“I believe you,” he said calmly. “I’ll keep my distance. I just came to see my beloved Lucia before leaving for good. I never meant for this to happen.”
“This?” I said. “What do you have to do with this?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been trying to figure that out myself for a few days now. Somehow, I know it’s my fault.”
All I’d been told was that Lucia had fallen down the stairs. Did he just mean that the stress he caused Lucia and Romeo back at their wedding resulted in her falling down the stairs, or was there something else going on?
“If that’s true, then I should kill you now,” I hissed.
“You could. I’d deserve it,” Gianni said, “but then you’d miss the bigger picture.”
“The bigger picture?” I spat back. “Which one? Do you mean the one where my parents and brother died for nothing? The one where you hurt Lucia and nearly killed Romeo. The fact that you’restillalive even though you’ve been killed twice? Just how many lives do you have, Gianni? One for every life you’ve ended?”
That seemed to strike through Gianni, whose cool facade shattered for a moment as a grimace crossed his face, but then it returned to neutral. “You think I wanted this?” he asked. “I didn’twantyour family to get hurt. Even my brother, whoalwaysgot everything who…” He looked at Lucia and a slight sadness flickered in his gaze. “Whotookeverything that should have been entitled to me. When my gun fired and struck through his stomach, it felt as if I shot myself. I lifted a gun against one of my own. I will never live that down.”
“Then why?” Giorgio said. “Why do it?”
“I’ve been waiting for you here because I think you’re the best hope my family has,” Gianni said. “You’ve got all the pieces, you just need to put them together.”
“What do you mean?” I grunted, getting angrier. “Stop with the riddles, just tell me the truth.”
“Don’t be as blind as my siblings have been, Giorgio. You can see what they can’t, youknowthe root of all this evil.”
As blind as his siblings? “Angelo,” I whispered.
“I can see his marks on you,” Gianni said, before grabbing the base of his shirt and lifting it. He wascoveredin the same scars and grafts I wore around my own body. “You’re far from his first.”
Natalia telling me how Angelo had tortured her and Savio rang in my mind. Maybe even then, though we were the only ones in the room, Gianni was too afraid to speak ill against his father out loud. “It was your father who did all of this?” I asked.
“Starvation for power is the most dangerous kind,” Gianni replied. “As long as he hungers for it, more harm will befall our families. You have to stop it.” He leaned forward off the door and held up his hands. “If you want to kill me right now, I’ll let you.”
Sweat was running down my brow and my heart was beating so fast it felt like it was going to cave my chest in. If what Gianni was insinuating was true, then he was just as much a victim of Angelo’s torture as the rest of us. He still put his hands on Lucia, kidnapped her, and seemed to be somehow related to what had happened with Lucia and the stairs, but was Angelo the source of all of it? Could I forgive Gianni for being as tortured by his father as much as the rest of us?
“Go,” I said. It reminded me of when I had his sister squeezed in my grip and was threatening to kill her as well. Releasing her then hadn’t been a mistake, hopefully letting Gianni go wouldn’t be one either. “But never come back.”
Gianni nodded. “You’ll never see my face again.” He turned around and opened the door. Just before walking out, he glanced back over his shoulder at me. “Hey. Take care of my sister. She’s a good woman.”
“I know,” I said. “I will.”
He nodded and without even checking to see if someone was there, he drifted out of the door and out of sight. I looked back at Lucia and wished that she could give me some advice. Gianni was alive and Angelo was behind the coup at the wedding.
What now?
21
Natalia
“Wait… what?!” I couldn’t believe the words that I’d just heard. If they were true, it was only a matter of time before the shit hit the fan in a major way. “What do you mean?”
“It was weird,” Marcello said. “Dad came walking in from the hospital and he was seething, but he was also somehow really calm.”
Savio looked across the dining room table at him. “He didn’t flip out?”
“He hasn’t yet,” Marcello said, “but I’m guessing it’s only a matter of time.”
I shook my head. “I would have bet my own blood that Romeo would never say anything like that to him.”
“It was pretty fucking dumb if you ask me,” Marcello said. “Telling him he values Lucia over his duties as a Cavetti heir puts a massive target right on Lucia’s back.”
