The name echoes in my skull, bouncing off the inside of my head with enough force to make my vision blur. Three years. Threefuckingyears I’ve been searching for Marco’s killer. Three years of following dead ends, tearing apart rival families looking for answers.
And sheknew.
She fuckingknew.
“Youknew?” The words come out strangled, barely recognizable as my own voice.
Gigi’s chin lifts in that infuriating way she has—the same defiance that first intrigued me, that made me think she was different from her coward father. Now it just makes me want to?—
“Salvatore Romano,” she repeats, her voice enunciating every syllable of his name. “He’s the one responsible for Marco’s death. He used my father as a pawn. And I’ve known since that first night at his gathering when I heard his voice.”
The room tilts sideways. I grip the edge of my desk hard enough that wood splinters under my fingernails.
“You—” I can’t finish the sentence. I can’t force words past the rage choking my throat. Images flash through my mind in rapid succession. Salvatore’s smug face at the gathering, his toast about stability and commitment, the casual way he discussed business while Marco’s real killer stood there pretending to be my ally. And Gigi. Gigi sitting beside me through all of it, smiling that perfect smile while carrying this secret like a fucking bomb.
“How?” I nearly choke on the word. “How did you?—”
“The recording.” She’s still standing there like she has any right to explanations, like she hasn’t just admitted to the most devastating betrayal I’ve ever experienced. “The one from three years ago. My father called Romano to report the ‘failure.’ I heard every bit of the conversation afterward.”
Everything I thought I knew shatters into pieces too small to reconstruct.
The recording. The proof I demanded, that she claimed only captured her father’s side of the conversation. The voice she said was “unfamiliar” and “distorted.”
Shelied.
Right to my face, she looked at me with those brown eyes andlied.
“You told me—” My voice rises to something close to a roar. “You told me you didn’t know who was on the other end of that call!”
“I wasterrified!” Fire flashes in her eyes now, matching my fury with her own. “What did you expect me to do? Tell my captor—the man who was planning to murder me, by the way—that I had information about his biggest enemy? That would have made me either too valuable to live or too dangerous to keep!”
The rationalization makes sense in some distant, logical part of my brain that’s currently drowning in rage.
But logic doesn’t matter. Not now. Not when she’s just admitted to watching me suffer for overtwomonthswhile protecting the man who destroyed my life.
“Danny!” My voice cracks like a whip. “Get her computer. Now.”
His eyes dart between Gigi and I. “Boss?—”
“Now, Danny. I want every device she’s ever fucking touched brought to this office in the next five fucking minutes or I swear to god?—”
“It’s in storage,” Danny says quickly. “I’ll have someone?—”
“No. You get it. Personally. And bring it back here.”
As he leaves, I turn back to Gigi, who’s watching me with something that might be fear finally creeping into her expression. Good. Sheshouldbe afraid.
“You’re going to play me that recording,” I say in a near snarl. “Every. Single. Word.”
I close the distance between us in three strides, bracketing her against the wall with my hands on either side of her head. This close, I can feel the heat radiating from her skin and see her pulse hammering. My body responds despite the rage—becauseof the rage—the thin line between fury and desire blurring until I can’t tell which is stronger.
“You’re going to play me that recording,” I say roughly. My gaze drops to her lips before I can stop it, and I hate that even now, even in the midst of this betrayal, I want to kiss her. I want to press her harder against this wall and remind her exactly who she belongs to. “Every. Single. Word.”
“Luca—” Her breath hitches, and I watch her pupils dilate slightly despite the fear in her eyes.
“Shut up.” The words come out so cold, so hate filled that even she flinches. But I don’t move away from her, trapped by my own need to be this close even as fury tears through my chest. “You don’t get to speak. You don’t get to explain. You hadweeks—months—to tell me the truth, and you chose silence.” My fingers curl against the wall, close enough to her face that I could touch her if I just?—
No.
