and Lorna. Giovanni would have gone
throu-ghwith it if Lorna hadn’t been the rebellious type who would stand up
for herself. He would have let their father push him into a marriage with a
woman he could never love, firstly because their personalities were about as
compatible as toothpaste and orange juice and secondly because he was in
love with Delilah. Bruno stole all the love from his children’s lives.
Then there was Caroline.
Sweet Caroline. She shouldn’t have been
affected by Bruno’s emotional manipulation, but throu-ghcircu-mstances far
out of her own control, Bruno dragged his claws throu-ghher life too and
to-re apart her family and left her alone, then ordered her death like it was
nothing. A fly to be swatted, a pest. He couldn’t use her, so she was to be
eliminated.
Bruno was a poison, slowly killing the Moretti family, slowly hardening
their hearts, and making them lose faith in love.
Luca could feel his father’s heartbeat pushing blood out of the wound
on his leg in short bursts in time to the constant ticking of the grandfather
clock. His eyelids fluttered and his breathing faltered as he struggled to
cling to life.
Blood felt hot on Luca’s hand, but cooler on his legs. His chest ached.
He never imagined himself here, kneeling beside his father, helping him
bleed out. His mind wandered throu-ghthe consequences of patricide—or
maybe this would count as regicide. Giovanni would take over as Boss and
he would do a better job than Bruno.
Their mother would be free. Maybeeventually she would smile more and sing to herself as she spun around the
kitchen in her fancy aprons like she did when they were little. MaybeGiovanni would find a way to be with Delilah. Maybe Antonio would fall
in love and not have to worry about hiding it from their father.
MaybeCaroline would go on to win awards and write first page headlines and find
a ‘good boy’ who could support her in every way she needed. Maybe therewould be a happy ending and the wounds would heal once the stinger was
removed and the poison was su-cked out.
Bruno’s eyes stayed closed after a moment and his heartbeat slowed outof sync with the clock.
Luca let his head fall to his chest. Death tasted like
the smell of blood in his mouth and weighed him down with a humid,cloudy sort of heaviness. The blood on his pa-nts had started to dry. So hadthe blood on the edge of the carpet, hardening into a sort of rusty scab.
Luca’s throat felt tight and heat gathered behind his eyes, but no tears gathered. No closure,
not yet. Just the feeling that he might cry, that he
should cry, without the conviction to actually do it. Anticipation fueled by
the solid tick-tock, tick-tock that echoed off the walls in a constant reminder
of the pa-ssage of time. How long did it take to bleed out? How long could
Bruno Moretti cling to life? How long could Luca sit
still and watch his
father die?
Short puffs of breath that seemed to grow farther and farther apart. Luca
wasn’t aware of his own breathing. Was he breathing? He must be because
he could smell the metallic tang of blood mixed with the weak air freshenerplugged into the wall. He shifted his hand and blood squished between his
fingers, warm and sli-ppery.
The clock never stopped ticking, but Luca noticed his father stoppedbreathing. Blood still trickled out over his hand, but no heartbeat pushed it.
Death came and went on swift soundless feet before Luca even realized.
He stayed there, kneeling in a puddle of blood, listening to the secondstick away and wondering whether the blood-soaked carpet fibers would dryin the shape of his father’s body.
TBC