Broken Promise by M. James

Luca

I’ve never enjoyed torture.

But I have to say, it hasn’t been as difficult this time as it so often has been in the past. In fact, it’s been almost harder to detach myself from it, to keep from going too far.

Whatever Viktor has threatened his soldiers with to keep them silent, it must be awful, because I use every method I know of, every trick I have, every painful thing I can imagine to try to pry out of them when and why and how they’re attacking us, why Viktor insists on a bride as his price for peace, what they possibly hope to achieve. I even make Franco take over for a while, just to mix things up, but he can’t get anything out of them either. By the time I exhaust the last of the Bratva men we managed to pick up, the warehouse floor is covered in blood and sweat, teeth and nails and piss. We’re no closer to figuring out a way forward than we were before.

And it makes me question everything.

The one thing every single one of them made clear is that Sofia is at the heart of this. They’re after her—Viktor’s insistence on Caterina as his wife now is just his own personal desire—and they want her captured or dead. It doesn’t really seem to matter which. But that’s as much as we can draw out, no matter what we do.

You can’t protect her.And you’re getting too close.

That’s the thought running through my head, over and over again, as I walk out to the docks. I hadn’t meant to get in so deeply with Sofia. I’d meant to keep my distance, to tuck her away somewhere safely after the wedding and forget about her for the most part. For exactly this reason—because she’s a distraction. My feelings for her are getting tangled up in the job I need to do, and it’s making me unable to detach and do that job in the way that I need to. I didn’t just have to hand things over to Franco for a little while as a means of mixing things up and trying to get them to talk.

I was also enjoying it too much. And I didn’t want to stop.

I wanted to kill them, for ever thinking they could lay a hand on Sofia.

The night of Caterina’s wedding, after Sofia and I finished for the second time, I knew I’d made a mistake.

I’d come damn close to telling her that I loved her. I’d been on the verge of it as I came for the second time, the words on the tip of my tongue, and I’d forced them back. Afterward, lying in bed next to her, I’d thought about the fact that since I’d rescued her from that hotel room, I hadn’t so much as wanted to touch another woman. I thought about how many times we’d slept together, when before, I’d made sure to never come back more than once. I’d thought about the way she made me feel, almost addicted, craving her again even after I’d just come, thinking about her while I was away.

I knew then that whatever I felt for her—love, lust, addiction, obsession—it’s too strong. Too powerful.

I need to step back. To put up the walls that were always meant to keep distance between us. Because nothing has changed. If I get close to her, if I let her close to me, if she starts to matter—if I’m being honest, she already does—then she can be used against me. Viktor, or anyone else, could manipulate me. Change my decisions, make me do things I wouldn’t, otherwise. My head will never be completely clear again.

And if I’m being honest, I’m dangerously close to that already, if I’m not already there.

So when I head home, with blood still under my fingernails and my shirt still stained with it, I tell myself that however painful it might be, that last night with Sofia before I left needs to be the last time I ever touch her like that. If we do fuck, it needs to be colder, more practical, a means for satisfying lust, and nothing more. It can’t be so intimate, so—personal.

And then, as if my mood weren’t already bad enough, my emotions in an uncomfortable and unfamiliar tangle, I find out from Raoul that Sofia disobeyed me while I was gone. “She went to the hospital with Caterina,” he tells me, and for a moment, I’m so intensely furious that I see red. I don’t even hear the reason why, or another word that Raoul says, as I make my way towards the elevator up to the penthouse.

I’m almost shaking with fury by the time I walk in. This is why, I think, as I prowl the apartment looking for Sofia. This is why I can’t allow myself to feel for her, why I can’t allow that kind of intimacy, why it’s better for her to fear me than care for me. I was an idiot to think that elaborate dates on the rooftop and nights spent laughing at movies together were possible for us, that I could somehow have ordinary pleasures like that while being a man who is anything but ordinary.

I’m the head of the biggest criminal organization in the world, not a husband who comes home every day for dinner. Not a soccer dad. Not a man who gets to have the trappings of a normal life. It’s the price for the life I’ve led, the one I continue to lead, and I was always happy to pay it.

There’s no reason to start pushing against it now.

The only way to keep Sofia safe is to make sure that she’s too afraid to disobey me—for her to feel that my power over her is absolute, for her to know better than to ignore my orders. She can’t think that we’re equals, that there’s an intimacy between us or a partnership.

It will only get her killed.

And if I allow that kind of closeness between us, and she gets herself murdered, it will shatter me. I know that. I’ll do things I never would have otherwise, to save or avenge her.

I was never meant to have love. Never meant to have a wife that was anything more than a pretty trophy to take out occasionally and parade around, more than something to stick my cock into occasionally when I wanted to take my pleasure at home, with less effort than it took to pick up another woman. That was the mindset I’d clung to when I was told I’d have to marry Sofia to save her life.

I don’t know when I lost it. But that changes today. Now.

