“I meant to make you suffer for what your father did,” I admit, the truth tasting like poison. “I meant to break you down piece by piece until there was nothing left and then I would end your life while your father watched. That’s what this started as.”
“And what is it now?” she demands, her nails digging so tightly into her arms that I can see the half-moons embedded into her skin. “What am I to you now, Luca? Still a possession? Or have I graduated to something slightly more valuable in your sick hierarchy of human worth?”
“You’re the woman I love,” I say desperately, reaching for her. “You’re the woman who made me want to be better than the person Marco’s death turned me into. You’re?—”
“I’m the woman you were planning tomurder!” Her voice breaks completely, tears streaming down her face. “I’m the woman you lied to for two months! I’m the woman who fell in love with her own destroyer because you were so fucking good at playing the role of someone who actually cared!”
The accusation makes me recoil because, yes, Iwasplaying a role at first. Except somewhere along the way, it stopped being a performance. Somewhere between the night Rico Romano tried to assault her and this moment, I fell in love with her for real.
But how do I make her believe that when all the evidence points to her initial assessment being correct?
“I love you,” I say again, putting every ounce of truth I possess into the words. “I know you don’t believe me right now, I know I’ve given you every reason to doubt me, but it’s thetruth, Gigi.”
“Don’t call me that,” she snarls, her voice vibrating with fury. “You aren’t allowed to call me Gigi anymore.”
I flinch, but I press on. If I could just get her to see how I’ve changed—how my initial plan went out the window, maybe I can salvage this.
“I love you so much it terrifies me,” I continue, feeling the band around my chest grow tighter. “I love you enough that the thought of carrying out the original plan makes me physically sick. I love you enough that I’ve abandoned three years of revenge planning because losing you would destroy me more completely than Marco’s death ever did.”
She stares at me for a long moment, and I watch her cycle through emotions—hope, doubt, fury, grief, all of them playing across her face like a kaleidoscope of pain.
“I don’t believe you,” she finally says, and the quiet certainty in her voice is worse than any scream. “I think you love the idea of me. I think you love what I’ve made you feel. But me? The actual person?” She shakes her head, her wavy hair moving with her. “I don’t think you ever saw me as anything more than Antonio Conti’s daughter. A life to be destroyed, a means to an end.”
“That’s not true,” I protest, but she’s already turning away. I grasp at whatever I can to try and get her to see reason. “I’m trying to figure out what’s right,” I finally say, which is the closest I can come to honesty. “I’m trying to balance justice for Marco with?—”
“Withwhat?” She whirls back around, and the devastation in her eyes makes me want to vomit. “With your love for me? With some twisted version of mercy? You can’t balance those things, Luca. You can’t murder my father and expect me to still love you. You can’t take everything from me and call it justice.”
“Marco deserves—” I start, but she cuts me off with a sharp gesture, her eyes blazing.
“Marco deserves justice, yes. ButI’mnot the one who killed him.Myfatheris not the one who orchestrated his death! You know someone else used him, coerced him, and beat him into compliance. And you’re planning to punish him like he’s the mastermind?”
“He’s still responsible—” I try again, but she’s not done.
“Then so am I!” Her voice rises with desperate fury. “If my father is responsible for providing information under duress, then I’m responsible for keeping quiet about it for three years! If he deserves to die for his cowardice, then so do I for my silence!” She moves forward and pokes me hard in the chest,her face hard. “Where’s the line, Luca? Where’s the line between understandable weakness and unforgivable sin?”
I don’t have an answer because there is no clear line. Just the messy reality of people making terrible choices under impossible circumstances and me trying to assign blame in ways that let me feel like justice is being served.
“I don’t want to lose you,” I hear myself say, and the admission makes me feel like I’ve exposed a fundamental part of me. “I don’t want to choose between you and Marco’s memory. I don’t want to be the person who destroys you or the traitor who abandons the quest for justice. I just want?—”
“What?” she demands, moving back again, crossing her arms around her chest. “What do you want, Luca? Because you can’t have both. You can’t have me and your revenge. You can’t keep me while murdering my father. You can’t build a future with me on the foundation of my family’s destruction.”
“I want you,” I say simply. “I want you, Gigi.”
“It’sGiuliana,” she snaps.
I ignore the sting at her words. “And I’m willing to give up the revenge if it means keeping you,” I finish.
“But you’re not willing to give up killing my father,” she observes, reading between the lines. “That’s still on the table. That’s still part of your plan.”
I won’t deny it. The silence between us is confirmation enough.
“Then you’ve already chosen,” she says quietly, and I watch something break in her expression. Her face shutters and tears track down her cheeks. Something that might never be repaired. “You’ve already decided that your need for revengematters more than my need for my father to live. You’ve already prioritized Marco’s memory over my happiness.”
I can’t say anything to that. Because then I would be lying.
“I need to go,” she says, her voice hollow. “I need to—I can’t be here right now. I can’t look at you and see the man I fell in love with when all I can think about is the monster who was planning my death.”
She turns and walks away, her footsteps echoing on the marble floor. I watch her go, frozen in place by the weight of what I’ve destroyed, unable to follow because what could I possibly say that would make any of this better?
