But I do know, and that’s the problem. I know exactly what this means to her, and I’m watching her relief knowing I could have given her this peace weeks ago if I weren’t such a fucking coward about my own guilt.
“There’s something else,” I say, because Danny’s right—the secrets are eating me alive and I need to start being honestabout at least some of it. “Your friend Katie. I know you’ve been wanting to contact her.”
Gigi pulls back to look at me, surprise evident in her brown eyes. “You—you’d let me talk to her?” She sounds hopeful, like she can’t believe I’ve even mentioned this.
“I think we can arrange something.” I give her that. “Supervised, monitored. But—you deserve to tell her you’re okay. That you’re—” I stop, not sure how to finish that sentence.
“That I’m happy?” Gigi suggests quietly, and the love apparent in her eyes makes me feel even more like shit. “Because I am, Luca. I know this whole situation is fucked up and complicated and started for all the wrong reasons, but—” She stops, seeming to struggle with her own confession. “But I’m happy with you. Happier than I’ve been in years.”
The admission should feel like victory. It should make me feel accomplished, like I’ve successfully won her over to my side.
Instead, it just makes the guilt intensify. Because she’s happy based on lies and carefully curated truths, unaware of what I originally planned, and unaware of the internal war I’m fighting every fucking moment of every goddamn day.
“I’m happy with you too,” I tell her honestly, because at least that much is true. “I’m happier than I ever thought I’d be again.”
She kisses me then, soft and sweet, and I let myself sink into it. Let myself pretend for just a moment that this is simple. That we’re just two people who found each other and fell in love, without all the complicated history and revenge plots and secrets that could destroy us both.
When we finally break apart, Gigi’s smiling up at me with such trust, such hope, that I have to look away before she sees the guilt written all over my face.
“Come to bed,” she murmurs, taking my hand. “You’ve been in here too long. You’re thinking too hard about things that can’t be changed.”
If only she knew.
I let her lead me from the study, past Marco’s photographs and the case files I can’t look at anymore, toward the bedroom where she’s somehow made me believe in futures that don’t involve revenge.
But even as we settle into bed together, even as she curls against my side with that trusting contentment that’s become familiar, I can’t shake Danny’s words.
The secret is eating at you.
Every moment of happiness with Gigi is tinged with the knowledge of what I’m not telling her. Every promise I make about our future is built on the foundation of lies about what I originally planned.
And I don’t know how much longer I can carry it before the weight crushes us both.
In the darkness, with Gigi’s breathing evening out as she falls asleep against me, I make a decision.
The original plan, the fact that I once planned her death, is a secret I’ll carry to my grave.
Because the truth would destroy her. And I’ve already taken enough from Gigi without taking her ability to trust me too.
Even if keeping that secret slowly destroys me instead.
In the darkness, I close my eyes and try not to think about the irony: I’ve finally found something worth living for, and the price is becoming someone I don’t entirely recognize.
Someone who chooses love over vengeance.
Someone who protects instead of destroys.
Someone Marco might not be ashamed to call family.
The man I should have been all along, if grief hadn’t turned me into a monster first.
19
GIULIANA
The coffee tastes wrong this morning.
I stare down at my cup, frowning at the liquid that usually brings me such comfort. It’s the same blend Ramirez makes every day, the same way I take it with just a splash of cream and no sugar, but today it tastes bitter, almost metallic. Like my taste buds have suddenly betrayed me.
