It felt like I had been staring at their table for hours, now.
I felt sick to my stomach, just watching that woman sit with him.
Just the thought of him touching her without her permission, forcing her to be with him…
Made my blood boil.
Made my head sear.
Made my body pound with fury.
She didn't look much older than twenty-two, and he looked like he was almost fifty. With his grey hair, his disgusting, stocky build, his greasy, sweaty body. It made bile swim in my fucking stomach. The man was a pig…
And this woman didn't deserve the shit that she was putting up with.
"What are you thinking, bro?" Fizz asked, noticing my discomfort.
Because there was so much tension in the air…
That you could cut it with a knife.
"Who is that woman?" I murmured, my heart pounding against my chest.
"Probably Marcello's plaything," Fizz shrugged flatly. "Why do you care?"
"She's not a plaything," I muttered. "Look at how scared she looks. She looks fucking terrified of him, Fizz."
Fizz stared at her for a few moments…
Before he swallowed down a lump in his throat, suddenly sweating profusely.
"You're right," he shrugged. "But what can we do? This isn't your fight, Luca. Marcello is a twisted fucking bastard. He's the last person you wanna cross or go to war with."
"He's no match for me," I snarled, my body pounding with fury. "I might not have been able to do right by Evelina all those years ago… But I can do right by this woman. I can save her while she still has a chance."
Fizz furrowed his eyebrows, grabbing hold of my arm seriously.
"Don't be stupid, Luca," he warned. "Please don't tell me you're thinking of doing what I think you're thinking of doing."
I replied with nothing.
"We came here to get our heads straight, for a break from fucking business, bro," he snapped. "For a motherfucking holiday. We didn't come here to go to war with our biggest fucking rivals… Over a woman you don't even know. We've seen enough bodies drop in our fucking lifetimes."
"But I want to know her," I murmured, rubbing my chin, my pupils dilating. "I want to save her. She deserves better than that scum."
"And what do you think she deserves, huh?" Fizz sneered. "You? You think she deserves you? Get real, Luca. If she's involved with Marcello, chances are, she's part of The Camorra. Trying to rescue her, trying to have her for yourself…" He trailed off his sentence, exasperated. "You'd be going into bed with the fucking enemy. Breaking all the rules of the Cosa Nostra. It just can't happen. You're going to get yourself killed."
I heaved my chest, Fizz's words stabbing me straight to my heart, through millions of different directions at once.
I knew that he was right.
I knew that I should have common sense…
And I knew that I should leave it alone.
But what Fizz said didn't scare me.
I wasn't scared of a war.
I wasn't scared of dying.
I'd been fighting a war inside of my head for years now…
Blaming myself for everything fucked-up that happened in my life…
To the people I cared about.
I'd been a dead man walking for a long time, anyway. I was already dead.
Dead inside.
The only difference going to war with Marcello would make…
Would be putting my already dead body into a casket.