Sofia is in the kitchen when I find her. She turns around with a smile on her face, only for it to die when she sees the expression on mine, the blood still spattering my skin and shirt. Good, I think, my brain feeling thick and slow with emotion, with the amount of discipline it takes to force myself to follow through on this. Her smile fades to a look of apprehension and then fear as I stalk towards her, and her shriek when I swing her up into my arms and toss her over my shoulder makes my chest ache more than it should.

“Put me down! Luca, what’s going on—” she shouts, struggling in my grasp, but I hold on to her all the way to the bedroom. With a swift motion, I deposit her on the floor, trying to restrain the lust that rises up in me when I take in what she’s wearing—a denim miniskirt and a white crop top made of some soft material that begs for me to run my hands over it.

“I know you went to the hospital.” My voice is dark, gravelly, raspy from all the talking I’ve done today, trying to convince the Russians to roll over on Viktor so they could keep at least a few of their finger or toenails. “What did I tell you, Sofia?”

“You told me to stay here,” she says in a small voice. “But Caterina—”

“I don’t care.” I see her recoil at the harshness in my voice, but I don’t stop. “I don’t care what your excuses are. Do you know what I did today, Sofia?”

Her eyes drift over me, over the blood, and I see her go even paler. “I can guess,” she says in a small voice.

“This is who I am, Sofia. A bloody man. A killer. A murderer. A torturer. A man who will do anything to preserve what I’ve been given. A man who will do anything to protect you, since you’re a part of that. You’re mine, Sofia,” I growl, taking a step towards her. “I think you’ve forgotten that.”

“No, I just—”

“You just thought you could get away with it. You thought you could disobey me, and there would be no consequences. Look at me, Sofia!” My voice rises, filling the room, and she shrinks back. “Do I look like a man who can be disobeyed without consequences?”

I hate the fear that I see filling her eyes. I hate that I’m terrifying her, that I’m shouting at her, when all I want to do is take her into my arms and tell her that I need her to be safe, that the idea of her being killed because she couldn’t listen to me makes me feel half-mad, feral with rage. That if I can’t protect her, I don’t see what the fucking point of all of this is anymore.

But I can’t say any of that. Because I need to build the walls between Sofia and me so high that neither of us feels inclined to try to climb them again.

It’s the only way to keep us both safe.

Her eyes are misting over with tears, threatening to spill over, but I ignore it. My chest feels tight, like it’s hard to breathe, and just seeing her after being away for a few days makes me want her more than anything I’ve ever wanted in her life. I feel like an addict chasing his high, desperate for the heat of her body surrounding me, the blinding pleasure of sinking into her, the ecstasy of release.

With one swift motion, I stride forward, scooping her up and tossing her face-down onto the bed. She yelps, trying to turn to face me, but I push her skirt up over her ass, my arm pinning her down as I yank her thong off, leaving it tangled around one ankle as I push her legs apart.

“Luca!”

“Fuck, you’re already so wet,” I murmur, thrusting two of my fingers into her, hard. She moans, her ass pushing up into the air and back against my hand even as she wriggles in place. I’m already rock-hard, throbbing painfully with the need to come, and I drag my zipper down, releasing my aching cock. This is the only pleasure I can have, the only brief respite I get, and I fucking need it.

I need Sofia.

But it has to be in a way that pushes her away from me. Not one that brings us closer again, despite everything.

So I don’t make her come first. Instead, I jerk my fingers free of her clenching pussy, angling my cock head at her entrance and thrusting hard.

The pleasure that washes over me at the feeling of her tight pussy clamping down onto my cock makes my toes curl. I start to thrust, hard and fast, intent on my own orgasm. Underneath me, I can feel her squirming, grinding back against me in an effort to come too, her fingers clawing at the blanket. I don’t know if she’s trying to get away or trying to get more, but I tell myself I don’t care.

“Luca. Luca, please—”

“You want more? Good.” I snarl out the words, fucking her harder, feeling half-mad with it as I drive into her again and again. “Take my cock, like a good wife. You can do at least that, right?”

“Luca—” Sofia whimpers my name again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Shut up,” I growl. “Or do you want to swallow my cum, so you have something better to do with that mouth?”

Fuck. What am I doing? I don’t want to speak to her that way, the way I treated her when we resented each other so much, when we did all we could to hurt each other and drive each other away. But if kindness and romance make her not listen to me, puts her in danger—my job is to protect her. To keep her safe, even if it’s from herself. Even if it means being the don and not her husband. Even if the future we were trying for is impossible.

I can feel my balls tightening, my body throbbing with the intense pleasure of my oncoming orgasm. I thrust again, hard, and once more, wanting every bit of the sensation that I can get. I don’t know when we’ll do this again. Maybe never, and the thought makes me want to stay inside of her forever, keep her here until we drain each other to death. I can’t imagine never being inside of Sofia again.

But there’s no stopping it. Her body is clenching around mine rhythmically, and I can hear her moaning helplessly as she orgasms despite everything. Her back arches, and just as I feel myself reaching the point of no return, I do the only thing I can think of that will make her feel as if I’m just using her, that will push us apart even more than everything I’ve already done.

