"You'd use it? Use my dream to hide your crimes?"
"I'd make it profitable for both of us while ensuring it doesn't interfere with more important operations."
She absorbs this. "And if I said no? If I decided I can't live with any of this?"
"Then you disappear. New identity, new life, somewhere far from here. You forget Monte Vento, forget me, forget everything you've learned."
"Forever?"
"Forever. It would be permanent."
"And if I changed my mind and tried to contact you afterward? Or come back?"
I don't answer immediately, because the truth is too harsh even for this conversation. If she tries to return after I've let her go, after she's chosen to reject this world, she becomes a threat.
“If you leave, you’re too smart to come back," I say. “You can never come back.”
She understands what I'm not saying. I can see it in her eyes. The recognition that leaving means leaving permanently, with consequences for betraying that choice.
"This is your last chance," I continue. "To walk away from this cleanly. If you stay now, if you choose this life, there's no changing your mind later."
"And what would staying look like? What would I mean to you?"
The question cuts to the heart of what I've been avoiding examining. What does Madison Sullivan mean to me? Why am I offering her a choice instead of simply making the decision for her?
"You'd be the most important thing I have to protect," I say finally. "The one person whose safety matters more than any business interest, any territorial dispute, any amount of money."
"More important than your empire?"
"You'd become part of my empire. The part that gives it meaning."
She's crying again, but quietly, tears sliding down her cheeks without sound. I reach up with my good hand to wipe them away.
"Why are you crying?"
"Because this is insane," she whispers. "Because I should be running away from you as fast as possible. Because everything rational in my head is screaming that this is the worst decision I could possibly make."
"And yet?"
"And yet I keep thinking about how you looked when you threw yourself between that gunman and Signora Ricci. How you were willing to die for someone who means nothing to you strategically."
"She means something to me. She’s like family to me. She’s always been here in my life. Most of the villagers have been."
"I know. That's what terrifies me. Because if you can care that much about a village baker, what happens when you love someone?"
"Is that what this is to you?" I ask. "Love?"
"I think so. I think I've been falling in love with you since you listened to my tourism dreams without laughing."
"Even though those dreams were naive?"
"Yes, and even though you were manipulating me. Even though you're a killer and a criminal and probably a dozen other things I don't know about yet."
The honesty is devastating. She sees everything. My violence, my control, my willingness to destroy anyone who threatens what's mine, and she's choosing to stay anyway.
"Madison." I pull her closer, until her forehead is resting against mine. "If you do this, if you choose this life, I will never let you go. Do you understand that?"
"Yes."
