Page 75 of Psychotic Faith
His hands move to my gown, peeling the fabric away slowly. It pools at my feet, and I'm naked except for Neumann's blood. My body is a map of transformation. Purple fingerprints on my throat where Neumann tried to kill me, a nick down my ribs from where the scalpel slipped.
"The water's ready," Luca says, testing the temperature with the same care he uses when measuring chemical compounds.
I step into the heat, and the water turns pink immediately. I sink down, watching the blood swirl and dilute, carrying away the evidence but not the satisfaction. My hands disappear beneath the surface, and I flex my fingers, remembering how the scalpel felt, how Neumann's skin parted like silk.
"Thought…" I manage, then have to stop, pressing my hand to my throat. I shake my head.
Luca kneels beside the tub, reaching for an expensive washcloth. "Thought you’d feel guilty?”
I nod, grateful that he understands.
“Do you?"
I shake my head again, then manage one word despite the burning: "Free."
He begins with my face, each stroke of the washcloth removing blood but revealing something rawer underneath. The hot water makes every bruise throb, every cut sting, but the pain feels like baptism. Like being born into who I really am.
The laugh that escapes me is dark, satisfied, though it comes out more as a rasp.
Luca's hands still for a moment. "You wanted more than just his death. You wanted to be the one holding the blade."
"Yes." The single word burns but I need him to hear it.
His hands resume their movement, fingertips massaging my scalp in slow circles that make me moan despite everything.
The water laps at my breasts as I lean back to rinse my hair. Each mark on my body tells a story. This bruise from Luca's grip on my hip, that cut from my own desperate nails, those purple shadows on my throat from almost dying. I'm written in violence now, authored by both of us.
“Your mother would be proud of you,” Luca says. “Proud you survived what she couldn’t.”
I don't argue because maybe it's true. Maybe she would understand choosing survival and justice over innocence. Maybeshe would have made the same choice if she'd had the right weapons, the right monster on her side.
The tears come then, mixing with the pink water, and suddenly I'm shaking. Not from cold but from delayed shock, from the adrenaline finally fading, from the recognition of what I've done and can't undo.
Luca doesn't offer platitudes or comfort. Instead, he strips efficiently and slides into the tub behind me, pulling my back against his chest. His arms wrap around me, holding me together while I shake apart.
"The first time I killed for the family, it was necessary, mechanical. But the first time I killed for you?" His lips find my ear. "That was different. That had meaning. Purpose."
I turn slightly, the question in my eyes.
"The construction worker. About a week after I started watching you. He made a comment about your body, what he wanted to do to it." His arms tighten. "I made sure he never commented on anyone again."
I try to speak but only manage a questioning sound.
"Yes, it's sick," he agrees simply. "And you're wet thinking about it."
I can't deny it. Even exhausted, even shaking from emotional release, my body responds to his darkness.
He understands my unspoken question. "We're perfectly matched."
His cock hardens against my lower back, the throb of it as honest as a confession. Despite everything—the blood, the ache, the shadow of Neumann’s hands still imprinted on my throat—I want him. I want to feel anything other than the afterburn of violence. I want to be filled with something that isn’t memory or trauma or even justice. I want to be filled by him.
I turn in the water, knees bumping porcelain, and straddle his lap. His gaze never leaves mine. He looks at me like I’mthe most precious and most dangerous thing he’s ever seen. The movement makes me aware of every sore muscle, every fresh bruise, every mark we’ve left on each other.
His hands come up, slow and reverent, and I can’t tell if he’s trying to worship me or atone for something.
"Need…" I whisper, the word raspy and weak, but it’s all I have left. I reach for him, thread my fingers into the wet darkness of his hair, pull him closer so our foreheads touch. I could kiss him, but it feels bigger than that.
He sees the plea in my eyes, the way my body trembles on the edge of something I don’t have a name for.
