Chapter Text
They are in Rome when it happens.
It was supposed to be a simple trip; Vincenzo had originally planned for them to be in Paris for their four-year anniversary, with a quick stop in Rome to meet with old family elders, an aunt and uncle Cha Young hadn't been introduced to yet.
(The mafia is a lot like an Asian family, Cha Young has decided. There are your close, immediate family members. Then, sometimes, you live with a larger group; a joint family system if traditional, a rich, stinking family system if you're one of the 'big' mafia families with mansions. And there are always Elders who might not be 'in charge' but still need deference and respect. Frankly, the biggest similarity is that both have scary old women who rule the family behind the scenes. It's become her greatest desire to be that woman for both, her and his side of the family... just very much in front of every scene. With preferably flattering lighting.)
She thinks they cursed themselves when they called it a 'simple' trip, and made it worse when they'd been confident enough to think lying low with minimal security would help.
Because it turns out, some Elders are just racist fucks who want Vincenzo's yellow wife gone so he can marry someone 'appropriate'.
It does not, basically, go well. And that means they have to postpone their flight to Paris by a few days, spending their anniversary in a safe-house. Threatening some seventy year old man who refuses to think he's done anything wrong.
If she's being entirely honest, Cha Young hadn't really seen the point of tying up and threatening to torture 'Uncle' Frankie. But Vincenzo had been furious ever since he'd stopped a gun firing point blank in her direction—she's trying hard to not feel insulted that her murder had not even warranted some creative thought from someone trained by the world's most notorious criminals—and been deaf to reason.
Then he'd settled in front of Frankie in a chair, pretty Louis Vuitton blazer she'd gifted him the previous morning now slung over the back, shirt sleeves rolled up in preparation for carnage, a gun held surely in one hand.
Vincenzo had started questioning and she'd come to two realisations.
One, he actually did need to find out more, because he wanted to know if there were other factions secretly out to get her. (He uses the word 'wife' a lot while asking these questions, and it's not an accurate term—yet—but she's not going to bring that up. Yet. Besides, his gift to her had been a rock on her finger, with assurances that while it was an engagement ring, he meant to stick to their original decision to not rush something like marriage. A very, very dazzlingly pretty rock.)
Two, in this simultaneously opulent and shadowy safe house, sun streaming in from large windows, Vincenzo looks every bit the terrifying, vengeful god she has only sometimes before witnessed him to be. And it's incredibly sexy.
She normally wouldn't be in the room. He tends to keep her away when he thinks there's blood to be spilled. A hangover, she knows, from his attempts to save her virtue. He has long since accepted her demands (and logic behind them) about giving her information about the Italian branch's operations, letting her into meetings and calls and giving her due importance and power. But bloodsport and violence... beyond engaging people to teach her how to fight, he'd kept her at arm's length. It's just that this trip was supposed to be simple.
So, usually, he'd have Luca in the room as his second. Or Leo. Or hell, even Matteo or Gino, the young cousins who were always eager to please.
He has nobody, though, so she's the one at his back, standing silently and watching the way Vincenzo's muscles flex as he adjusts his position, hearing his voice get darker and more dangerous with every resolute, racist thing Frankie says about Cassanos needing to be 'Italian'. That Vincenzo's blood had dirtied things enough already.
Honestly, she wants to take the gun she has tucked away and shoot the fucker because this is getting tiring. And they're supposed to be sipping on wine on the terrace of their new apartment in Paris, the one Vincenzo's bought for her and still thinks she doesn't know about.
The conversation is boring her, but the way Vincenzo's fury is leaking through every word, even though he seems outwardly calm and quiet... is doing a lot to keep her attention rapt.
Cha Young has tried, for the four years of their relationship, to nail down what it is she feels when she can see this darkness in her partner. Well, not that she doesn't know, it's just that she's tried to introspect a bit. Not something she has a habit of doing (and not one she wants to build). But surely there was something wrong with her to see him return from places with blood splatter, watch his hand curl around a gun, hear how silky his voice gets when he's making threats, and think about how badly she'd like to fuck him.
It wasn't long before she'd realised a part of it was how sure he was of himself; the sheer confidence of his actions when in Murderous Mafia mode. But then she'd started putting a few more pieces together: it was how quick and agile his body moved, how she could tell from his body language that he was pleased with an outcome.
Now, she finds the final piece to the puzzle: it is because of how he restrains his incandescent rage, wielding it so carefully in a way that sharpens him as a tool, but does not blind him.
She can think of only once in the entire time they've known each other that she's seen him not be calculated and so carefully restrained, and her shoulder aches in the memory of that night.
Vincenzo stands up, apparently satisfied with the answers he has received, and starts to deliver his punishment in a way she can tell means he's wrapping this up. A sermon to offer, a final lecture and parting words from this horrible, sexy man who cannot stand liars and traitors and people who want to hurt his wife.
God fucking damnit, she should not have indulged this line of thought. Because damn Frankie, who seems very unapologetic still, and damn the judge and jury that is Vincenzo in this moment.
She wants him to wrap that hand that's now tightened around his gun, around her neck. She wants him to press in that spot that makes everything just ever-so-more delicious, showing how he can be so, very, restrained in other ways when she's asked him to be rough with her.
"But here is the difference, you see, between you and me," Vincenzo says, snapping her out of her haze. He turns to her, eyes still dark, but an involuntary smile at the corner of his lips that she wants to kiss away and steal for herself. It's a smile she knows he isn't even aware of.
It's hers; the one he wears when he looks at her.
Lovestruck fool.
He beckons carefully to her and she walks forward, pleased at the way hatred flashes in Frankie's eyes when her Louboutins make noise on the floor. Vincenzo slips an arm around her waist and she tries very hard not to close her eyes and burrow into him, his heat and his rage.
"I do not disregard a woman I know is smarter than most people in this world. In fact, I do my best to be her right-hand man when I can. So..." Vincenzo turns his head to look down at her, as his words start to make sense in her head and she figures out where he's going with this. "My love, what do you think we should be doing with Uncle Frankie?"
They stare at each other for a moment, and Cha Young smiles. She doesn't plan on it; it's just that a part of her loves this, the rush of power, the thrill of knowing she actually can dictate so much with only a few words and with the support of this one man. Vincenzo's eyes widen minutely, then slide down to trace her mouth, and she can see something build in them, something she recognises is very much like the heat coiled tight inside of her.
"I thought you'd never ask, jagiya," she purrs, dropping her voice to a timbre he only hears in their bedroom (or other places, should she feel in the mood to play). The hand at her waist tightens. He looks a little surprised, subtle enough Frankie won't notice, but obvious to her.
He's realising what page she's on, informed now by four years of a partnership that's only stayed alive because of their sheer determination to communicate: she's told him, before, about what she likes about him. In all facets of their lives.
She doesn't think he's believed her till just now.
"We let him go," Cha Young says, loud enough for Frankie to hear, in Italian so he understands. But she turns her head to lazily send him a look of disdain. "So he can send word for what happens when someone threatens Signora Cassano."
"And what is that?" Frankie spits, looking marginally apprehensive. Moron.
Cha Young shakes herself free from Vincenzo and walks behind him, letting her hand wrap around his, the one still holding the gun, and lifts it to aim for a foot. She takes a moment to appreciate how it looks to her, his hand with the black of his gun, and hers, highlighted by a Chopard engagement ring.
"Amore, shoot," she whispers in Italian.
"Punish him for me," she adds in Korean.