I pull out, gritting my teeth against the aching in my cock as I grab her waist and flip her over. And then, with her wide, surprised eyes looking up at me, I grab my throbbing length and start to jerk fast and hard, groaning with an almost painful sound, as I feel the first rush of my orgasm hit.

I’ve fantasized about coming all over Sofia since I first saw her. But not like this. She gasps with shock when the first spurt lands on her face, her hand going up numbly to touch her skin as my cum keeps shooting over her, landing on her breasts, her stomach, her pussy, her thighs. It seems to go on forever, shot after shot coating her skin as she turns away from me, the last spurts landing on her denim-clad hip.

She doesn’t say anything to me. She just looks away, refusing to meet my eyes.

I feel worse than I ever have in my entire life. I feel—heartbroken is the only word I can come up with, even though that doesn’t make sense. You have to love someone in order to have your heart broken. And I’ve never loved Sofia. Right?

I just got temporarily caught up. Addicted. But now I’ve put a distance between us that she won’t soon try to cross. She’ll go back to her room. I’ll go back to avoiding her. We’ll fight sometimes. Maybe we’ll fuck. But we’ll never have another night where I come close to making love to her, cuddling her against my chest as we fall asleep with me still inside of her.

That can never happen again.

It never should have happened at all.

So why does the thought hurt so fucking bad?

* * *

I needto talk to someone. And that leads me to a place I try to go to as infrequently as possible—the church. More specifically, the confessional booth.

I’m not actually confessing. I can’t imagine saying out loud to Father Donahue the things that I’ve done—that I just did—to Sofia. Besides the fact that I don’t want to admit it, it seems kind of cruel to talk to a priest about coming on a woman’s face—something he’ll never get to do.

What I can do is talk to him about everything else, though—and I do. In the end, it winds up with us sitting in one of the pews, with me looking up at the spot where not all that long ago, I married Sofia.

“Rossi and I are at odds,” I tell him flatly. “I want peace. I want to come to terms with the Russians, to find some way to bring this conflict to an end. But Viktor refuses all my attempts. And Rossi thinks I’m weak because I refuse to go straight to killing.”

“You know my opinion on that,” Father Donahue says. “I’ve always believed that you had the potential to be a good man, Luca. Your father was a good man for all his flaws.”

“And how, exactly, do I do that?” I can hear the traces of bitterness in my voice. “I want peace when everyone around me wants war. I try to protect my wife, and she won’t obey me. I’m trying to do all I can to bring in a new era, one without bloodshed, and everywhere I turn, I feel as if they’re all against me.”

“You’re in an unenviable position,” the priest admits. “But I have faith in you, Luca. I see what there is between you and Sofia. She’s young, but she’s stronger than you know. She could be a good wife to you in time. Perhaps even now, she’s what you need, without you knowing it.”

“I don’t need a wife. I need to push back the threat. I need the Bratva off of my doorstep. I only ever married her to keep Rossi from killing her, but the wolves keep howling for her, and I don’t know why.”

“You should talk to Sofia about that,” Father Donahue says gravely. “There are things about her family that you should know. But it’s not my place to share the Ferretti secrets.”

“Even if I need to know in order to protect her?”

“Even so.” Father Donahue frowns. “Luca, I know I’m a priest. You’ll say that although I bless marriages, I have no idea what goes on in one, what it really means to be married day in and day out. And I would tell you that while that’s true, I do know the meaning of commitment. I made a vow to this church, and I kept it. I made a vow to Vitto Rossi’s father, and I have kept it. I made a vow to your father and Sofia’s, and I have kept it. I’ve tried to keep the peace among the factions as best as I could for all these years. I’ve been a priest, a counselor. I’ve presided over funerals and weddings and baptisms. I was there to bless you as a baby just as I was there to join you in marriage. But Luca—” he pauses, his expression more serious than I’ve ever seen it. “I don’t want to see the day that your coffin goes into the earth. I don’t want to be the one who performs that funeral.”

“I don’t want you to outlive me, old man,” I say dryly. “But I don’t see what this has to do with my marriage. I didn’t want to make that commitment. I said vows, but in my heart, the only vow that mattered was the vow to protect her. Everything else was just words I had to say.”

“Still, you said them. And you will be stronger together than alone, Luca.” Father Donahue looks at me, his face still grave. “Listen to me, son. You can fight them separately or together. But if you’re fighting each other as well, how can there ever be peace? Even if the Bratva can be pushed back, there will never be peace for you as long as you go on like this.”

He stands up then. “Go home to your wife, Luca. Let her comfort you. Be the man I know you can be.”

“And who, exactly is that?” I can’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice, but Father Donahue doesn’t seem to notice.

“One who isn’t afraid.”

I don’t move for a long moment after he disappears into the back of the church. I don’t entirely know what he means by that, and I most certainly have no idea what secrets he thinks Sofia has that I don’t know.

But the one thing I know for certain is that there’s no way I’m going home tonight.