He shakes his head, hands trembling. “They kept talking. I just wanted it to stop.”
I stop moving.
Something in him doesn’t fit the shape of a liar. The confusion is too real. The devastation too unguarded. This man didn’t sell his daughter out. He was her last soft target.
Understanding settles in slow and poisonous.
They didn’t need betrayal.
They needed a signature.
“They used you,” I say, my voice colder now, heavier. “You were just another stamp. Another pawn to move the paperwork along.”
His knees give out. He collapses into a chair like his body can no longer pretend to hold itself together.
“She was all I had left,” he whispers.
The room goes quiet.
I say nothing.
The manI was ends here.
36
BEATRICE
Icome to slowly, my limbs numb, my tongue thick in my mouth, my mind… fractured.
At first, it’s just silence. Not the peaceful kind. No. This silence is heavy. Cold and hollow. It presses against my skin like wet cloth, suffocating me.
Then I feel it.
The bars.
I blink into the dim room, my heart beginning to stutter in my chest. The windows are sealed with cold iron. A metal door stands at the far end. I press my back further into the concrete wall, the metal cold against my heated skin.
Panic stirs like a firecracker inside me. I try to stand, but my muscles ache as though I’ve been asleep for days.
That’s when I realize—no machine beeps, no nurses anywhere. I’m not at the hospital.
Where am I? Where is Matteo? Daniele? Where is Valerio?
The door creaks open with an agonizing groan. I turn my head to the side, every nerve screaming like it’s on fire. A shadowsteps through, and when the light catches his face, my stomach twists violently.
Giacomo.
He’s smiling like this is the punchline to a joke only he thinks is funny.
“You’re awake,” he says softly, the sound slick as oil. “Good. We have a lot to discuss.”
I don’t answer.
I plant my feet firmly on the floor, even though they’re shaking, and use the wall to help me stand. I can’t allow myself to be on the floor in his presence while he stands.
“You must have a million and one questions for me, cara. Let’s start there.”
I don’t answer him. I simply hold his gaze.
