“I don’t know how to fix it, baby,” I whispered. “I don’t know how to be the man you deserve. But I’ll try. And I swear to God, Seraphina, I’ll burn every bridge I’ve built if it means I get one more chance to be with you.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Seraphina
I watched him fall apart.
It wasn’t the Sergio everyone else saw. Not the composed enforcer, the loyal son, the man who always had a plan to deliver the death blow to his enemies. This was the version he kept buried. That he kept secret. The one who cracked under the weight of his own choices. The one who realized what it cost him.
I wanted to reach for him. I wanted to show him comfort. But I didn’t move. Not yet. No matter how much I wanted to, that would’ve been too easy. Too merciful.
Sergio had seen me bruised, bloodied, and shaken because of Dorian. But he’d never seen me broken. Not until the day Iwoke up in that sterile hospital room after surgery, pain moving through my body, and the truth screaming even louder. He was the reason I’d been shot.
That was the moment everything shattered for me. The illusion of Sergio Puglisi I had created disappeared.
It wasn’t just my heart that broke. It was my soul that cried. The man I loved had become the reason I almost died. And worse, I didn’t believe he realized the damage he had done and what his betrayal cost both of us. Back then, I just laid there, staring at the hospital ceiling, wondering how love could feel like a wound that never stopped bleeding.
My arms stayed folded, fingers digging into my sides like I could hold myself together if I just pressed hard enough. His words echoed in my chest, stirring up everything I’d buried. Every unanswered call, every night I waited for him to choose me over his family. But he never changed. He always put them in front of me.
How did I know he’d be any different this time?
He said he’d burn it all down. That he’d choose me now. But I’d heard promises before. I’d seen how easily all his promises were drowned out by ambition, by duty, by blood.
Still… he was crying. My Sergio. And something inside me cracked.
“I’m not asking you to be perfect,” I said, my voice low. “I’m asking you to be honest with me, but most of all be honest with yourself, Sergio.”
He looked up, eyes rimmed red. He nodded like it hurt. I didn’t touch him. Not yet. But I didn’t walk away either. And maybe for now that was enough. It would have to be.
He didn’t reach for me. Didn’t touch my hand or close the space between us, which I was grateful for. I understood his pain, and I think he understood mine. Instead, he looked down at the ground like it held all the answers I wouldn’t give.
“I don’t know who I am without chasing power,” he confessed.
The words hit harder than any promise he could ever give me. This was his truth. He had been chasing power for so long he lost himself, then he lost me.
“I’ve spent my whole life being someone’s son who just didn’t measure up. Every move I made was about proving I belonged where he believed I didn’t. And when you came into my life, I didn’t know how to make room for you without tearing the rest of it down.”
He looked up at me again, eyes raw and brimming with emotion, and for a second, I didn’t recognize him. This wasn’t the Sergio I knew. He’d always been calculating, sometimes distant. I knew he loved me as much as Sergio could love anyone. I never doubted that. But this? This was something else.
It was like watching a dam break in slow motion.
I sat there, stunned, wondering where this version of him had been hiding. The vulnerability in his face, the tremble in his voice, it broke something in me because for the first time, he wasn’t trying to fix or explain or control the situation. He was just feeling. And it shook me to my core.
“But I should’ve let it fall,” he continued. “I should have recognized your worth. Instead, I took you for granted because I assumed you’d always be there.”
I thought I’d always be there too, but I had to put an end to the toxic cycle we had created, especially when my life had been put in danger.
“I’m not asking you to believe in me,” he said. “I’m just… trying to believe in myself. For the first time.”
There was no performance in it. No manipulation. Just a man standing in the ruins of everything he thought he had to be. Just a man standing in the ruins of my heart that he had crushed time and time again. And for the first time, I saw him clearly. Not the version shaped by legacy or loyalty to his family, but the one who was asking who he could become.
Not for me.
For himself.
And maybe, just maybe, that was the start of something real between us. For the first time in a very long time, I saw a future for us, but it was up to him to make it happen. I was done trying.
“I love you,” I said because I did and I felt he needed to hear it.
