The color drains completely from Matteo’s face, and I can see the exact moment her words hit their target.
His hands clench into fists at his sides, and when he speaks, his voice is raw with pain and fury.
“You think this changes everything between us?”
“It changes everything about us,” Bianca fires back. “So don’t you dare stand there and act like you have any authority over me. You havenothing.”
“Run that by me again, Bianca.” Matteo’s voice even makes me wince.
Bianca laughs coldly and every instinct in me is screaming to run. “Let me spell this out for you, Matteo. You’re not my father, you’re not special. You’re just another one of Giuseppe’s sons. At least Mario was honest about wanting to hurt me—you’ve been lying about loving me for nineteen years.”
7
BIANCA
The words hang in the air, and I watch Matteo’s face transform from devastated to furious in the span of a heartbeat.
His hands ball into fists, and for the first time in my life, I see him look at me with something that might be hate.
Good. Iwanthim angry.
Iwanthim to feel something other than pity and guilt.
“You want to compare me to Mario?” His voice is low and dangerous, the kind of tone that sets alarm bells going off in my head. “You want to talk about honesty? Fine. Let’s be honest.”
He steps closer, and I resist the urge to back away. “You think loving you has been easy? You think raising Giuseppe’s daughter was some kind of reward?”
“So you do think I’m damaged goods,” I spit back, and something savage in me enjoys watching his jaw clench.
“I think you’re a selfish brat who’s throwing away a lifetime of love because your feelings got hurt.” His voice is getting louder,more vicious. “I think you’re so busy feeling sorry for yourself that you can’t see past your own pain.”
“My own pain?” I laugh, and it sounds hysterical even to me. “You lied to me about everything! About who I am, about who you are?—”
“To protect you!” he roars, his composure finally shattering completely. “Because I knew this is what would happen! I knew you’d fall apart and destroy everything good in your life because you can’t handle the truth!”
“What truth? That I’m a monster’s daughter? That I was born from violence?”
“That you’re ungrateful!” The word explodes out of him. “That despite everything I’ve given you, everything I’ve sacrificed for you, you’d rather tear it all down than admit that maybe, just maybe, I was trying to do the right thing!”
His words hurt and I want to stagger backward, but I force myself to stay upright. “The right thing would have been telling me the truth.”
“Would it?” He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. He looks at me coldly and it takes everything in me to not cower. “Look at you right now. Look at what the truth has done to you. You’re destroying everything you touch, hurting everyone who loves you, and for what? Because you found out your biological father was a piece of shit?”
“Because I found out my entire life was a lie!”
“Your life wasn’t a lie!” He’s screaming now too, his face flushed with rage. “Every birthday, every bedtime story, everytime I held you when you had nightmares—that was real! Every moment I chose to love you was real!”
“Did you?” I’m screaming now, my voice raw. “Or do you just love Arianna and Giovanni more because they’re actually yours? Because they’re not Giuseppe’s bastard rape baby that you got stuck with?”
“How dare you!” Matteo shouts, his face nearly purple with rage. “I’m your goddamn father?—”
“But you’re not my father!” I scream back, feeling the sting in my voice from how loud I’m screaming. “You’re my brother! Everything I felt, everything I believed about our relationship—it’s all wrong! I’ve been living someone else’s life for nineteen fucking years!”
“Is it?” His eyes are blazing now, all pretense of careful control gone. “Does biology change the fact that I was the one who taught you to ride a bike? That I was the one who scared away the monsters under your bed? That I was the one who held you when Mario?—”
“Shut up.” The words come out broken, desperate.
“No, you wanted honesty.” He follows me as I back away, and there’s something relentless in his advance. “You want to know why I lied? Because I knew you’d do exactly this. I knew you’d take something beautiful and tear it apart because it doesn’t fit into some perfect little box.”
