My hand trembles. It doesn’t stop.
Because this is what I do.
I carry the things meant to break me and pretend my spine was built for it.
Pia doesn’t look at the letter. She looks at me.
“Are you sure you want to open that?”
I meet her eyes.
Then, I look back at the name.
Romeo.
The brother who laughs like nothing can touch him.The brother who drinks like he’s trying to forget himself.The brother who might’ve opened the door for a king to die.
“I don’t think we get to be sure anymore.”
I slide my thumb under the flap.
The paper tears open with a sound too small to be that loud.
I break the seal —
and my father talks from the grave.
Giovanni’s Letter: The Accusation and the Fear
The envelope opens with a dry sigh, like the house itself is exhaling.
I slide the page out carefully. The paper’s thick, expensive. Giovanni never spent money on mercy, but he always paid top shelf for anything that touched his hands.
His handwriting slashes across the page in sharp, impatient strokes. No flourishes. No softness. Just control.
My throat tightens.
Pia stays close but doesn’t crowd me, one hip against the wreck of the desk, eyes on my face instead of the letter. She knows this is going to be a wound, not a document.
I start reading.
“Romeo,” I say quietly.
His name feels wrong here. Too naked. Too alive.
“If you are reading this, I am either dead, or you are more reckless than I believed.”
The line lands like a backhand. Classic Giovanni — no affection, just insult braided into inevitability.
I keep going, voice low. I’m not reading it for Pia. I’m reading it so the words have somewhere to go besides rotting inside my skull.
“You think I do not see you. You think I do not know where you go at night, who you meet, what you trade in the dark. You have been warned.”
Romeo always thought he was invisible. Thought charm was armor. Thought if he smiled wide enough, nobody would look at his hands.
Giovanni always saw everything. That was the problem.
I swallow and force the next line out.
