“What about Antonio?” I hear myself ask as I open my eyes to look at Danny again. “What about the man whose cowardice got Marco killed?”
“Antonio was a pawn.” Danny’s response is immediate. “You know that. Giuliana told you herself. He was coerced, beaten, and used by someone else who orchestrated the whole thing. Continuing to punish him serves no purpose except making you feel like you’re doing something.”
Fucking hell, I really hate that he’s right. The recording Gigi has backs Danny up. Now that I have this alliance, I should be shifting my focus and finding the true mastermind out there who deserves my rage far more than a broken gambling addict does.
But Gigi wasn’t able to get the perpetrator’s voice. So I’m once again chasing ghosts.
“She deserves to know her father is safe,” Danny continues, pressing his advantage. “Really safe, not just ‘recovering in a secure location.’ She deserves to know you’re not planning to kill him the moment her back is turned.”
The assumption makes me flinch because while that wasn’t the plan initially, it’s not far off. “I’m not—I haven’t decided?—”
“Haven’t you?” Danny’s eyes bore into mine. “Because from where I’m sitting, you’ve already made your choice. You chose her the moment you started falling for her. You chose her every time you held her instead of maintaining distance. You chose her when you promised her a future that includes surgical specialization and a new clinic. You wouldn’t have promised her that if you didn’t intend to let her survive.”
“Those promises—” I stop, frustrated by my inability to articulate this tangle of contradictions. “I don’t know if I can keep them. I don’t know if I can just abandon everything I worked toward for three years.”
“Then what’s the alternative?” Danny challenges. “You kill her? After two weeks of marriage where she’s clearly falling for you? After she’s transformed your life and made you happier than I’ve ever seen you? After she’s—” He stops, something shifting in his expression. “After she’s made you into someone worthy of the empire you’re building?”
Hitting me would have hurt less.
“The secret is eating at you,” Danny says more gently as if he can see the war on my face. “I can see it. Every time she looks at you, every time she talks about your future together, every time she mentions her father, you’re dying inside from the weight of what you’re not telling her.”
I’m so sick of admitting this man is right, but goddammit he is again. The guilt is crushing, suffocating, making it harder to breathe with each passing day.
“I can’t tell her.” The admission comes out raw, scraping out of me as if it were forced. “If she knew what I originally planned—if she understood that I spent all this time growing closer to her while planning her death.” My voice breaks. “It would destroy her. And it would destroy any chance we have at something real.”
“So what’s your plan?” Danny asks, looking highly unsympathetic at my explanation. “Just carry this secret forever? Hope she never finds out? Live with the guilt while pretending everything’s fine?”
“I don’t know,” I snap, because I don’t know. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing anymore, Danny.” I place both hands around my coffee mug. For a moment, it reminds me of my hands around Gigi’s neck and strangling her. I pull away as if they are burned. “I-I don’t think that I can hurt her. I can’t imagine a future that doesn’t include her.”
“Then maybe it’s time to tell her that,” Danny says, watching me retract my hands onto my lap. “Not about what you planned. Maybe she never needs to know that. But about her father. About the fact that you’re not going to kill him, that he’s actually recovering, and that she no longer needs to wait for some axe to fall.”
The suggestion makes sense. Gigi deserves that much. She deserves to know her father is safe and that I’m considering choosing mercy over revenge.
But telling her means admitting I’ve changed the plan. It means acknowledging that my feelings for her have overridden three years of carefully calculated revenge. It means showing vulnerability I’m not sure I’m capable of.
“I’ll think about it,” I finally say.
“Don’t think too long.” Danny stands, draining his coffee. “Because that secret? It’s not just eating at you. It’s eating at her too. She’s terrified of what happens to Antonio now that the marriage is official. And every day you don’t give her answers is another day she spends looking at you and wondering if you’re going to betray her.”
He leaves before I can respond.
I sit there in the kitchen as dawn breaks fully over the estate, surrounded by Gigi’s flowers and the evidence of how completely she’s wrapped herself in my life, and I’m torn between two impossible choices.
Tell her the truth and risk destroying the trust we’ve built.
Or carry this secret forever and slowly poison what could be real love with the weight of lies.
Neither option feels survivable.
The day passes in a blur of meetings and business that I can barely focus on. My mind keeps drifting to Gigi—to the way she smiled at breakfast, to her excited chatter about a new treatment protocol she wants to try with the animals in the sunroom, to the casual way she touched my arm when she passed by my office.
She’s happy. More than happy—she’sthriving. The wedding seems to have removed some final barrier, made her feel secure in a way she wasn’t before.
And I’m the one carrying the knowledge that could shatter her security completely.
By evening, I find myself in my private study, staring at the case files and photographs of Marco that I haven’t touched in weeks. The investigation that consumed three years of my life sits gathering dust while I play house with the woman I’m supposed to destroy.
Marco’s face smiles up at me from that barbecue photo. For the first time in years, I don’t feel crushing guilt when I look at it. I don’t feel like I’m failing him by not following through on revenge.
