Undressed By The Mafia God novel Chapter 279

Chapter 279: No One Quits The Famiglia

"Do you ever think of leaving this life?" she asked quietly. "This mafia life?"

"I have never really thought about it," he said honestly.

"You should."

"Bambola..." He said it softly. "No one quits the famiglia. You may choose to take a break every once in a while, but you cannot step out of being in the famiglia."

It was the architecture of the world he inhabited — walls that didn’t move because you wished them to.

"Then have you ever thought about those you would leave behind?" Vee asked. "People who love you?" She paused. "Me?"

Death was not a new concept to Luca. He had made his peace with it before he’d even hit twenty. He had been in situations where he had wanted death, had bargained for it. He had been captured once, held for days while men with no particular imagination and a great deal of time tested the limits of what a body could endure before its owner gave up information. He hadn’t given up a single name.

He had also spent those days fairly certain he was going to die, and the thing he remembered most clearly was that he had not felt particularly sad about it. Just tired. And angry. Mostly angry. His life was a storm. It had always been a storm.

But he hadn’t thought about death since the afternoon she had walked into his office carrying nothing but a pizza box, completely unaware that she was walking into a dangerous room. He hadn’t let himself think that deeply, hadn’t opened that particular door, because he already knew what was on the other side of it.

The thought of losing her — not just to death, to anything, in any capacity, in any version of events — wasn’t something he was willing to sit inside even for a moment.

He must have been silent too long, because she said his name again, checking he was still there.

"Luca?"

"I’ll always come back to you, Vee."

Even as he said them, some honest part of him registered what they were — a promise built on hope rather than fact. The alternative was saying nothing.

"You cannot know that for sure," she said softly. "One day, you will leave me."

"Maybe I will be as lucky as my father." He said.

Vee raised a brow. "Maybe?"

"Love," he started, shifting slightly so her head settled more comfortably against him, "human beings are like machines. One minute they are working fine, the next—" he clicked his fingers softly in the dark, "—poof. All done. Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed for anyone," he continued. "I might very well die from cancer just as surely as I probably will die from a gunshot." He paused. "I could slip in the shower and crack my head open. An AC unit could drop on my head. It happens." He had actually once known a man — three hundred pounds of intimidating muscle — who had been taken out by a faulty electrical socket.

"We don’t stop living because the ending is uncertain," he said. "We appreciate the moments we have. Like this one." He let that sit for a second, let her feel the weight of what he actually meant beneath the words. "You. Here. In my arms. There is nowhere else I would rather be, Vee. Not in this city. Not in this world."

This bed, this woman, this specific configuration of the universe was the only place Luca had ever felt anything close to stillness.

She smiled against his chest. It was a sad smile. She placed a small, soft kiss on his chest. "The life I want for us," she began quietly, "is a peaceful one." 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify